Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has slammed the government for dabbling in the science of Aids, and says it is ”outrageous” that people are denied treatment.
He made the call in a speech delivered at a Freedom Day rally at Jabulani Amphitheatre in Soweto at the weekend, but that went unreported at the time.
”Stand up and march with us towards a better future, if you share my moral indignation and the rage and anger of South Africa for the absurdity and irresponsibility with which the HIV/Aids policy has been handled,” he told his listeners.
”A wave of moral indignation has risen around the country, condemning the failure of South Africa to save its people from HIV/Aids.
”Our people are dying not by the hundreds, nor by the thousands, but by the tens and hundreds of thousands because of HIV/Aids.”
Buthelezi, who as home affairs minister sits in the Cabinet, said if medical science had drugs to treat or give relief to people with HIV/Aids, every South African should be able to access such drugs.
”It is not a matter for government to decide whether or not people should receive medicine that could help them.
”It is outrageous that under the present conditions our suffering people would not receive treatment which is medically available,” he said.
The Department of Health says it is waiting for a report by a joint Health and Treasury task team on the costing of a national antiretroviral drug treatment programme.
It has been under pressure from Aids activists to commit to a plan.
Buthelezi said at Jabulani he had repeatedly spoken up in Cabinet about his ”enormous difficulties” with the government’s Aids policy.
”Time and again I have stated that HIV/Aids is a matter that should be dealt with by doctors and that we, as the government, cannot create a policy which replaces science.
”It was in the old Soviet Union that facts of science were determined through government polices.”
He said there was little point in having secured a long list of human rights and liberties for people condemned to die by the hundreds of thousands.
Those who had fought the Aids battle were the ”great heroes of our times”.
”I think of the leaders of the Treatment Action Campaign who have refused to sit in their chairs and have stood up and made their voice heard.” – Sapa