Monday, August 21, 2006
UN Envoy: AIDS Criticism is "Lunatic Fringe"
Activists demand resignation of health minister
Friday, August 18, 2006 Posted: 2144 GMT (0544 HKT)
AIDS activists in Cape Town, South Africa, call for the arrest of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- The South African government promotes "lunatic fringe" AIDS policies, a top U.N. envoy said Friday, as activists occupied government offices and took to the streets demanding the dismissal and arrest of the country's health minister.
"South Africa is the unkindest cut of all," Stephen Lewis, the United Nation's envoy to Africa on HIV/AIDs, told the closing ceremony of the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.
The protest came after the death in a Durban prison earlier this week of a prisoner with HIV/AIDS.
The group called for a full judicial inquiry into the death, saying the government was to blame for not giving the prisoner anti-retroviral medicines. The Correctional Services Department rejected the criticism as "disingenuous," saying the dead man had been taking anti-AIDS medication and that it was doing everything possible to provide treatment for AIDS.
The dead man, identified only as MM, was one of 15 prisoners who recently won a court case against the Department of Correctional Services and Department of Health for the government to provide medication to prisoners. The government has appealed the ruling.
There are no reliable figures on the number of prisoners with HIV. But among the adult population in general, an estimated 19 percent of people aged 15 to 49, and 30 percent of pregnant women, are infected. An estimated 5.5 million people carry the virus -- the highest total in the world.
Activists have repeatedly demanded the dismissal of Tshabalala-Msimang, accusing her of delaying provision of ARVs.
But it was Lewis who delivered the most devastating indictment of government policies.
"It is the only country in Africa whose government continues to promote theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state," said Lewis. He has often criticized Tshabalala-Msimang's promotion of garlic, onions and beetroot as a remedy for AIDS patients.
Treatment Action Campaign activists stormed the South African stand earlier this week to confiscate the garlic, lemons and beets on display -- a move the health ministry said was "intolerant."
ANC counters envoy, activists
There was no immediate reaction from the health ministry to Lewis' comments. But a statement from the ruling African National Congress described statements he had made earlier during the conference as "unacceptable."
The ANC added that the behavior of the Treatment Action Campaign in Toronto was a "deplorable" attempt to grab international headlines.
"We should not allow the reckless bluster of the TAC to deter us, as a nation, from working together in partnership to address the serious challenges we face in a spirit of cooperation and sincere engagement," it said.
Dozens of activists, led by the Treatment Action Campaign's Zackie Achmat, briefly occupied the offices of the provincial government in Cape Town. They then marched to the Human Rights Commission -- an independent watchdog -- to pressure it to play a bigger role in securing treatment for AIDS patients.
"When good people keep silent, evil people triumph," Achmat, a prominent AIDS activist, told human rights commission representatives. "We've had enough of evil people triumphing. We need good people like you."
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