[afro-nets] Address by COSATU General Secretary to TAC Congress

[Gregg Gonsalves <Greggg@GMHC.org>]

Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to Treat-
ment Action Campaign (TAC) Congress - 25 September 2005
---------------------------------------------------------------


Chairperson of the TAC, Zachie Achmat, leaders and activists of
the TAC, comrades and friends,

To start with, let me express my gratitude and congratulations
to TAC and its leadership. In the past few years, you have set
the agenda for the nation on this critical challenge of HIV and
AIDS. At the same time, you have built an organisation that
plays a critical role in giving people a voice on this subject.
This type of activism and participation is crucial for our de-
mocracy and our revolution. As your chair?s report points out,
however, there is still a very long way to go. The report makes
clear that the crisis around AIDS remains. The data paint a
chilling picture. Let me again highlight some of the issues.
This should not be necessary, but the fact is that denialism
means that the impact of HIV and AIDS is all too often ignored.
As a result, too many people sit by in silence and even igno-
rance while our people are decimated by the failure to provide
treatment and support for people affected by the AIDS pandemic.

To start with, analysis of death certificates shows a shocking
increase in the rate of death, at around 10% a year in the five
years to 2002. Deaths due to TB and respiratory diseases like
pneumonia and influence, which are largely due to AIDS, have
doubled or tripled. In 2001, these diseases account for almost
30% of the official reasons given on death certificates for peo-
ple aged 15 to 49, up from 15% in 1998. The fact that the fig-
ures are so out of date points to the failure of our society
even to monitor the progress of AIDS adequately. Even more
tragic is that many of these deaths are today unnecessary. With
decent treatment, most people with HIV should live decades
longer. The rows of gravestones in the cemeteries, like the data
on death, point to our failure as a society to deal with this
challenge.

A further indication of our failure emerges from the continued
rise in the infection rate. According to returns from antenatal
clinics, the infection rate climbed 3% between 2002 and 2004.
Today, HIV affects every segment of our society, indeed every
family.

Comrades and friends,

The causes of the HIV epidemic can be traced, ultimately, to
public health policy failures and the structures of our society.
It starts, first, with the failure to ensure a comprehensive
education and prevention campaign. By now, every South African
should be well informed on the nature of this infection, how it
can be avoided and how it can be treated. Yet we all know that
many people in our townships and villages still fall prey to a
host of myths and legends. The media continues to spread sensa-
tionalist stories and vicious rumours. And con men like Dr Raath
are allowed to report on fake cures and treatments without any
adequate rebuke from the authorities. That ignorance can liter-
ally kill us: by exposing us to infection, and by leading to vi-
cious stigmatisation of people with HIV.

The government in particular continues to lag in education and
prevention. It has left this core campaign largely to rich ad-
vertising companies that think they can sell AIDS information
like they sell luxury cars or cell phones. The dependence on
LoveLife has wasted hundreds of millions of Rand on glossy pub-
lications that provide almost no real information and that seem
geared to selling a lifestyle of consumerism for the rich. In
the real world, where most live, two out of five workers still
earn under ZAR 1,000 a month, and unemployment is running over
40%. Where are the LoveLife publications and broadcasts for
workers and the poor? Where are the education programmes to
reach all our people where they are in the townships, in vil-
lages, in schools and in the workplace? Every government depart-
ment should be informing our people about HIV. Every civil soci-
ety organisation should be pulled into the struggle.

Second, the public health system is still failing to treat peo-
ple with AIDS system on an adequate scale. For every ten people
who need anti-retroviral treatment, only one is getting it
through the public sector, and another one through the private
sector. The failure to give our people hope of survival makes it
harder to ensure effective prevention. It condemns tens of thou-
sands to an unnecessary death, leaves their children orphans and
leaves our communities poorer.

We in COSATU saw the initial commitment to provide anti-
retrovirals through the public system as a major victory. But
what do we see? True, in the richest provinces ­ inn Gauteng and
the Western Cape ­ treatment is now available to many. But in
too many others, the waiting lists are growing while roll out
remains painfully slow. Our people still die because they are
workers, while the rich still survive on private care.

A third factor is the refusal to ensure serious sex education in
our schools, and to ensure that the realities of sexuality are
dealt with openly and honestly across our society ­ in the me-
dia, in government policies and statements, and in our clinics.
Educators are still not adequately equipped to ensure that
learners understand the facts of life in the time of AIDS. For
its part, the press makes no effort to assist in open and frank
discussion of the issues.

