Newsday - July 15, 2000
Laurie Garrett, Staff Writer

"Let us not equivocate," Mandela said. "A tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in Africa ...AIDS is clearly a disaster, effectively wiping out the development gains of the past decade and sabotaging the future.

"Earlier this week," he continued, "we were shocked to learn that within South Africa, one in two, that is half of our young people, will die of AIDS. The most frightening thing is that all of these infections ...could have been, can be, prevented."

The meeting-the first AIDS conference held in Africa, where infection rates are the highest in the world-was framed with remarks from South African presidents. The current leader, Thabo Mbeki, addressed the opening session Sunday, and his bland address disappointed many of the 12,000 in attendance.

On Friday, Mandela, the man who led the fight to destroy apartheid, was welcomed by an audience hungry for inspiration. At 81, he walked with difficulty and needed help to climb onto the stage.

He began by telling the audience of AIDS scientists, activists, clinicians and community workers that he realized few speeches he, or anybody else, could give would be as important as this, and the "gravity of the responsibility" weighed heavily upon him.

"No disrespect is intended towards the many other occasions where one has been privileged to speak," Mandela said, "if I say that this is the one event where every word uttered, every gesture made, had to be measured against the effect it can and will have on the lives of millions of concrete, real human beings all over this continent and planet."

The elder statesman called AIDS "one of the greatest threats humankind has faced, and certainly the greatest after the end of the great wars of the previous century."

He made reference to the controversies of the week, including Mbeki's often-expressed interest in investigating whether or not HIV causes AIDS as well as his refusal to support the use of anti-HIV drugs to block transmission of the virus from mother to child. Mbeki's remarks on these themes at the opening session had left many delegates despairing that the most powerful nation on the African continent was pursuing a response to AIDS that was both anti-science and overly suspicious of available treatments for HIV.

In an oblique reference to the issue of whether HIV causes AIDs, Mandela said, "In all disputes, a point is arrived at where no party, no matter how right or wrong it might have been at the start of the dispute, will any longer be totally in the right or totally in the wrong. Such [a] point, I believe, has been reached in this debate.

"Now, however, the ordinary people of the continent and the world...would, if anybody cares to ask their opinions, wish that the dispute about the primacy of politics or science be put on the back burner and that we proceed to address the needs and concerns of those suffering and dying." A thunderous ovation followed.

Mandela went on to applaud the AIDS-control programs of Uganda, Senegal and Thailand and detailed the sorts of education campaigns, condom-distribution programs and mother-to-child drug interventions that have saved lives in those countries.

He departed from his prepared text twice to address the discrimination and stigma that people who are infected with HIV face. Saying "they want love," Mandela recalled meetings with children-one suffering from AIDS, the other from cancer-and remembered that he knew the youngsters were fated to die soon, yet wanted to give them some cause for hope. To the boy with cancer he drew from Shakespeare, saying, "Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once."

Mandela closed by calling for a redoubling of efforts to save the world's children. He was greeted by cheers, and a jubilant Dr. Welile Shasha leapt onto the stage, seized the microphone and delivered a homage in Xhosa. Shasha, who works for the World Health Organization, said in an interview that he had praised Mandela and urged him to "tell Thabo Mbeki about the ravages of HIV and how it affects small children."

Sweden's Dr. Lars Kallings, former president of the International AIDS Societies, brushed away tears during an interview, saying, "Mbeki's speech was a lost opportunity. But Mandela regained it."

Dr. Zeli Mkhilze, minister of health for KwaZuluNatal Province, had grimly defended Mbeki's policies after the opening session. On Friday, he grinned and vowed that after Mandela's speech, "Everybody is really going to be moving forward with zeal."

The night before, Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, renowned for his role in redesigning the post-communist economy of Poland and for negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on behalf of poor countries, called for next week's G-8 summit to focus on AIDS. He said the scale of Africa's crisis is so severe that the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and wealthy nations should forgive all unpaid debts on the continent and create a $4-billion-a-year fund for HIV prevention and care, to be managed by the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Demanded Sachs, "How could the world have stood by for years, let this epidemic reach the level of 35 to 40 million people, and only then start talking about spending some money?"
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