William Gumede
8 May 2008
opinion
Pambazuka News continues to serialise William Gumede's chapter on Mbeki and the controversies surrounding his AIDS policies. This is from his book 'Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC'. Be sure to look for the last part in the next issue.
For COSATU, the link between HIV and AIDS was irrefutable. General secretary Zwelinzima Vavi pointed to the success of Brazil, a country with similar income disparities to South Africa, in providing medication to its infected citizens, and called on the government to declare a national emergency in terms of TRIPS so that ARV delivery could start.
Formal criticism from inside the ANC was slow to emerge, with those who differed from Mbeki scared of reprisals if they spoke out. Most criticism was uttered in hushed tones, but Madisha's and Vavi's relentless public attacks on Mbeki's AIDS stance opened the way for other prominent black figures to join the choir.
Some had kept their own counsel for fear of being lumped with white conservatives who had taken up the AIDS cudgel only because they could use it to bash the 'inept' black government. Thanks to Madisha, Vavi and prominent scientist William Makgoba, the Mbeki-ites could no longer charge that criticism was confined to white reactionaries bent on undermining the black government.
Once the wall of silence had been breached, the AIDS policy came under fire from within. Some of the harshest critics were members of the ANC's health committee, one of the party's constitutional structures, while former health minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma told Mbeki privately that his stance was undermining not only the government's own policy, but his presidency.
The most serious opposition came from individuals serving on the ANC's powerful NEC, but only as late as mid-2000. At an NEC meeting in Johannesburg, Dlamini-Zuma and Shepherd Mdladlana cautiously warned that Mbeki's high-profile international advisory panel on AIDS was adding to confusion over the official AIDS message. They couched their arguments in a way that spared Mbeki from direct criticism, emphasising that the government's message was not being effectively conveyed. They also warned that AIDS had the potential to undermine the ANC's efforts in the 2000 local elections, given that opposition parties and civil movements were threatening to make AIDS, as well as slow social delivery to the poor, central campaign issues.
Mbeki loyalists such as Essop Pahad and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang responded dismissively that government was doing enough, within its capacity, to deal with the AIDS crisis. They listed AIDS education programmes and the amounts spent on them, arguing that it would cost too much to accede to calls by NGOs, trades unions and churches for the government to supply ARVs to all AIDS sufferers. Tshabalala-Msimang reiterated that the toxicity of ARVs had not been unequivocally determined, and cited warnings by the American government that some ARVs were believed to be so toxic that their use could prove fatal.
Mbeki was adamant that he would not backtrack on any of his AIDS statements, and continued to believe that his views were correct.
But he did agree, albeit reluctantly and unhappily, to refrain from further public comment on AIDS, at least until after the municipal elections. His chief policy guru, Joel Netshitenzhe, was assigned the unenviable task of extricating Mbeki from the hole he had dug for himself, without repudiating anything the president had previously said on the subject of HIV and AIDS.
Fully aware of the damage that had been done to the government's reputation, Netshitenzhe fell back on the spin doctor's hardy annual and attacked the media for colluding with critics of the official AIDS policy. Insisting that the government's programmes were fully effective but not 'on message', he got the go-ahead for a R2-million advertising blitz that would somehow make it clear that neither the president nor anyone else in a position of authority had ever said that there was no link between HIV and AIDS.
'We want to put the theorising behind us and programmes to fight the pandemic in front of us,' said one senior NEC member optimistically. Mbeki's international AIDS advisory panel would continue to meet, but behind the scenes, and the president would avoid all public reference to the pandemic until the local government ballots were cast.
The advertising campaign failed to clear up the confusion, not least because no one could admit what lay behind Mbeki's withdrawal from the public AIDS debate. And since the dissidents continued to use his name in support of their own agenda, his silence was widely interpreted as confirmation that he did not agree with the messages imparted by official government policy.
In the wake of the NEC meeting, members of the ANC's parliamentary wing became emboldened enough to make their voices heard on a range of issues, including the economic policy, Mbeki's ineffective 'quiet diplomacy 'with Zimbabwe and AIDS.
Nelson Mandela tried to meet with Mbeki to raise his concerns over the AIDS policy, but the president was smarting over what he saw as his predecessor's constant criticism on the subject, and refused to take Mandela's calls.
At a special meeting of the ANC's parliamentary caucus in October 2000, Mbeki raged against senior leaders who criticised him in public, specifically on AIDS and Zimbabwe, and slammed the media for its coverage of the AIDS debate.
In contrast, he spoke approvingly about a conference in Uganda the previous month, where some 60 dissident scientists had argued convincingly that there was no scientific proof that HIV caused AIDS. He quoted from a document stating that the virus had never been isolated, and said reports that Uganda had scored significant successes in the fight against AIDS were untrue.
He told the gathered MPs that if one agreed that HIV causes AIDS, it followed that the treatment lay with drugs manufactured by Western corporations. The pharmaceutical companies therefore needed people to believe that HIV and AIDS were linked, in order to peddle their products. One drug company, which he did not name, had confessed, he said, that it had spent vast amounts of money on the search for an AIDS vaccine, but had abandoned the effort after failing to isolate the virus. This fact remained hidden from the public, Mbeki claimed, because the company's share price would plummet if the truth were told.
He accused the CIA of being involved in a covert plot to spread the belief of an HIV/AIDS link, and cited statistics showing that 10 per cent of Africans died of AIDS. It made no sense, Mbeki argued, to focus the bulk of a state's resources on this 10 per cent, to the detriment of the remaining 90 per cent. Drug companies continually urged governments to pay attention to a growing number of AIDS orphans, but how, asked the president, were the authorities to distinguish between the needs of AIDS orphans and orphans of any other kind?
He claimed he had the support of the editor of South Africa's conservative daily newspaper, the Citizen, but said it was less clear that members of his own cabinet stood with him on this issue. They should declare their positions, he said, and the ANC's MPs should join him in fighting off attempts by international forces to undermine him and the government's agenda.
Those within the ANC who criticised him were playing into the hands of the local and foreign media - some of whom had dared to describe his views on AIDS as deranged - and unwittingly supporting the campaigns of the powerful drug companies and their allies, Western governments opposed to Mbeki's vision of success for developing countries.
Before launching his tirade, Mbeki had made it clear to caucus chair Thabang Makwetla that he would take no questions. Deeply shocked by the virulence of his attack, none of the ANC MPs challenged anything he said. According to one, 'there was a stunned silence in the room'.
Throughout his presidency, Mbeki's Achilles heel has been his uncompromising 'you are either with us, or against us' attitude. He sees all criticism of government policy as a personal attack, and those who dare express views that contradict his own are categorised as secretly hating him, or, worse, wanting to topple him.
His censure of the AIDS critics choked any further criticism of the government's policy. Not even the bravest ANC leaders would risk being labelled allies of a hostile 'white' media, greedy drug manufacturers or covert Western intelligence conspiracies.
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