CAPE TOWN, Dec 1 (AFP) - World AIDS Day was marked in South Africa by scathing attacks on government's HIV/AIDS policies, cautious hope for a cure and colourful rallies where condoms were handed out like candy.

In Cape Town anti-AIDS activists accused President Thabo Mbeki of "passive genocide" through his refusal to supply the anti-AIDS drug AZT to pregnant women, in a ceremony in the city centre, attended by hundreds of delegates to the Parliament of the World's Religions.

Mbeki has said the drug is too expensive and that it has not been proven beyond doubt that AZT does in fact help prevent the transmission of the disease to unborn babies.

"We say to Mbeki that this decision is contrary to the principles of the constitution, is scientifically mistaken and is morally bankrupt," said US AIDS activist Cleve Jones, founder of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Jones, an AIDS sufferer who said drugs had kept him alive for the past 20 years, acknowledged that the South African government could not afford to provide the treatment.

But he said Mbeki should ask "the wealthy countries of the world and the big pharmaceutical companies" to help meet the costs of AZT.

South African anti-AIDS activist Adeline Mangcu, who said she was found to be HIV positive in 1994, accused the South African government of "passive genocide -- you just fold your arms and watch them die."

She said 160 babies are born every day in South Africa with the HIV virus and that it was now time for pharmaceutical companies, which had made "huge profits out of our people," to "give something back" by dropping the price of AZT.

In a speech prepared for World Aids Day, Mbeki, who is in Tanzania, avoided the drug row and urged South Africans to be responsible for their own health and change their behaviour to eradicate the disease.

"HIV/AIDS threatens to undermine our efforts to grow our economy and build a better life for all our people," he said.

"Every day, more people die as a result of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world."

According to the UN, four-fifths of the 2.5 million deaths from AIDS in 1998 were in sub-Saharan Africa.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang expressed the hope that a cure for AIDS would be found soon.

"We are taking positive steps to develop a vaccine. Let us build on the hope we have."

As acting president in Mbeki's absence, Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi addressed a rally in Pretoria and pleaded with South Africans to relinquish local superstitions about AIDS.

"Let me state emphatically that AIDS cannot be cured. You cannot get better by engaging in sexual intercourse with a virgin. You cannot be cured by rape."

He also implored people not to discriminate against sufferers and not to spread the disease, saying: "There is nothing more repulsive or abominable than a person who intentionally spreads AIDS, out of revenge, selfishness or total disrespect."

Surveying the crowd who stomped to the sound of popular bands, handed around condoms and pinned them to their trousers, Buthelezi said: "There is one thing we can celebrate here today: the fact that we can beat AIDS."

In Cape Town, the national assembly speaker Frene Ginwala unveiled a giant red AIDS awareness ribbon draped across the building's entrance and said South Africa would begin allocating money in its national budget expressly for the fight against AIDS.

In KwaZulu-Natal province, believed to have the highest incidence of HIV in South Africa, AIDS awareness workers took their message straight to the people by boarding trains and handing condoms and pamphlets to commuters.

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