Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Daily Mail & Guardian - Johannesburg, South Africa. April 3 2000
Parks Mankhlana*
It turns out the president's cardinal sin was making contact with someone by the name of David Rasnick who does not share the commonly held view that HIV leads to Aids. It is said that it is wrong for him to talk to such people. They are even called dissidents. If he spoke to these people he would undermine the work done over the many years and he would cause South Africans and other people who live with HIV and Aids to lower their guard.
Assailants of the president therefore argue that the president must not question the accepted hypothesis on HIV/Aids. He must then give AZT to HIV-positive pregnant women and those who have been victims of rape. He must tell his people to use condoms and practice safe sex. He must not listen to anyone who disagrees with the accepted line of thinking and the problem of HIV and Aids will come to an end.
Mbeki says this approach is inadequate. We cannot be content with knowing what the cause of the illness is. We must eradicate the sickness from the face of the Earth. Because there is no cure for HIV/Aids, and because people continue to die from Aids the search for a solution must continue. This is all President Thabo Mbeki is advocating.
Humanity is faced with a difficult problem that, the remarkable advances that have been made in science and technology notwithstanding, we are faced with a complex disease that is threatening to destroy the whole of humanity. The propensity to self-destruct and search for non-existent adversaries is common when a people find themselves under siege.
The search for an answer to the problem of HIV/Aids must be reinvigorated. That is why we are putting an international panel together to re-evaluate what we know and which is clearly not complete and therefore not the answer. Someone must explain the different strains of the virus and why it seems to take different forms depending on one's geographic location on the map of the globe.
The government is strong in its resolve that we cannot confine our response to the problem of HIV/Aids to an injunction not to speak to Rasnick or telling people how to think. Whether we speak to Rasnick or not, whether there are thought police to monitor what others think, human beings will continue to die from Aids.
*Parks Mankahlana is President Thabo Mbeki's representative
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