Johannesburg — THE Young Communist League (YCL) yesterday repeated its call that former president Thabo Mbeki be prosecuted for AIDS-related deaths, saying it sided with victims rather than critics of the proposed court action, including the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League.
The idea of prosecuting Mbeki for genocide was opposed on Monday by Youth League leader Julius Malema, who pledged to defend him and former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang . ANC secretary- general Gwede Mantashe expressed similar sentiments yesterday, saying: "There is no issue; it has not arisen, it will not arise."
But the issue was set to accentuate tension in the ANC's tripartite alliance, while marking a departure from Mbeki-era denialism over HIV/AIDS. The YCL and the Youth League have traded insults in the past, but this was the first time they were disagreeing on how to interpret the Mbeki legacy.
YCL president Buti Manamela said: "If we have to stand with the people who have been infected and affected (by HIV) at the expense of a relationship with the ANC Youth League then let it be because we are for those people.
"We believe that they are the ones who felt the wrath of a political administration that was not prepared to save their lives," said Manamela speaking ahead of a YCL conference called to discuss policy issues including the financial crisis.
However, he called for a debate, saying common ground could be found. "Let's have a principled debate on the whole issue of whether or not to prosecute; let's look at the figures, let's look at the implications," he said.
In his defence of Mbeki, Malema said the ANC should not charge its own. But Manamela rejected this, saying: "What message are we sending? Are we saying let's open the prison gates, because the prisoners in there are one of our own if they have committed crime against some of our own?" Manamela said the debate should deal with hard facts.
Last week, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi released figures showing that the death rate in SA had risen between 1997 and last year , from 300000 to 756000 a year. He blamed the "shocking" statistics on the Mbeki administration.
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The term genocide can be looked up in any political dictionary. It is a deliberate criminal decimation of a race for political ends. It calls to mind the extermination of Jews by the Third Reich,the 1994 events in Rwanda, the decimation of Muslims in Bosnia and many other recent events. It is a crime against humanity. If Mbeki is suspected of genocide would it be right that the ICC issue his warrant nof arrest!
I am not sure whether Mbeki has deliberately and criminally caused people to die of HIV-AIDS because of utterances he made regarding the scourge. I am not sure that Mbeki's views were so important that every couple in South Africa decided to forgo safe sex practices because of Mbeki's views. Even than every individual choice we made is informed by our personal knowledge.
If Mbeki had such power surely he is a very unique man in world history seeing that even Jesus failed to curb once and for all, all sinful acts by mankind.
It is absurd in any democratic country to vilify and demonise people who hold views contrary to your own. HIV and AIDS in South Africa was bedevilled by racism masquerading as genuine concern. The politics of medical research by large US gorporations are debated openly everywhere in the world except South Africa!
In the 1980's it was confessed on record that Apartheid Police Generals released HIV infected Askaris(Turned freedom fighters) into South African townships with money in order to seduce and infect as many black South African women as possible. I have never heard anyone including the CYL calling for the charging of these men with genocide.
What I know is that the HIV debate in South Africa has been bedevilled with racist lies. Barbara Hogan was appointed Minister of Health in and around October 2008 and no sooner was it done South African media reported that 800000 people who receive ARV's have been saved from possible AIDS related death. Now Hogan was in office for less than 4 weeks and yet South Africa was apparentlky on top of the HIV pandemic. Now I dont want to read racism in this but it makes for pathetic and poor and disingenious and fraudulent journalism.
Mbeki's achievements are astounding and it is only in South Africa in his home town that like Jesus we may say a prophet can be famous save in his own hometown and in hisn own family.
The final say on HIV AIDS has not been said and we are very much wary of the way in which we are hounded and frogmarched and rigidly policed to think about HIV and AIDS. Even in the US there is more freedom of expression to think on the matter.
It is a sign of intellectual failure when a black person parrots white fears and thoughts like the present government. It does not mean that white fears are false but there is something criminally deceptive when in a country where 65% of the population lives in shacks have no stable jobs, or income and you get lambasted for saying that food and shelter is your number one priority and not CRIME as most whites would like to believe).
It's not about whites being wrong they are right! It's about simple democracy like when 100 000 Zimbabweans living in the UK whose problem is about political asylum cannot dictate and change British politics whose priority may be about the Health System.
The ANC is the cause of the AID treatment program was not set up in that country. The health minister Dr. Zuma said that the ANC led government was not going to set up an AID treatment program because it would cost too much. The first comment forgot to mention about the wide spread graft and corruption by the ANC led government.