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Tutu lays blame for HIV/Aids deaths
September 02, 2007 Edition 1
James Macharia
Retired archbishop Desmond Tutu blamed the government on Friday for the preventable deaths of South Africans from HIV/Aids.
He said the delaying of the introduction of a national HIV/Aids treatment plan, and the unorthodox views on the disease by government leaders, had led to the deaths.
Speaking at the Nelson Mandela University in Eastern Cape, where he was presented with an honorary degree, the Nobel peace laureate said the fallen anti-apartheid heroes would be shocked by the devastation caused by the HIV/Aids pandemic which, he said, was killing 900 South Africans every day.
"They would be glad that a more realistic plan was in place, but they would lament that too many died unnecessarily because of bizarre theories held [by those] on high."
Mbeki has been criticised for arguing that Aids is the result of poverty, other chronic disease, malnutrition and environmental factors, a stance said to have delayed widespread use of effective HIV/Aids-fighting drugs.
Tutu also criticised the health department, and Mbeki's recent sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the deputy health minister, which has sparked a public outcry.
Madlala-Routledge, a rising star in the South African Communist Party, publicly criticised the health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, a close Mbeki ally, who has angered researchers, doctors and activists by saying that Aids should be fought with garlic and beetroot in preference to anti-retroviral drugs.
Tutu said former anti-apartheid activists would be shocked at the extent of crime in modern South Africa.
"Why is there so much corruption?
"They would be shocked that so many still live in shacks [and] that the gap between rich and poor is growing," he said. - Reuters
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