webmaster

Miscellaneous Items

from 2003

<  previous   next  >

26 September 2003

IN REACTION TO PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI'S THURSDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2003 INTERVIEW IN THE USA IN WHICH HE SAID HE HAD NO ONE CLOSE TO HIM WITH HIV OR AIDS, HERE IS A LETTER SENT ON 26 SEPTEMBER TO ALL EDITORS OF SA NEWSPAPERS AND PUBLISHED BY MOST:

To the Editor:

When the President of South Africa speaks, he represents a democracy where 5 million citizens have HIV; where more than 600 people die each day from AIDS-related diseases; where 250 babies are born every 24 hours with the virus. Yet our President Thabo Mbeki says to the US-based 'Washington Post': 'I don't know anyone with HIV...Personally, I don't know anybody who has died of AIDS.' He lies and so condemns his nation to death.

It is time to replace this man with a leader who cares about his people!

Not only does Thabo Mbeki spend most of his time outside South Africa, speaking at international political jamborees, but he has now shown himself totally out of touch with his own country.

We are a young democracy, in which this man is but a chosen leader and not the member of a royal dynasty. The African National Congress deserves to celebrate the 2004 tenth-year anniversary of our young democracy. The ANC is a former liberation movement, now a successful political party, committed to the issues of human rights and freedom. But this party of liberation will soon be remembered by history only as an accomplice to the genocidal Mbekivellian policies of their present leader.

Replace this failed leader with a comrade of compassion.

There are many politicians in the ruling party, and on the fringes of power. Men and women of compassion and care, of focus and commitment. They are needed now. Replace this failed civil-servant in denial with a citizen who can heal and help, a leader who confronts the problems of our people and embraces our needs and aspirations.

No more Thabo Mbeki.

We need leadership to inspire confidence and optimism in our time of national fear and need. We need to inspire an impatient world to invest in us and believe in our future. With 40% of our workforce HIV-positive, no one will invest in South Africa. And yet our President knows no-one with HIV? While everyone in our country has buried, nurtured, cared-for, said farewell to, wept-for and remembered a loved one who has died of this virus that has no cure, our elected President is confused and innocent of the pain and the tears. Like when Steve Biko died, the then-apartheid Minister of Justice Jimmy Kruger famously said: 'It leaves me cold.'

South Africa leaves Thabo Mbeki cold.

There is no time for party politics here. Replace this man now with a committed leader and let him, or her, lead and help us to live!

Pieter-Dirk Uys

DARLING

<  previous   next  >

top