DURBAN—Fireworks, both physical and verbal, marked the opening of the XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, which runs July 9-14. The theme of "Break the Silence" may mark a turning point in dealing with the epidemic, at least in this nation.
A Saturday demonstration drew thousands, 5-10 depending upon who you listened to, to demand an end to South African government inaction, access to AIDS drugs, and significantly lower prices from pharmaceutical companies.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela the guiding moral force of the new nation, was one of the principle speakers. The event drew members of ACT UP from chapters around the world and conference delegates. But the protesters were primarily South Africans, seemingly from every social, racial, and ethnic corner of society.
Gregg Gonsolves, with the Treatment Action Group in New York City, called it "their FDA demo, their storm the NIH." It was mostly young South African men and women who are infected with HIV.
"The energy was incredible," said Ann Donnelly with Project Inform in San Francisco. "It may have an impact in terms of community organizing and empowerment."
"This whole experience has felt very much like 1986," said New York activist Gary Rose. "It was the energy of those people, them continuing in spite of everything going wrong that could have gone wrong, and it didn't stop it."
"The situation has clearly shifted," said Bill Arnold with the ADAP Working Group in Washington, D.C. "The question is, how far and how fast? How many people will die in the meantime?"
South Africa President Mbeki marked the official opening later that evening with an address to the conference delegates. Some had hoped that the President would make a major policy announcement, or perhaps separate himself from the small faction of dissidents who deny that HIV is the cause of AIDS. They were disappointed with a rather perfunctory speech.
"I was hoping and praying that he would find a way to gracefully back out of this madness," Phill Wilson, an African-American AIDS activist from Los Angeles told the local newspaper The Mercury. "The house is on fire and Mr. Mbeki is sitting around trying to decide whether it was started by a lighter or a match."
Mbeki took another hit at the opening plenary session July 10, this time from Justice Edwin Cameron. He is a member of South Africa's highest court, openly gay, and one of the most prominent people in the nation who is open about living with AIDS.
"I exist as a living embodiment of the iniquity of drug availability and access in Africa," said Cameron. "On a continent in which 290 million Africans survive on less than one U.S. dollar a day, I can afford monthly medication costs of about US$400 per month." He lambasted international agencies, national governments, and the pharmaceutical industry that "have failed us in the quest for accessible treatment."
He compared the moral issues to those of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa when he said, millions will die "because available treatments are denied to those who need them for the sake of aggregating corporate wealth for shareholders who by African standards are already unimaginably affluent." Refusal to act at this point is "genocide."