Tutu campaigns against another kind of bondage

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a hero of apartheid, a hero of suffrage for his people, leads another great crusade for his South African homeland and an ailing continent.

The next great struggle is for liberation from diseases killing millions, infecting millions more and orphaning a generation of children.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner is in Seattle this week to receive the first honorary degree awarded by the University of Washington in 81 years.

We are all ripe to be educated about the United State's stake in ending the suffering in Africa and other impoverished nations.

The archbishop is part of a UW panel tomorrow on world health and children. One panelist, Dr. Stephen Gloyd, has co-authored commentary on the op-ed page today that lays out the financial and medical challenges.

For all the compelling statistics, the argument may have to be framed in new ways. Even deep reservoirs of compassion can be exhausted, and appeals may have to be presented in more selfish terms.

To win approval of greater sums of money from the U.S. treasury, for example, the work of the new Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria may have to be cast in part as a form of biological security in a shrinking, unstable world.

The health and medical consequences of Africa's AIDS epidemic are not as remote as we imagine.

The Global Fund last month announced its first grants, awards over two years totaling $616 million. The recipients included Malawi, which received $300 million to fight HIV and AIDS, the Ukraine was given $92 million and Panama received $260,000 for a campaign against tuberculosis.

The Bush administration had initially contributed a paltry $200 million, which later rose to $300 million. A supplemental budget request before Congress includes another $700 million for the Global Fund.

Getting money to Africa is especially frustrating. Late last month, the Northwest Coalition for AIDS Treatment in Africa marched on the downtown Seattle office of Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle.

He was embarrassed by the finger pointing, given his role in Congress as an active and sympathetic figure toward African health issues. McDermott's message to marchers was largely to affirm how difficult it is to get anyone on Capitol Hill to listen.

Archbishop Tutu can grab the spotlight in ways a Northwest congressman cannot. That is why his presence and the potential of leadership academies he is forming around the country are so important.

For Harvard doctoral student Aaron Shakow, Dr. Gloyd's co-author of the essay on the opposite page, Africa's challenge is as great as escaping the bonds of colonialism and political oppression. Shakow says people are dying from equally discriminating patterns of medical resources. He argues the inequity ought to be every bit as disturbing as the inequity of apartheid.

Tutu, the hero of one struggle, can help us understand how an assault on disease is a continuation of the struggle for African liberation.