Aids Activists Resort to Civil Disobedience

Activists in South Africa are planning to launch a civil disobedience campaign this week to pressure President Thabo Mbeki into introducing anti-retroviral drugs to combat the HIV-Aids plague that is costing the country an estimated 600 lives a day.

There are hopes that the President is going to abandon his opposition to the use of anti-retrovirals, after the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, announced that he was putting aside more than three billion rand (£231 million) for the treatment of Aids.

But Manuel did make clear there was continued sensitivity on the issue within the Mbeki administration, saying that the money was to 'finance medically appropriate treatment for HIV/Aids'.

There is also concern that the Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, recently appointed to the government a leading Aids dissident, one of a group of scientists who insist, like Mbeki, that a virus is not responsible for the disease. The dissident, Robert Giraldo, is to advise the Minister on nutritional issues related to the disease.