David was right (i think)

Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: Kofi Annan vs ... Mr "David Wright"

(David Wright) said:

Toby Joe said:

He reduced an almost unimaginably vast human tragedy to
an argument over semantics.

On the contrary, I took offense at your trivializing the
use of the word "genocide."

You can call AIDS a tragedy, a disaster of monstrous
proportions, or any of a lot of other things and I will
agree with you.

But don't call it genocide

I've spent considerable time looking for the original
statement, in context. I thought that I had read it
directly, myself.

However, while the search turned up many references to his
(K.A's) having said that, not one checks out in an original
statement by he himself.

I have not read every single "off the cuff" press statement
that he could possibly have made, but enough of the relevant
ones to cause me to think that he was in fact misquoted.

I don't know that for certain, but it is looking like it.
He referred to AIDS as a "weapon of mass destruction",
within the same interview in which he was talking about
the "devastation of a generation". The next thing was a
BBC reporter presenting that interview about a week
later, in a way that was taken up on by many others. I
have read the transcript of the entire interview which is
given as the general reference whenever people make that
statement, and it is not there. Only the "Weapon of mass
destruction" phrase.

Maybe he did give another brief interview somewhere at
nearly the same time, which was not recorded, and said
something _like_ that, but there is no evidence of it.

So, unless or until such evidence should magically appear, I
have to apologise. I have found no evidence to show that he
did say that, and my actions were a direct result of
believing that he had said it.

--
"I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is
prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow
and multiply." R. Serling

--
"I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is
prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow
and multiply." R. Serling