South African Press Association - December 1, 2004

"Apartheid cruelly blunted the majority of our people's inalienable right to live in dignity. We stopped looking at each other the way God looks at us. I fear the HIV/Aids epidemic runs the same risk," he told a congregation attending a World Aids Day service at St George's cathedral in Cape Town on Wednesday.

In a speech prepared for delivery, Buthelezi said the scale of the pandemic was almost impossible to comprehend, with the full impact still to be felt in a decade or more's time.

With those living with HIV/Aids at risk of being swallowed up in the anonymity of numbers, Buthelezi said for his wife, Irene, and himself, there had not been the "deceiving cloak of anonymity", as the disease had struck down two of their children.

"When I remember my children Nelisa and Mandisi, I recall that they never succumbed to a 'victim' mentality, but fought the disease with the courage and spirit of those who never gave up hope."

Buthelezi said he had found in his own journey of coming to terms with the impact of Aids upon the people he loved most, a deeper insight into the meaning of life, love and death.

He said he had observed how HIV and Aids was decimating the nation, tearing apart families and uprooting communities in KwaZulu-Natal and throughout the country.

"It (the disease) has created brand new categories of orphans, child-headed households, and terminally ill patients, who cannot perform their daily tasks without cumbersome assistance. One in ten people we work with in the office, or sit next to in a taxi, or in a Sunday church service, are infected."

However, Buthelezi said there was hope, to be found in the message of the Gospels.

"... I am deeply aware of the limits to what politicians can achieve. A politician can only legislate for the rule-of-law, but only the Church can teach the life of faith."

Buthelezi said there were times when the Church needed to speak out when political action faltered, such as in the present war against Aids.

Buthelezi said he believed God had called us all alike, be we students, taxi drivers or public representatives, to use our positions to tear down the walls of stigma and silence surrounding the HIV/Aids pandemic.

"When, over twenty years ago, the Aids pandemic first surfaced, gay people were stigmatised and the disease was referred to as the 'gay plague'. At the beginning, quite frankly, our response to the disease, here and overseas, in both politics and church, was tardy.

I pray God will forgive us for our inertia and judgmental attitude to all those people we stigmatised," he said.

Meanwhile, the IFP Youth Brigade also pledged its support to all the initiatives that ordinary South Africans have embarked upon to fight the disease.

"The IFPYB further calls upon the government to ditch its lethargic approach to dealing with HIV/Aids and to embrace a new philosophy towards this national emergency based on scientific research, pragmatism and compassion," chairman Thulasizwe Buthelezi said in a statement on Wednesday.

He said the IFPYB would continue the fight against HIV/Aids out of respect for the memory of the millions of victims, and out of commitment to future generations.

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