'Aids is today's Sharpeville'
2001-03-21 18:06
Cape Town - Aids was the Sharpeville of today and was killing more people than the apartheid regime ever did, Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) health secretary Dr Costa Gazi said on Wednesday.
Gazi was speaking at a commemoration service for the victims of the 1960 Sharpeville and Langa massacres in Langa on the Cape Flats.
"By not acting to save lives, the ANC government is allowing lives to be lost from a preventable cause.
"The way we are going there will be over four million deaths over the next four years. None of the bullets or missiles or helicopters that are being bought will save the single one of those lives."
Just as the PAC was formed the year before the Sharpeville massacre, just so the PAC today had taken the bull by the horns and had launched its own struggle "against this internal enemy".
He said the Abba trust was formed several months ago to provide counselling, testing and the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine to those mothers who were HIV-positive.
'Too early to celebrate'
Criticising the ANC for celebrating Sharpeville Day as Human Rights Day Gazi said: "One word of warning to the ANC - it's too early to celebrate. Human rights are useless if the stomach is empty".
The PAC rally was preceded by a march from Langa's historic D flats, which marked the start of a PAC anti-pass march on March 21, 1960.
Forty-one years ago a crowd of 6 000 led by Philip Kgosana marched to the Langa police station in order to invite arrest for leaving their passes at home.
Police warned that a march would be regarded as an attack on the police station and Kgosana asked the crowd to disperse calling on them to reassemble later that day to hear "word from the national office".
They reassembled later that day and at 5.45pm the police arrived.
After giving an order to disperse, the police baton charged the crowd, firing on the protesters when they retaliated by throwing stones.
Township exploded in rioting
Two people were killed and the township exploded in rioting, that night leaving more dead.
PAC members, including veterans of the 1960 march, on Wednesday's followed the same route.
Led by a band and uniformed cadres - some younger than 12 - scores of PAC supporters wound their way down Langa's streets past the police station.
Organisers originally hoped to hand over a memorandum calling for the release of jailed Apla cadres.
However, the marchers preceded straight to the local cemetery for a short ceremony at a monument to the victims of the Langa massacre.
The PAC is scheduled to rename a square adjoining the Langa flats after its founding father Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe later on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the African National Congress held a rival rally in the neighbouring St Francis Hall.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma - who was billed as the guest speaker - was redeployed elsewhere and National Assembly deputy speaker Baleka Mbete was scheduled to speak instead. - Sapa
- SAPA