Home / TAC & ALP Press Conference on UNGASS - Part 2
TAC & ALP Press Conference on UNGASS - Part 2
30 March 2006
This press conference was called after the TAC and the AIDS Law Project (ALP) learnt that they had been excluded from accreditation in order to attend the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS). This because the South African government had objected to their participation. The TAC and the ALP were two of six organisations that had been prevented from accreditation through the deliberate intervention of UN member states. Namibia and Belarus were the only other two countries that exercised objections. Hundreds of organisations from across the world had been accredited because their governments did not choose to exercise an objection. By objecting to TAC and ALP accreditation the South African government acted unilaterally and intolerantly. In media reports, the Director-General of Health explained that the TAC was objected to because it disagrees with and embarrasses government. The Department of Health also conceded that some of the organisations that they had not objected too they had never even heard of.
Journalist 1: ...would you expect there to be any difference in the high demand that TAC and ALP would make at UNGASS for future targets and rollout and funding etc. than what the government would make? I mean I know it’s important for you to be there but I’d like you to specifically state why it’s important that you too participate in those target setting and those demand making.
Zackie Achmat: We don’t talk about showers…
Sipho Mthathi: See, I mean the G8 met last year and then subsequently there was an UNGASS meeting and the world agreed that in the past there was a three by five target which the world didn’t meet because at the end of 2005 we didn’t have 3 million people on treatment, who needed treatment and the world admitted that. And the world just said that let’s start looking at what it would take to create universal access to prevention, treatment and care. And so we want to demand the resources to make that enormous task a reality. The Global Fund needed 12 billion and it doesn’t have $12 billion. In order to create universal access to these things, the Global Fund as a global funding mechanism for HIV, TB and Malaria needs much more resources, so we want to know what targets are being set by countries to resource the Global Fund, what targets are being set by countries to address the global human resource crisis which is going to prevent universal access to all of these things because we need people, you need health professionals, you need those kinds of resources, what resources are going to be put into fast research for new TB drugs because globally. TB is a crisis particularly for developing countries and in the case of an AIDS epidemic TB becomes an even worse crisis. So where are all of those plans? Government might be thinking around asking for the same things. The world says that we must stop the feminisation of the epidemic but who’s going to come up with a specific target to address women’s socio-economic conditions which place them at continued vulnerability to HIV infection? Who is going to take the load off many women globally who are doing the care and carrying the burden of disease due to HIV? So those are some of the minds we’re going to be placing on world leaders to fund and make specific commitments and come up with specific targets. If the government’s current report is anything to judge by, we don’t believe that they would have been making those demands but irrespective we’re going to go there and make those demands.
Linda Mafu: Yes…
Journalist 2: What are the most effective ways that you recommend for international NGOs to respond either in co-ordination with you independently or to address the South African government about this situation?
Sipho Mthathi: See, I mean you can add, the issue is we want to be the ones to deal with our own government, we want to be the ones to work with our own government to ensure that an honest national response to the epidemic is developed. We’ve got a lot of support internationally and we’ve worked well with civil society organisations and I think many organisations internationally know the crisis of South Africa and everyone regards it tragic that a country which stands a chance to be a world leader of developing countries, to set the tone, to set the targets and to rival Brazil and others who have moved on with … in addressing the epidemic. And so the world expects that of South Africa and so civil society groups will be asking similar questions to say that South Africa isn’t just an ordinary country in the global context, it’s a country where many other developing nations draw leadership from and must play a leadership role in a similar way that it’s doing in the continent around the issue of conflict. And so we continue talking to partners but in this case we’re obviously waiting for this issue to be resolved urgently and that similar things don’t happen in the future because, I mean again one of the things which happened by civil society groups internationally displaying the outrage is that they’ve sent a letter to the President to appeal to the country’s leadership to stop this. We are informed by other channels that the President did in fact intervene, that’s why you see TAC’s name in the list but obviously that’s not going to be admitted but there’s been enormous international pressure and South Africa’s ambassadors in New York have urged that this matter be resolved because otherwise South Africa would have really been a focus of everybody’s attention to say you can’t do this.
