GABORONE, Oct 26 (AFP) - At the helm of one of Africa's most successful democracies, Botswana's President Festus Mogae says his country is also making headway in dealing more openly with AIDS as the world's second most-affected country.
In an interview to AFP, Mogae said that the pandemic was placing a severe burden on his country, diverting resources that would otherwise be used to propel Botswana's already strong economy.
"Everywhere now we talk about AIDS -- prayer meetings, political meetings, party meetings... there are so many groups talking about AIDS," said Mogae in the interview on Monday.
Botswana is heading for elections on Saturday that Mogae's Botswana Democratic Party -- in power since independence in 1966 - is all but sure to win, perhaps in part due to its head-on approach to tackling the AIDS pandemic.
According to the UN AIDS agency, 37.3 percent of adults in Botswana are living with HIV and AIDS, the second highest prevalence rate in the world after Swaziland.
Mogae, 65, has made AIDS the priority of his presidency since taking office in 1998, never failing to mention it in his speeches.
The Oxford-trained economist who has helped shepherd Botswana's rise from an agriculture-based nation to a middle-income country has himself undergone HIV testing in a bid to remove the stigma surrounding AIDS.
The campaign to educate Botswanans about AIDS has paid off with more than 10,000 people already this year having undergone testing for HIV, Mogae said.
"It's becoming routine," he says about taking the HIV test, although the campaign has put a strain on the health care system already suffering from a shortage of qualified professionals.
"We are spending so much... looking after AIDS patients, we don't have the time to do anything else," he said.
"It has forced us to divert resources away from productive purposes, investment purposes."
AIDS has brought life expectancy down from 69 to 56 in this country of 1.7 million people, according to the government.
While economic growth has on average reached some seven percent annually over the past two decades, with the discovery of diamonds after independence, Mogae cited studies showing that three percentage points had been shaved off those growth rates due to AIDS.
Turning to diplomacy, Mogae acknowledged that his peers in southern Africa had yet to show success in tackling a different challenge posed by the political crisis in Zimbabwe.
Painting a generally positive picture of democratic gains and economic development in southern Africa, Mogae pointedly failed to include Zimbabwe on the list of those countries that are embracing multi-party democracy and attracting foreign investment.
"Zimbabwe has regressed a little because of internal strife," said Mogae.
Relations with President Robert Mugabe's government have been severely strained over the treatment of Zimbabwean migrants, some 200,000 of whom have come to Botswana to find work.
Within the group of southern African countries most affected by the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, "we are not agreed on what the right approach should be," Mogae said.
But he added that the quiet diplomacy that South Africa is using instead of confronting Mugabe was for now the only option, saying: "We either do that or be prepared to invade Zimbabwe."
"President Mugabe takes the strongest exception to any (interference) from outside so the best thing is to try to persuade him," said Mogae.
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