A fourth reason for the failure to deal adequately with the HIV
epidemic lies in the persistent under-funding and poor manage-
ment of the public health sector. The difficulty of rolling out
anti-retroviral treatment in itself demonstrates the deep-seated
problems. Indeed, while South Africa spends more on health care
as a share of its economy than most developing countries, the
public health situation is far worse. That reflects the waste of
billions on private health, while the public sector lacks beds,
medicines, decent buildings, trained personnel and management.

Finally, two more fundamental social failures contribute to the
spread of HIV. On the one hand, there is an extraordinarily high
rate of unemployment amongst our young people. Today, close to
two thirds young people under the age of 30 have never had a job
since graduating from school. Life is cheap when you don?t see a
future for yourself, when it is so hard to find a way to par-
ticipate meaningfully in society. On the other hand is the sub-
ordinate position of women. As long as women depend economically
on men, they cannot make the choices they need to avoid HIV.
They cannot fight against the silence that makes it harder to
stop the AIDS epidemic and to get treatment. The situation is
compounded by the persistent violence against women both inside
and outside their homes.

Comrades and friends,

Ultimately, these failures start with a failure of leadership,
beginning with the presidency and the Ministry of Health. Any
health ministry that presides over the spread of an epidemic
like this one has much to answer for. This lack of government
leadership on HIV is a betrayal of our people and our struggle.
We are sitting by while the biggest threat to our nation since
apartheid is ruining our families and our communities. We have
to turn this situation around. With the destruction trail that
is so evident ­ when last did any of us hear our President men-
tioning the words HIV and AIDS? When last did we hear our Minis-
ter talking about the need to implement government policy in-
cluding provision of the antiretrovirals and or accounting for
failure of government to meet targets set by the government? Too
many times we hear her speaking about the spinach. There is
nothing wrong with encouraging our people to eat healthily and
to live healthily. But there is something very wrong when there
is silence about the other government policy such as the need to
ensure that people have access to cheap antiretrovirals.

COSATU itself must gear itself up for this battle. We have to
acknowledge that our own efforts remain inconsistent. We need to
ensure that every COSATU affiliates takes forward the struggle
against HIV as a central priority for the working class. We must
ensure that every workplace has policies to deal with HIV and
AIDS. We have to ensure more of our shop stewards have training
to counsel people with HIV. And we need to provide stronger back
up for TAC campaigns that seek to ensure better prevention,
testing and treatment for working people.

I am happy to inform you that we have agreed with the TAC lead-
ership to meet very soon after this congress and plan a much
more tightly coordinated campaign of COSATU and the TAC. To
start with, we need to end the culture of denialism across soci-
ety. HIV and AIDS should be core issues in every Alliance cam-
paign, including the upcoming local government elections. Every
major government speech should help increase awareness of the
HIV crisis and fight the stigmatisation of people with AIDS. If
LoveLife can?t come up with an effective education campaign, the
funds should be redirected to organisations that are more in
touch with the majority of our people. On the ground, every pub-
lic servant should be trained to educate and help people af-
fected by HIV and AIDS. The lifeskills curriculum must deal ex-
plicitly and openly with HIV and sexuality, and must be avail-
able for every student on a consistent basis. The whole educa-
tion and prevention campaign by government must be redirected to
meet the needs of ordinary South Africans. This campaign must be
backed up by making counselling and testing part of routine
healthcare in the public system.

We will of course continue to support the campaign for access to
anti-retroviral treatment. We look to this congress to help de-
fine more effective tactics and strategies to achieve this aim.
Every day lost is a death sentence for some of our comrades and
friends. We need to come from here with a programme of action
that will end the delays. Together with TAC and other partners
in civil society, we need to develop effective strategies to
deal with SANAC. This organisation was supposed to be the main
way that all stakeholders can take a strong stand on HIV. In-
stead, it has become a toothless extension of government, and
wholly ineffective. We have to either turn it around or withdraw
from it.

These are all critical short-run strategies. In the longer run,
we will continue to struggle for a more just society, where un-
employment and oppression of women are no longer a crisis. The
fight for decent work for all will be taken forward through our
jobs and poverty campaign, which will hold general strikes at
provincial level through the month of October. I know that you
will be in the front rows of the marches taking place in the
Western Cape and Eastern Cape on the 3rd of October 2005 and
later in all other provinces.

Comrades and friends,

We look to this congress to identify stronger strategies for the
fight against the AIDS epidemic. We cannot continue in denial
while thousands are dying unnecessarily. We are sure your delib-
erations here will mark the beginning of a new stage in this new
struggle. Amandla
_______________________________________________

Taken from:
e-3x5 mailing list mailto:e-3x5@healthnet.org
http://list.healthnet.org/mailman/listinfo/e-3x5
To join, send blank message to e-3x5-join@healthnet.org