War is devastating health standards around the world as resources are deflected from fighting disease, health activists said here Wednesday ahead of a top anti-globalisation forum.
The People's Health Movement, an international pressure group, said more than 30,000 children over the world died of preventable diseases every day.
Nine billion dollars is needed to provide water and sanitation for poor nations, while the global military expenditure was 900 billion dollars a year, said K. Unnikrishnan, spokesman for the movement.
"It is a silent genocide," said Edgar Isch Lopez, a former environment minister of Ecuador who now heads the National Front for People's Health in his country.
Lopez said that in Colombia, more than 12,000 children die every year from diseases that are curable. "This is more than the amount that die in some wars," he said.
Lopez denounced the "imperialist domination of people" as billions of dollars are spent on military budgets that could go to social expenditure.
"The US military along with Colombian soldiers has fumigated many parts of the region in the pretext of destroying cocaine. Though US officials have said it had no impact on the health of the people medical evidence proves otherwise," he charged.
"Health is not a service to be debated on World Trade Organisation forums. It is a right," he told AFP.
Tran Dac Loi, secretary general of the Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation, said the "pain is still continuing" from the Agent Orange dumped in his country's jungles to help US forces fighting there.
"Almost 30 years after the war the after-effects of the substance are being felt on the third-generation Vietnamese. Many have died of cancer and about three million people have been affected," he said.
He said on January 10 an association of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange was established to protect their rights.
Representatives from 20 countries, including Australia, Britain and the United States, were participating in the International Health Forum for the Defence of People's Health on the sidelines of the World Social Forum.
Jihad Mashal, a spokesman for the Union of Palestinian Medical relief Committees, said the Israeli crackdown on the Palestinian uprising has been devastating as patients are unable to reach hospitals on time and medical workers come in the line of fire.
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