Nobel Laureate Maathai Repeats Claim That HIV Was Engineered as Bioweapon

Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan ecologist who became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, used a Nairobi press conference in October 2004 to repeat a claim she had made publicly since at least August: that scientists in the developed world engineered the HIV virus as a tool of biological warfare.

Maathai, 64, cited the epidemic's disproportionate toll on Black Africans as grounds for suspicion. Africa accounted for 25 million of the estimated 38 million people living with HIV globally, with the majority of those cases among women, according to UNAIDS figures at the time.

The US State Department congratulated Maathai on the prize but rejected her position, with a senior official stating flatly that Washington does not accept the bioweapon theory.

The Nobel committee recognized Maathai for promoting ecologically sustainable development across the continent. She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, Africa's largest tree-planting initiative, designed to preserve biodiversity, create jobs, and strengthen women's economic standing. Named Time magazine's Hero of the Planet in 1998, she also served as Kenya's deputy environment and natural resources minister at the time of the award.

Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.