'Terrible Silence' Over Mbeki's Record on Aids

A South African Aids campaigner has called on world leaders to speak out against the government of Thabo Mbeki, which he claims is responsible for the continuing but unnecessary devastation wreaked in his country by Aids.

Eight hundred people die from Aids in South Africa every day, said Mark Heywood, of the Aids Law Project at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Treatment Action Campaign (Tac). "We're treating only 17% of people with Aids. What is happening in South Africa is a human rights violation that needs leadership from outside of South Africa to address the crisis being created by the South African government." But, he said at the International Aids Conference in Toronto on Thursday, there was "a terrible silence" from the world. "Bill Clinton can't get the words out of his mouth to criticise Thabo Mbeki. Kofi Annan can't criticise Thabo Mbeki ... The long-term consequences for South Africa are enormous.

"This crisis has to be broken somehow. The African Union and the G8 and the EU have to speak out about it. The British government, who are silent on this question, have to find a way to intervene."

South Africa has 200,000 people on antiretroviral drugs for Aids, of whom 130,000 are treated in the public sector. But about 700,000 people with HIV need the drugs and will soon die without them. Mr Heywood said there had been a lack of government will to roll out the treatment programme, after Mr Mbeki said he did not believe HIV caused Aids, and more recently health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said she had more faith in lemon and garlic to treat Aids than in drugs.