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State places HIV/AIDS advertisements in bid to stop protests
Jeremy Michaels and Jillian Green. The Star. 24 March 2003. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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As HIV/AIDS activists promise to intensify their civil disobedience campaign, the government has set out to counter a potentially embarrassing standoff with the Treatment Action Campaign by taking out full-page advertisements in Sunday newspapers.
Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said the adverts were aimed at putting the facts about the government's HIV/AIDS programme before the public. He accused the TAC of deliberately distorting the facts.
But TAC leader Zackie Achmat dismissed the adverts as "a wish list, not a plan", and promised that his group would step up its civil disobedience campaign this week.
Achmat warned that protesters would either disrupt a speech by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at a conference in Cape Town on Tuesday or get themselves arrested.
The TAC had demanded that the conference organisers secure a commitment from the health minister that she would roll out anti-retroviral therapy in the public health sector and sign a disputed Framework Agreement for a National HIV and AIDS Treatment and Prevention Plan negotiated at the National Economic Development and Labour Council.
Achmat and 150 other TAC protesters were arrested after an unlawful gathering at Caledon Square police station in central Cape Town on Thursday as they laid culpable homicide charges against Tshabalala-Msimang and Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin, whom they blame for the death from AIDS of up to 600 South Africans a day.
Joining the fray, the Democratic Alliance dismissed the adverts, and invited the health minister to become a human shield in Iraq.
It might have cost the government tens of thousands of rands to place a full-page advertisement in several Sunday newspapers, but the message was well worth it, Netshitenzhe claimed after questions were raised concerning the impact of the advertisement on the government's HIV/AIDS strategy.
The advertisement, calling for "a people's contract to fight HIV/AIDS", outlines government strategies such as free condoms, programmes to provide anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women and survivors of sexual assault, as well as home-and community-based care programmes.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions has praised the advertisement, saying it was a huge relief, particularly for those who wanted vigorous action to combat HIV/AIDS. |
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