Zackie Achmat: There’s many other things that could be done and I think that we will be forming part of the steering committee that will be mobilising around UNGASS. So we’ve been in contact with the steering committee of all the New York based organisations who are organising. But I think we need to look at the longer term, the US government is spending 2 to 4 hundred billion dollars on the Iraq war. That amount of money, we don’t need that amount of money to deal with the epidemic. So the critical point is to put pressure on the US, on the G8, on the Gulf States, on countries that can afford to fund the epidemic because the biggest problem about prevention is not that we know condoms don’t work, it’s that people don’t have access to condoms. There’s a whole bunch of other things in relation to prevention. So the question is scaling up and it’s not simply scaling up here, it’s scaling up in Malawi, it’s scaling up in Ecuador, it’s scaling up in other places. So we want to be part of a global social mobilisation and get the resources to countries to do that. Sipho mentioned a target of 500 000, if you look at our national budget, there’s enough money in our national budget to treat 500 000 people by the end of the year. There’s money in our budget, what South Africa lacks is political will. And of course if South Africa continues to lack political will, we will also have to reconsider how we ask. Sipho says we want to deal with our government ourselves and we do. We would reconsider the pressure because we’ve got a change, government changing through international pressure but mainly through local activism. And if government continues the mixed messages of denial, the mixed messages of garlic and showers and so on, then we’re going to require very serious pressure later again and that’s a different issue, but there’s many things that we can do globally.
Journalist 2: Sipho, can I just ask, in the future this could happen again, this could happen to organisations and other countries, is there a move to try and change that system or is this going to be the state?
Sipho Mthathi: See, I mean I think that this is again why it’s important for all of us to think that what are the values that the new declaration needs to be very strong on, what are the things we can therefore as civil society groups ensure that countries are being held accountable to because if you look at the old declaration, it says that civil society involvement is key to ensuring an appropriate international and national response but when South Africa continues to deal with the TAC and with ALP and other groups who are critical of the government’s response to the epidemic, you didn’t see an international outcry publicly, we know that it happened. To say that that goes against what you signed onto in the old declaration which was ensuring that civil society groups remain independent and are able to voice their objections but that they are incorporated into the development. And the new declaration must be much more strong on that aspect to say what will be the repercussions of states who sign on these big, beautiful declarations but go back to their own country and act against everything in those declarations. And so we’ve got to demand that UNGASS must have specific courses of recourse for governments who then do that, including our own because that’s the only way then you create a framework for action when things like that happen.
Journalist 3: I just wanted to ask you on Rath … under this campaign, is that still on going or slowing down? Did you campaign against him have…?
Sipho Mthathi: See, I mean this is my view now, Nathan might have a different view. I think that the sense at the moment and we hope that we’re right, is that people like Matthias Rath and other such detractors came in and received some of the attention that they did because there wasn’t enough co-ordination and there wasn’t enough of a national response which would make people see and have hope because you see that in many of the places where people will listen to people like that is where there’s often no treatment available when people are desperate and need something, it’s the same with the issue of traditional medicine. Obviously, in the case of Rath, there seems to have been strong state support in the face of the national Minister of Health and our legal action demanded that she should have acted against Rath because what he’s doing is illegal. On the ground, there continues to be rumours and obviously his charm SANCO continues to try and get money from him and therefore carry out his mission. But I sense at the moment, and things might change, is that he’s been dealt a blow and Fatima can explain about the retractions of the legal actions that he had instituted against various bodies including the TAC and the ALP and others. But the case that we launched against the Minister of Health, against the MCC and against Matthias Rath remains and it’s going to continue. But our sense is that he’s been dealt a blow, I think the more we ensure there’s greater access to treatment and that people see the positive experiences of people living from treatment, that that will partially be dealt with but that’s my sense.
Linda Mafu: Fatima?
