Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang this week launched an extraordinary racial attack against the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) at a formal gala event. Guests at the event, who heard the attack, included United Nations emissaries, diplomats, leading academics and corporate captains.
The health minister was speaking at a welcoming ceremony for Richard Feachem, the executive director of the Global Fund for HIV/Aids, TB and Malaria, on Tuesday evening when she launched the attack on TAC chairman Mark Heywood from the podium, accusing him — “a white man” — of masterminding the civil disobedience campaign against the government and her.
Feachem is on an official visit to South Africa. He had hoped to sign a $41-million grant to the country.
However, at the time of going to press the deal was apparently in doubt Feachem controls the UN fund, which has a budget of $3,4-billion to disperse to countries to fight the epidemics.
The evening began in a civil manner, with officials from the Department of Health, church leaders and members of the business sector having cocktails at the posh Summer Place in Hyde Park.
Outside the gates, a handful of TAC members had gathered to protest against the government’s ambivalence over the provision of a national antiretroviral treatment programme.
Holding red “Wanted” posters of Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin, the group chanted when cars drove through the gates.
Things rapidly deteriorated when Tshabalala-Msimang stepped on to the podium. She began to explain why she had sneaked into the gala event through the back entrance. She was meant to be introducing Feachem and welcoming his delegation, but as there was “some kind of demonstration outside” her bodyguards had feared for her safety.
“I came through the back door but I would want one of you to invite these people to join us … to listen to what we have to say.”
She then launched into a blistering, sarcastic attack that left senior government officials, Feachem and the rest of the high-profile audience cringing. “They come with two buses and go to the commissions where they wait for the white man to tell them what to do … Our Africans say: ‘Let’s us wait for a white man to deploy us … to say to us … you must toyi toyi here.’”
Tshabalala-Msimang said the campaigners had gone to the Human Rights Commission with placards of the two “murderers” in the country. The posters say that the two ministers are “wanted for not stopping 600 HIV/Aids deaths every day”.
Nono Simelela, chief director of the HIV/Aids unit, dropped her head, while Gauteng MEC for Health Gwen Ramokgopa averted her eyes from the stunned audience.
Representatives of Global Fund grant recipients from Soul City and loveLife looked from Tshabalala-Msimang at the podium, to Heywood, who was standing directly in her line of sight behind the seated guests, as if they were watching a tennis match.
Heywood was the only member of the TAC at the function because he was on the University of the Witwatersrand’s guest list.
The minister was referring to part of the civil disobedience campaign where 200 predominantly African women went to both the Gender Commission and Human Rights Commission last week to hand over memorandums demanding that these constitutional organisations stand up for the rights of those living with HIV/Aids. Neither organisation has entered the fray on HIV/Aids, though it falls within their ambit.
Tshabalala-Msimang spoke of Heywood as a white director holding sway over a group of impotent black actors. Without referring to him by name she said that this “white man” was among the guests. Feachem looked bemused at Tshabalala-Msimang’s continuous reference to this “white man”.
Heywood was clearly furious. “You are lying, minister,” he retaliated.
There was a deathly silence until Tshabalala-Msimang thanked him for speaking up, saying she was happy she did not have to mention him by name.
“You are a liar,” he shouted as she continued to speak above him through the microphone. Tshabalala-Msimang’s burly bodyguard went up to Heywood and told him not to talk back to the minister. Then, as if nothing unusual had occurred, the minister went on with her speech while Feachem and his delegation looked on in embarrassed silence.
She contradicted Feachem’s calls for proposals to finance anti-retroviral treatment, saying the South African National Aids Council (Sanac), the Global Fund’s country co-ordinating mechanism, saying, “For the third round of proposals Sanac will put forward issues of nutrition and traditional herbal remedies.”
She pointedly ignored references to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, again contradicting the Cabinet’s stated policy — to find ways of extending ARV treatment by making it cost effective through co-financing with the Global Fund.
The minister then blamed the Global Fund for delaying the South African grant. She said: “We had hoped to sign the agreement, but there are a few loose ends. The reason we have not moved with speed is because the Global Fund had to set their house in order and not that Sanac was not ready. Geneva was not ready.”
Part of the reason for the delay was that a separate R700-million grant was awarded to the Enhancing Care Initiative, a KwaZulu-Natal organisation. The proposal had a large ARV component and was delayed because the KwaZulu-Natal proposal had not gone through Sanac.
Speaking after Tshabalala-Msimang, Feachem did not refer to her comments but called on all sectors to apply to the fund for co-financing of ARV therapy.
He said: “It would be foolish of me not to be aware of the controversy around antiretroviral treatment.” But he pointed out that ARV programmes are inevitable and are already operating in the country.
A source in Feachem’s delegation said he had been angered by the minister’s racist comments. Heywood left the gathering immediately after Feachem’s speech.
The Mail & Guardian was informed that Tshabalala-Msimang’s representative, Sibani Mngadi, was trying to find out which journalists had attended the cocktail party and witnessed the incident.
[email protected]