AIDS has claimed more lives in South Africa than apartheid ever did, says top Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leader Costa Gazi, who branded Aids the “Sharpeville of today” in a Human Rights Day address.
The day is the anniversary of the 1960 massacre of 69 anti-apartheid activists in Sharpeville.
PAC health secretary Gazi was speaking in Langa, Cape Town, at a service commemorating the victims of PAC-led protests both in Sharpeville and in Langa, a township where two people were shot dead by police 21 years ago.
In Langa, a PAC crowd of 6_000 people had marched on the police station inviting arrest for defying the hated apartheid pass laws, restricting the movement of black South Africans.
They dispersed after a police warning and a request from their leaders, but then reassembled. Police charged the crowd, opening fire as they threw stones. Subsequent rioting in the township left an unknown number of dead.
Gazi warned: “The way we are going there will be over four million deaths over the next four years.”
About 4.7 million South Africans – one in nine – were infected with HIV by the end of 2000, according to a new government study released this week.
“None of the bullets or missiles or helicopters that are being bought will save a single one of those lives,” Gazi said, criticising the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for spending millions of rand on a controversial arms deal.
In Sharpeville, southwest of Johannesburg, PAC deputy president Motsoko Pheko lashed out at the ANC government’s failure to improve the living conditions of African people.
Human Rights Commission (HRC) chairman Barney Pityana, for his part, declared that the struggle against intolerance and discrimination was not yet a thing of the past.
He urged South Africans to unite in the struggle against racial intolerance and discrimination against women and the disabled.
Human Rights Day was commemorated elsewhere with rallies and protests, prayer meetings and the handing over of title deeds to apartheid victims.
In Bloemfontein, Justice Minister Penuel Maduna said that racial discrimination was still a harsh reality for many South Africans living in poverty and squalor.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) used the day to stage an anti-crime rally in Pretoria, saying lawlessness was robbing people of their freedom. – AFP
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