The Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai tried to defuse a controversy over African news reports that quote her as saying "evil- minded scientists" in the developed world had intentionally created the AIDS virus to decimate the African population.
She said she had meant only to pose alternative theories about the epidemic's origin to counter the belief by some despairing Kenyans that AIDS was a curse from God.
She issued a statement saying:
"We in Africa don't really understand the disease yet,' she said in an interview. 'We just know we're dying from it.' In a written statement issued by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Maathai said she was 'shocked by the ongoing debate' and added, 'It is therefore critical for me to state that I neither say nor believe that the virus was developed by white people or white powers in order to destroy the African people. Such views are wicked and destructive.' But the statement also said: 'I am sure the scientists will continue their search for concluding evidence so that the view, which continues to be quite widespread, that the tragedy could have been caused by biological experiments that failed terribly in a laboratory somewhere, can be put to rest.' "
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