Int'l support for TAC plan
2003-03-16 14:53
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Cape Town - Aids activists from around the globe on Sunday voiced their support for the Treatment Action Campaign's programme of civil disobedience, which is due to start on March 21.
Speaking in Cape Town on the final day of an international conference on HIV/Aids treatment, they said this support would include demonstrations outside South African embassies.
TAC chair Zackie Achmat told a media conference that his organisation planned to have 600 volunteers arrested in the first week of the campaign, to symbolise the 600 people who died in South Africa every day of Aids-related illnesses.
The protests could include occupation of government buildings such as the department of health, he said. He declined to be drawn on whether TAC was also targeting parliament.
"We wil make sure it's not business as usual for government," he said.
TAC would call off the campaign, even at the last minute, if government committed irrevocably to a public sector antiretroviral treatment plan, and signed the national treatment and prevention plan negotiated at Nedlac (National Economic Development and Labour Council).
TAC accepted the legitimacy of the government, which was the best and most democratic South Africa had had.
However, it rejected the government's policy on antiretrovirals.
"We are prepared to get arrested to get treatment," he said. "We are putting our government on trial for causing 600 deaths a day."
Delegates from around the globe told journalists that TAC was assured of their full support for any action that could lead to a better life for people living with HIV/Aids.
"In solidarity and strength we will support our brothers and sisters in South Africa," said Olive Edwards of Jamaica, representing Caribbean countries.
Achmat said the conference had learned that Namibia intended to become the next African country offering public sector antiretroviral treatment.
Uganda had committed itself to treating 10 000 people this year, and 150 000 by 2005, while the Nigerian government intended to scale up treatment considerably.
- SAPA