10 March 2002
Yesterday President Thabo Mbeki met President Jimmy Carter of the United States, at the request of the latter.
President Mbeki was accompanied by the Minister of Health, the Honourable Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the Director General in the Presidency, the Reverend Frank Chikane.
President & Mrs. Carter were accompanied by representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, including Mr. & Mrs. Bill Gates Snr, and the head of the Carter Centre.
President Carter said he had sought the meeting to offer the assistance and support of the Carter Centre and the Gates Foundation in our campaign against AIDS.
For this reason, he offered that the Centre and the Foundation could co-sponsor an international conference on this issue, in part to generate resources to support our efforts.
He said he was aware that there was some controversy in the country about the issue of anti-retroviral drugs. He had no desire to enter this debate.
This was because he did not believe that drugs were central to the fight against AIDS. Even in the US, various complications relating to these drugs had not been resolved.
In addition to helping us to generate additional resources especially to intensify our public awareness campaign, he was interested to help in changing any existing negative perceptions of South Africa internationally.
President Mbeki and his delegation informed President Carter of the country's comprehensive programme on AIDS of which he was not aware and requested him to raise international awareness of the programme.
He also undertook to respond to the proposal for an international conference, after consulting with the Minister of Health and the Cabinet.
We are therefore very surprised at the public comments made by President Carter after this meeting. We believe that honesty should characterise the conduct of public affairs.
We are also surprised at the comments made by the delegation about anti-retrovirals drugs in general and Nevirapine in particular.
We do not understand why US citizens urge this drug upon us when the health authorities in their own country do not allow its use for mother-to-child transmission. One of the reasons for this is that these health authorities say that there is insufficient data about issues of the safety of the drug.
We find it alarming that President Carter is willing to treat our people as guinea pigs, in the interest of the pharmaceutical companies, which he would not do in his own country.
The comments he and others made after meeting with President Mbeki indicate the true purpose of his visit to our country, which was arranged without the knowledge of the government.
Once more, we would like to assure President Carter that our government is firmly committed to meet the health challenges facing our people, including AIDS, STD's, TB, cholera, malaria and others.
For this, we do not need the interference and contemptuous attitude of President Carter or anybody else. As South Africans, we have the possibility to find solutions to our problems, as the people of the US have.
We are not arrogant to presume that we know what the US should do to respond to its many domestic challenges. Nobody from elsewhere in the world should presume they have a superior right to tell us what to do with our own challenges.
For more information, contact Smuts Ngonyama at 082 569 2061