NEWS REPORTS

International activists rally for TAC protest

March 17 2003 at 05:58AM

By Jo-Anne Smetherham

The Treatment Action Campaign's programme of civil disobedience, set to begin this week, is to be supported by protests in the United Kingdom, Latin America, Jamaica, the Philippines and several African countries.

These protests are to include demonstrations at many South African embassies.

This was the promise made by Aids activists from countries around the world at a press briefing at the Ritz Hotel in Sea Point, where more than 130 activists convened on Sunday for the last day of a three-day summit on improving access to treatment for HIV and Aids.

The TAC hopes 600 of its supporters will be arrested during the first leg of its campaign to place pressure on the government to set up pilot anti-retroviral programmes for people with Aids. The first leg of the campaign is to begin on Thursday and is to last a week. International protests are to take place during the second leg, from April 20 to 27.

'We're very much with our South African friends'

"We strongly support TAC's civil disobedience campaign and will organise protests in our countries and cities," said Hope Mhereza, of the United Kingdom. She said she represented Aids activists in European countries as well as the United Kingdom.

Said Gina Davis, from the Philippines: "We will be supporting the TAC by demonstrations in the Asian-Pacific region."

Pervaiz Tufail, of Pakistan, said: "We're very much with our South African friends."

Marie Mendene, of Cameroon, said "The African region has decided to support all the actions that will be implemented by the TAC - and any member of this new activists' coalition".

Although the TAC had hinted that the campaign could include the occupation of government offices and hunger strikes, its chairperson, Zackie Achmat, would not disclose details of its plans at the press briefing on Sunday.

'We are putting our government on trial for these deaths'

"We support this government - it is the most democratic government this country has had," he said. "But we reject its policy that results in the deaths of 600 people with Aids every day. We are putting our government on trial for these deaths."

The TAC has held more than 20 workshops on civil disobedience. A workshop is to take place on Monday at the University of Cape Town and another on Wednesday at St George's Cathedral in central Cape Town.

A third, "more extensive" civil disobedience campaign was planned for June, Achmat said.

The TAC also intended to take the state to court for failing to set up anti-retroviral programmes.

Achmat said that the activist group would call off its plans for civil disobedience, even at the last minute, if the government committed itself to setting up pilot programmes.

"We hope the government will take the opportunity not to force us down this road."

Delegates at the conference had learned that Uganda was preparing to give anti-retrovirals to 10 000 people this year and to treat 150 000 people by 2005, Achmat said.

They also heard the drugs were being given to almost 10 000 people in Nigeria and that although they were available to people in Botswana, the population was so ill-educated about HIV and Aids that the country's programme was developing slowly.

The conference was attended by people from 62 countries.

It was paid for by the World Bank, UNAids, World Health Organisation and the Catholic Medical Mission Board, among others.

This article was originally published on page 4 of The Cape Times on 17 March 2003

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Agence France Presses (AFP)

16 March 2003

South African AIDS activists give government deadline for treatment

CAPE TOWN, March 16 (AFP) - AIDS activists in South Africa Sunday renewed threats to launch a campaign of civil disobedience if the government did not agree to a national treatment program.

Over 600 activists of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) "are prepared to get arrested to get treatment", said the influential lobby group's chairman Zackie Achmat.

"We are putting our government on trial for causing 600 deaths a day", he said at the end of an international AIDS congress here.

TAC members are poised for action if, by the end of the month, the government does not begin providing anti-retroviral therapy for some five million citizens who are infected with HIV or have full-blown AIDS in South Africa.

TAC had originally given a March 21 deadline for the government to sign an agreement on providing anti-retroviral therapy decided upon last year by the country's arbitration body, the National Economic Development and Labour

Council (NEDLAC).

Though it was hailed as a breakthrough, the NEDLAC deal gave no deadline for the provision of anti-retrovirals, and the government held out, saying it was still studying the financial implications of a national roll-out plan for the drugs.

South Africa has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world, with five million of its 43 million citizens carrying the virus, and 360,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2001.

Achmat, quoted by South African Sapa news agency, did not list all the actions TAC would take, but said TAC -- which counts former anti-apartheid activists among its number -- could occupy public buildings.

"We will make sure it's not business as usual for government," he said.

TAC spokesman Nathan Geffen said last month the civil disobedience campaign would include sit-ins, hunger strikes, the illegal importation of medicine and the illegal distribution of medicine.