Mbeki smeared me - Aids expert
2002-05-17 08:32
Cape Town - South Africa's pre-eminent black Aids scientist has accused Thabo Mbeki's office of waging a campaign of coercion and vilification against medical researchers who challenge the president's unorthodox views on HIV, reports London's Guardian newspaper.
Professor Malegapuru Makgoba, president of the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Cape Town, has revealed to the Guardian the extent of the pressure after an official investigation cleared him of "leaking" his own organisation's research, suppressed for months by the cabinet because it concluded that about 6 million South Africans would die of Aids by the end of the decade.
Last month, Mbeki publicly said it was for scientists, not politicians, to determine the cause of Aids. But Professor Makgoba and other leading researchers scoff at the president's suggestion that he is a neutral bystander, guided by the scientists' findings.
In particular, they accuse Essop Pahad, the cabinet minister regarded as Mr Mbeki's "enforcer", of putting pressure on scientists to support the president's views and of going so far as to suggest dissenters should leave the country.
Appeal to 'a basic instinct'
Makgoba also accuses Pahad of orchestrating a campaign of vilification, including letters from senior politicians accusing him of betraying his race and of playing into the hands of white racists who wished to portray Africans as "inherently and intrinsically diseased".
"After they realised I wasn't going to side with the president on this, I was called to Pahad's office and the first thing he asked me was where my loyalty is now," said Makgoba. "And he said if I am such a brilliant scientist, why don't I get a job overseas? He said that on two occasions.
"They appeal to a very basic instinct: that I'm an African like them and therefore I should be in their camp and if not, I'm a stooge of whites, I'm less of an African and therefore I'm open to having my standing questioned, even my identity."
Makgoba is not alone, although the pressure on him is apparently greater because he is black. Mbeki has accused researchers and doctors who differ with him on HIV of using a "corrupt Aids industry" to line their own pockets and of behaviour "akin to grave criminal and genocidal conduct" because doctors allegedly try to poison black people with anti-Aids drugs.
Among the attempts to put pressure on Makgoba to back Mbeki was a 22-page letter signed by the premier of Northern Province, Ngoako Ramatlhodi. It accuses the professor of betraying his race and of being party to the "unabating character assassination of our president".
"What concerns me and others like me is that [the] media uses you as the countervailing and educated voice of scientific truth and sanity, that is opposed to the uneducated and irrational voice of President Thabo Mbeki," the letter said.
"I hope that you will continue to walk tall among your people, with pride, and they will continue to shake your hand, despite your seeming readiness to embrace and propagate this 'science'."
Makgoba says the provincial premier has since told him that the letter was written by Mbeki, Pahad and one of the president's legal advisers and that it was presented to Ramatlhodi to sign.
Pahad denied the accusation through his special adviser, Tony Heard. "Minister Pahad has no knowledge at all of the things alleged by Professor Makgoba, or of the letter. He observes that Mr Ramatlhodi can write his own letters," Heard wrote.
"The minister views it as pretty ridiculous to suggest that he would call Prof Makgoba to his office, or telephone him, to question his loyalty to the president and suggest he leaves the country."
However, the correspondence bears the hallmarks of other denunciations of the South African president's critics, including a 114-page document circulated to African National Congress branches, which claimed anti-HIV drugs were an attempt to commit genocide against black people, that black researchers were too proud of associating with whites to agree with the president, and accusing two of South Africa's leading researchers into paediatric Aids of "experimenting" on blacks.
Thought Aids views were nonsense
Makgoba fell from grace not long after Mbeki sought his "advice" in January 2000. The president wanted him to look at two thick volumes of views of Aids dissidents who denied the link between HIV and the disease.
Makgoba said: "The president implied he wanted my support on this." But, when the scientist replied a fortnight later, he left no doubt that he thought the dissidents' views were nonsense.
"The implications of us adopting this unorthodox view are quite serious," said Makgoba. "It will set back all the efforts we have so far put into this pandemic; it will represent a form of national denial by default; it will be extremely costly for the country in the short- and long-term and we shall become the laughing stock, if not the pariah, of the world again."
Hoosen Coovadia, head of the University of Natal's internationally recognised team of HIV experts, said that in the past two years the government had bypassed scientists who disagreed with the president.
"We have been totally isolated. We know more about HIV and breastfeeding than probably anyone else in the world, but, as researchers, we are ignored by government," he said.