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ANC contest dismays
HIV/AIDS activists
14 Dec 2007- South Africa- The battle to lead South Africa's
ruling party pits an Aids dissident against a rival who took a shower as
a form of safe sex, in a country which has the world's highest rate of
HIV infections.
"We are unhappy and uncomfortable about Mbeki's enormous failure to
tackle the problem of HIV-Aids in the past years.
"As for Zuma, some of his public statements on HIV/Aids and gender
issues call for anxiety," said Mark Heywood, spokesperson for the
country's main Aids lobby, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
"We are not supporting either of the two candidates. We have serious
reservations about them because their utterances and general disposition
to the fight against HIV/Aids are suspect."
The TAC and other lobbies have long been at odds with President Thabo
Mbeki and his government over their record in dealing with some 5,5
million HIV sufferers, in particular the limited roll-out of
antiretroviral drugs (ARVs).
But the prospect of Mbeki being replaced as African National Congress
leader next week by Jacob Zuma hardly fills them with confidence given
he once told a court he showered after sex with an allegedly
HIV-positive woman as a precaution against contracting the virus.
Mbeki has kept his counsel in recent years but caused major controversy
in the past by publicly questioning the link between HIV and Aids,
suggesting that poverty and nutrition are also involved in the collapse
of immune systems.
The government's Aids policy has largely been left in the hands of
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang - dubbed Dr Beetroot for
advocating a diet of vegetables and garlic to help combat the disease.
When she headed up the South African delegation at an international Aids
conference in Toronto in 2006 and displayed vegetables at the country's
exhibition stand, a UN envoy called Pretoria's polices "more worthy of a
lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state".
Long-running calls for Tshabalala-Msimang's sacking eased off when she
fell ill late last year and her deputy Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge became
the driving force behind a new five-year Aids programme which placed a
far greater emphasis on ARVs.
However, when Tshabalala-Msimang returned to work after a liver
transplant, Madlala-Routledge was soon shown the door in a move that was
greeted with widespread dismay by Aids activists and the medical
community.
But if Tshabalala-Msimang has raised eyebrows with her touting of
vegetables, Zuma also drew ridicule for his testimony in a rape trial
last year in which he was ultimately acquitted by testifying that he
showered after intercourse to avoid becoming infected with HIV.
He was head of the National Aids Council at the time.
During the trial, he also accused his allegedly HIV-positive victim of
eliciting the sexual encounter by wearing a short skirt.
He then incurred the wrath of Aids activists earlier this year when he
told a heritage day rally: "When I was growing up an ungqingili (gay)
would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out."
Having being deluged with criticism by rights groups, Zuma later
apologised.
Even the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), one of Zuma's
strongest backers for next week's contest against Mbeki, appears
unconvinced by his commitment in the fight against Aids.
"We must continue to put pressure on and engage the new ANC leadership
to take the issue HIV/Aids seriously. So far this has not been the
case," Cosatu's HIV/Aids coordinator Theo Steele said.
Recent figures released by the United Nations showed South Africa, with
its population of 48 million, now has the world's highest number of
people infected with HIV at 5,5 million.
The ANC's five-day leadership conference begins on Sunday.
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