The Chicago Tribune - May 23, 2000
Naftali Bendavid, Washington Bureau

Mbeki has been consulting with a small group of dissident doctors who argue that AIDS is not caused by HIV but by factors such as poverty, malnutrition and drug use. That view is considered out-of-the-mainstream and dangerous by most of the Western medical establishment.

But in daylong meetings, the U.S. and South African leaders and their staffs did not delve into the causes of AIDS, U.S. officials said. Instead they focused on how the two nations can make medication available more cheaply to South Africans, develop a vaccine, educate the country's residents on how to avoid the disease and build a better South African health-care system.

A senior administration official said Monday that whatever Mbeki's scientific beliefs about AIDS, they have not prevented him from aggressively tackling the epidemic.

"We have every evidence that he is moving forward, and it [his belief] hasn't gotten in the way," the official said. "President Mbeki has not faltered one step."

In brief comments at the official welcoming ceremony, the two presidents downplayed the controversy. Asked about his reported skepticism, for example, regarding the effectiveness of the widely accepted AIDS-fighting drug AZT, Mbeki responded, "I've never said that" and called such reports "pure invention."

HIV, which infects one-tenth of South Africa's population of 40 million, was only one subject discussed by the two presidents, albeit the most controversial. The leaders also discussed ways to alleviate South Africa's crushing poverty and soaring crime and how to quell violence in the African nations of Zimbabwe, Congo and Sierra Leone.

U.S. officials hope that South Africa and Nigeria, which like South Africa recently threw off an oppressive political system, will emerge as anchors of stability in sub-Saharan Africa.

Many consider America's relationship with Mbeki even more important than its ties with his predecessor, Nelson Mandela. Mandela, who became the first president of a unified South Africa after spending decades in prison, was so venerated that relations with him set little precedent for more ordinary leaders.

"Mandela was treated as a saint by all and sundry, including those who had called him a terrorist not too long before," said Salih Booker, a longtime Africa expert and a scholar at the Africa Policy Information Center. "South Africa was characterized as a miracle--black and white pulling back from the abyss and all that sentiment. Mbeki does not enjoy the same sort of warmth from the West."

George Ayittey, a professor at American University and author of several books on Africa, said Mbeki's visit is crucial for establishing American relations with a post-Mandela South Africa.

"Since Mandela stepped down from power, South Africa has fallen off the radar screen, and it is important for it to come back onto the radar screen," Ayittey said. "Mandela had this towering world stature, and when he stepped down, interest in South Africa waned."

The AIDS crisis has caught the world's attention, and Mbeki's response to this plague--which Clinton has called a national security threat to the United States--alarms some in the U.S. Mbeki created a special AIDS advisory committee earlier this month, and it is evenly split between scientists who hold unconventional beliefs about the disease's origins and those who do not.

Mbeki has defended his approach by saying he does, in fact, believe that HIV causes AIDS, but that no viewpoint should be shut out.

Many credit Mbeki with raising the crucial issue of the high cost of AIDS-fighting drugs for developing nations. U.S. pharmaceutical companies--with the support of the Clinton administration, notably Vice President Al Gore--initially tried to prevent South Africa from obtaining or making cheaper versions of these expensive patented drugs.

But after bad publicity and intense lobbying, the pharmaceutical companies changed course, vowing to make drugs available inexpensively to the country. Clinton recently issued an executive order allowing South Africa to buy and manufacture these drugs despite the patents.
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