The Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) suspended civil disobedience campaign will be high on the agenda when the organisation meets for its national congress on Friday.
About 500 people, including representatives of activist organisations in other countries and a United Nations(UN) Aids observer, will attend the three-day meeting in Durban.
The congress, the second ever called by TAC, comes amid ontinuing government delays on a decision on a national anti-retroviral treatment programme for people with HIV/Aids.
The TAC suspended a civil disobedience campaign three months ago in which it had occupied government offices, disrupted a speech by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and laid culpable homicide charges against her and her trade and industry counterpart Alec Erwin.
The charges are still being considered by the Western Cape directorate of public prosecutions.
TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen said on Wednesday the disobedience campaign would be a ”critical topic” at the congress, and it was quite likely there would be calls for its resumption.
The TAC would also be weighing up its approach to the 2004 general elections, he said.
Likely to be discussed was how the organisation should lobby around election time for a better health care system and a national treatment plan that included anti-retrovirals.
However it might also be decided that the polls should not feature in TAC strategy.
This was probably the most open issue on the congress agenda, he said.
Also on the agenda are treatment literacy, building TAC structures and the election of a new national executive. – Sapa