World

Tutu: S. Africa Needs 'Marshall Plan'

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 24, 2000 / 10:14 AM EDT / CBS

Anti-Apartheid crusader Archbishop Desmond Tutu will lobby the U.S. Congress for a Marshall Plan-style rehabilitation program for his native South Africa.

Struggling economically and suffering a devastating AIDS epidemic, the sub-Saharan nation has soaring rates of crime, poverty and unemployment.

What South Africa needs, Tutu said, is for the United States to institute an economic assistance program similar to the one it offered European countries, all but destroyed after World War II.

"We need something of the same kind to deal with the legacy of apartheid in housing, in education, in health. Our people need clean water. Our people need homes, and they need jobs," the retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, said Monday on CBS News' The Early Show. "And now we are faced with the awful, awful scourge of HIV/AIDS, which is likely to sweep away everything that we have got."

Finishing a two-year stint as a visiting professor at Atlanta's Emory University, Tutu said he will attend a congressional dinner Monday, where he plans to push for his "Marshall Plan for South Africa," which he's advocated since 1998.

Debt cancellation tops the list of a potential economic-recovery program.

The African continent is saddled with foreign debts of approximately $300 billion, incurred by dictatorial regimes.

Democratic African leaders, including South African President Thabo Mbeki, question why they should have to pay twice: once for the oppression they suffered at the hands of corrupt leaders and now for repaying the loan liabilities created during previous regimes.

The U.S. government estimated in 1997 that South Africa owed $23.5 billion in foreign aid and received $676.3 million in economic aid last year.

Tutu, 68, will be returning to South Africa in August, but said before leaving he will recommend a plan to Congress and U.S. President Bill Clinton to contribute $2 billion a year for the next five years to ensure the African nation's democratic future.

Currently the U.S. ranks as the lowest donor to Africa of the 24 most industrialized nations. In 1994, it donated $210 million to South Africa, compared to $47 million last year.

Tutu, the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said the money would be targeted at education, health, housing, clean water and, most crucially, an "infrastructure for dealing even with AIDS."

South Africa has the fastest growing population of people with HIV/AIDs, even though it is one of the wealthiest African nations. But it is fighting a losing battle against one of the most lethal strains of the disease: subtype C, easier to contract and faster working than other strains.

The disease is expected to claim 3.5 million lives in the coming decade. More than 1,800 people are infected daily in a population of 44 million.

"We are now talking about a disaster," Tutu said. "We can't afford treatments that cost $1,000 a month - $12,000 a yer" per person.

The revered religious and political leader who helped usher in a new era of peace and forgiveness as chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission - a government body organized to help South Africa come to terms with apartheid-era race and bias crimes - said South Africa's prosperity will bode well for more than just his country.

"If South Africa sinks, the subcontinent is going to sink," Tutu said. "When South Africa prospers, South Africa is going to be - and is already - the engine driving the economy not just of our subregion but of the continent."

And a European-style Marshall Plan for South Africa, Tutu said, will not only help his country control and eventually win the battle against AIDS, it also will strengthen the U.S. economy.

"Your investments in a burgeoning economy would bring incredible dividends for you here in the United States," he said.