Former KZN ‘warlord’ Thomas Shabalala’s tryst with tragedy is helping break the stigma attached to Aids
Jaspreet Kindra ‘She had full-blown Aids. She was very ill one day her brother was carrying her out of the house to rush her to the hospital. He slipped, fell and injured his head. Both of them died on the same day within the space of an hour,” says Thomas Shabalala, Inkatha Freedom Party member of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, describing how two of his nine children died two months ago. His daughter Nhle was 36 years old and his son Nhlanhlala was 26 years old. Shabalala did not hide the cause of his daughter’s death from his close-knit community in Lindelani, where he has lived since 1982. He says: “You know how it is if you don’t tell people the truth, they become suspicious. They try to come up with explanations, which raises unnecessary suspicions such as someone had put muti on the children which is not good. I took a decision that I will be open about it. “It had an amazing effect. As the two children lay in their coffins at our home, members of the community who came to pay respect started pointing out those who were HIV-positive among themselves. It was their way of expressing sympathy.”
But Shabalala’s tryst with tragedy was to continue. The same month, while he was driving to the legislature in Ulundi, he received a phone call from one of his sons, a policeman. “He just told me bluntly, Dad I am HIV-positive.” Shabalala says he was stunned for a minute and then decided to adopt a reasonable stance and told his son: “You had sex everyone has sex. You were probably bound to contract the virus. Keep the firearms away don’t shoot yourself.” His son reassured him that he was not going to do anything stupid.
Shabalala speaks frankly in keeping with his reputation as a streetwise fighter. He was the first South African politician in office to bring his personal tragedy caused by HIV/Aids to the public domain, when he announced his daughter’s death to an astounded legislature two months ago. But what took the province by surprise was that the silence on Aids was broken the man who was once the most feared “warlord” in KwaZulu-Natal during the height of politi- cal violence between the African National Congress and the IFP in the province during the 1980s. “My wife and I took a decision to come out and speak openly about the disease and fight the stigma attached to it. We have decided if tomorrow, she or I were to die of Aids we will reveal the cause of death and will not hide it from society.” The results of his stance have been phenomenal, he says. He has been inundated with calls from grateful people, who have found the courage to speak about their illness. Shabalala once struck fear in the hearts of the ANC and United Democratic Front supporters in the mid-1980s, when he allegedly expelled two medical doctors suspected of being UDF supporters from Lindelani, which he ran as his fiefdom. He has been accused of a murder, but never found guilty. He even took on his own party when he was expelled after he led a march in Durban despite a government ban on carrying traditional weapons in 1996. The march ended in chaos leaving 23 people, including three policemen, injured. He was reinstated as an MPL in 1998, when a court ruled that the expulsion was “flawed”.
With such a formidable reputation, Shabalala clad in designer suits with a cowboy hat on his head cuts an awesome figure in the province. This epitome of a macho man is not only breaking the stigma attached to Aids, he now talks of adopting an Aids baby. Shabalala says he addresses regular public meetings in Lindelani on HIV/Aids. “At least eight to 10 people die of Aids in Lindelani every week. I need to keep the people fighting.” His campaign for a medical centre in Lindelani has paid off, he says. He has a small clinic running already and wants to convert his farm near Hammarsdale into a home for Aids orphans. He says it can house at least 30 patients.
He is trying to raise funds and medical support for his initiative. Shabalala says he has found a group of like-minded doctors, who are helping him set up the medical centre in Lindelani. He has also become an ardent campaigner for generic drugs. He shrugs off his “warlord” reputation: “If I had been an ANC member I would have been a hero today. If I had ever committed any crime, I should have been called before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but I never was. My mission today is to bring peace. I hate criminals my job now is to stop escalating crime.” And as chair of the housing portfolio committee in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature, he is also trying to influence the province to put more roofs over the heads of Aids orphans.