Let's move on, says Tutu
2009-11-24 15:50
Special Report
A US decision to freeze spending on treatment for HIV in several African countries has prompted concern that some of the gains made against the Aids epidemics since 2003 could be reversed.
Cape Town - Pointing fingers at the administration of former president Thabo Mbeki was not helpful in dealing with South Africa's HIV/Aids problems, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Tuesday.
"I just think it's enough to say, we have had a disaster and... how do we ensure that we don't repeat what we know happened," he said.
"It was a bad policy, most people admit that... Let's move on."
Tutu was speaking at his Cape Town office during the signing of a R3.5m French Development Agency funding agreement for the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation.
His comments follow renewed controversy in recent weeks over the HIV/Aids policy pursued by Mbeki and his administration, which flirted with Aids denialists, backed quack remedies and was markedly reluctant to roll out antiretroviral drugs.
Not helpful
Tutu said that labelling that policy "genocide", as some critics had done, was not helpful.
"Bad things happen," he said. "The point of the matter is that people have suffered, people have died who needn't have died."
"Now we know that that is the situation, I think we just have to direct our energies to correcting it and doing the right things by the people who are suffering now."
The development agency funding follows a promise made to Tutu last year by French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
"This is marvellous," Tutu told French ambassador Jacques Lapouge at Tuesday's signing ceremony. "When is your president coming again?"
Spiritual duty
Agency chief executive Jean-Michel Severino said he and his colleagues were fulfilling a spiritual duty by handing over the cash, because when Sarkozy made the initial promise, Tutu had told him he would go to hell if he did not honour it.
"We are here to assist in his mounting up to heaven," he said.
Tutu said he thanked the French on behalf of not only the foundation, but also those who would be helped by the money.
The foundation runs public health programmes and research at sites in Cape Town, operates a free mobile HIV and tuberculosis testing vehicle known as the Tutu Tester, and is involved in training health professionals.
It says the French funding will be used to fund research on earlier identification of HIV-positive people, and improving their access to care, and for better management of patients who have both HIV and tuberculosis.
An estimated one in six adult South Africans is HIV positive.
- SAPA