BANGKOK, July 16: Nelson Mandela made an impassioned plea on Friday for cash and cooperation to fight the killer AIDS virus after a week of discord at the world's biggest AIDS conference over Washington's go-it-alone approach.

"History will surely judge us harshly if we do not respond with all the energy and resources that we can bring to bear in the fight against AIDS," said the frail former South African president, who turns 86 on Sunday.

Wrapping up the week-long 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Mandela urged the world's rich countries to make good on financial promises to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, launched in 2002.

"We need to build the public-private partnership that is the vision of the Global Fund. We challenge everyone to help fund the fund now," said the Nobel peace laureate and one of the world's leading AIDS campaigners.

"Allow me to enjoy my retirement by showing you can rise to the challenge." The Global Fund, the brainchild of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to present a global, unified force against HIV and AIDS, needs more than $3 billion for 2005.

Washington has ruled out raising its contribution to the fund beyond $200 million already committed for next year, saying it is already spending more to combat AIDS than the rest of the world put together.

Despite criticism from all sides - including Mandela and Annan - of its moral agenda, trade policy and funding guidelines, the United States insists it is leading the fight against AIDS, which has claimed 20 million lives and infected twice as many. -Reuters