Fatima Hassan: We could talk about it after the …
Journalist 4: Is TAC or ALP considering any change in tactics given that there’s such a divergent world view. The controversy in KZN is a great example,… the Health Minister … (inaudible)
Sipho Mthathi: I’ll answer that because, and Zackie can add, because we’ve had a meeting with particularly the Ubhejane people and the University of the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine’s unit that’s researching traditional medicine because I think that on the one, the issue of traditional, has been there and it’s going to be there and it’s not an issue that we can just wish away and just say continue to dismiss as untested, unproven and those kinds of things. And the most strategic perhaps intervention, it was apparent in the meeting we had with the Ubhejane people that there is, and this is the tragedy with the lack of leadership in our country that the issue of traditional medicines internationally is accepted as a complimentary part of healthcare, you’ve got great models in many countries that have tried to do it in a way that doesn’t then undermine the public health system and we’ve got lots of learning to do around that. And the leadership that I feel that TAC can give to this, and this is something we have seriously discussed with particularly the comrades in KwaZulu Natal who feel that we must take a different approach to this and that approach says what’s the legislation, what’s the best practice, let’s put that out, what are the traditional healers are bringing? In the specific issue of Ubhejane, one of the big things that the traditional healer in charge, who is in fact very open to his medicines being researched and interrogated and is looking for money for proper research to be done and the Nelson Mandela School of Medicines, Traditional Medicines Research Unit is in fact undertaking a process of assisting that.
Journalist 2: He won’t give them the ingredients?
Sipho Mthathi: No, I mean they are doing a preclinical thing and there are looking at what are the best ways to ensure that proper record keeping is done, that there can be a centre established where all traditional healers can bring their things to be tested clinically and otherwise so that there’s some process…
Journalist 2: Ja, but worries me about that, I know that this is slightly off the subject but they wanted new protocols, they wanted the Medunsa protocols which were written by two AIDS denialists … which they want those protocols to be used at Nelson Mandela, that’s the worry…
Sipho Mthathi: Ja, but I mean that’s the thing that we’ve disagreed on which then the basis of further engagement is dependent on them accepting but you can’t just override rules which are there to safeguard people’s health, people must know what’s happening in their bodies and therefore research must be done and you can’t expect less than that from people. And if they’re not prepared to listen to that obviously there’s no co-operation then but the issue at the moment with the Ubhejane issue is, it’s Albert Vilakazi who is not interested in finding a progressive way in dealing with this but insuring his own future because the traditional healers themselves are not in fact averse to any of these things. Obviously they insist that they don’t want to be used and researchers come and they take their ingredients because I mean that’s happened in the past and they have a right to insist on their intellectual property but they really are open at least with us. They have stated that they are open to their things being redone and they don’t claim to know how the processes and the protocol should be done and it’s the self-elected academic and champion of traditional healer who’s insisting on those things, it’s not coming from the traditional healers themselves.
Journalist 5: Two … questions, both why. Why do you guys think that they finally put your name on the list in the long run? Was it presidential pressure, was it to avoid embarrassment, was it to silence you guys and just get you there? You know, shut up and go or …to speculate on that, why were your names on the list?
Zackie Achmat: Because I was horrible to the Minister of Health, she says. No I mean I think very quickly for all of us, it’s clear that everyone in our country and everyone abroad thinks it’s outrageous and we don’t know that the Foreign Affairs Department was consulted in this. We certainly believe that it was just the Ministry of Health’s decision and that was a wrong decision; has clearly back fired and of course our inclusion in whatever form they do is a retreat back from a very, very, very stupid mistake.
Linda Mafu: I’d like to suggest that we close the press conference and thank everyone for coming and also thank the panel for the information they’ve given us. Thank you
Journalist 5: How long is the …?
Fatima Hassan: 31st of May to the 3rd of June because the 2nd of June is only for member states and the 31st and 1st is for civil societies. But at the opening … you sit the entire international civil society delegation and represent … (inaudible)
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