Zackie Achmat (right) is the charismatic leader of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). Gus Cairns caught up with him in London at a recent demo in London
"It pains us to stand here," says Zackie Achmat to a small activists' demo staged recently outside South Africa House in London's Trafalgar Square. "But we'll be back again and again till the people of South Africa get treatment. It's scientifically necessary. It's legally necessary. It's economically feasible."
One of the reasons Zackie has become a figurehead for Aids activism is because he is refusing to take HIV drugs. His health insurance would pay; but he won't take them out of principle till the township dwellers who form the bulk of TAC's troops get them too.
On 29 May he was awarded the $20,000 Jonathan Mann Award for health and human rights in Washington DC. The week before this, at the demo in London, Zackie, with characteristic modesty, did not mention the honour at all. His focus was entirely on the latest stage in the war of attrition between South Africa's government and its HIV positive population.
Court cases, delaying tactics and street demos have culminated in a civil disobedience campaign of blockades and protests all round the cities of South Africa. TAC even threatened to bring the dead bodies of activists who had died of Aids to swell the numbers on their demos.
They would have plenty to bring, too; in South Africa, Aids is reaping its long-dreaded deadly harvest.
As an action group, TAC are something totally new in the African continent. Noerine Kaleeba of UNAIDS told Positive Nation: "Street protest is a new phenomenon in the continent. In many African countries they'd simply have been shot. The fact they're demonstrating out there at all is a huge shock to the politicians."
In many ways Zackie Achmat makes an unlikely successor to figures like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. The 41 year-old does not radiate spirituality. From a Muslim family in Cape Town, Abdurrazack Achmat became an out-gay atheist communist from the age of 12 and joined the anti-apartheid movement. He was jailed six times by the apartheid regime. The fact that he's a personal acquaintance of figures inside the African National Congress is what makes him an effective campaigner.
Is his health holding up? He says: "Well, I had 30 days off last year with chronic herpes and chest infections. I'm on TB prophylaxis. I can't tolerate Septrin for PCP. The stupid thing is I'm costing the health system more in drugs for opportunistic infections than they'd spend on giving me anti-retrovirals.
"But my CD4s are holding up at 200, so I'm not on the way out yet!"
That's all he wants to say about his personal situation. Zackie's sights are firmly on his government.
The TAC recently called a temporary halt to its civil disobedience campaign. This is because a study has come out showing that widespread anti-retrovirals treatment would cost less than previously thought, and because on 14 June the South Africa National Aids Council (SANAC) will make a report to the government recommending a national treatment plan.
"If they still refuse treatment after 14 June, we will win in the courts. There is no argument against it. If the South African government doesn't move within a year we will ride smash-bang into the elections. I believe they'll give in. But in that time hundreds of thousands will die. There are 7,000 on treatment in South Africa right now. But even 500,000 treatments aren't enough."
What's his take on the government's stubborn refusal to offer treatments? Is it just economic expediency?
 Gillian Anderson (aka Scully from the X-Files) supporting TAC on the recent demo. "The South African government can't just sweep Aids under the carpet," she said. |
"They have the money to pay for it. Last year KwaZulu Natal province lost 200 teachers. The prison service found that 25 per cent of officers retired, but 46 per cent left the service because they died. Multiply that across the civil service. Even poor women dying in rural areas represent a huge economic loss. In paediatric wards 40-90 per cent of children are in there with Aids.
"Government is not one entity though. Our Medicines Control Agency has licensed the manufacture of two HIV generic drugs and is set to license all the others. The Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is behind treatment because the World Bank have told him to be. There have been threats of resignations from the cabinet but no one will publicly oppose President Thabo Mbeki." In Zackie's opinion, "Mbeki is a true denialist - the rest are just loyalists." As for Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who recently said that garlic and potatoes could cure Aids, Zackie's comment is "I don't think she has a brain one way or another."
Gradually the entire establishment in South Africa is being won over.
TAC itself has now expanded to 110 branches countrywide: "We aim to have a branch in all 358 heath districts of South Africa," says Zackie. A vital part of TAC's campaign is to train up doctors and nurses. "Four out of nine provinces spent less than 30 per cent of their Aids budget last year. Pfizer's programme of free fluconazole (for fungal diseases like cryptococcal meningitis) has been reaching 20 per cent of those who need it. There are almost no doctors or nurses who understand anti-retrovirals treatment guidelines."
And if you do win on 14 June? "They think we'll just give up and melt away. But there are other campaigning targets. We'll be back in London. Wait and see!"
