| Odoslal: | Martin Rusnak |
| Dátum: | December 29, 1998 o 21:20:10 |
| Subject: | article from today’s New York |
In sorrow,
The Global Health Council
________________________
The New York Times
28 December 1998
NEIGHBORS KILL AN H.I.V.-POSITIVE AIDS ACTIVIST IN SOUTH AFRICA
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A volunteer working to persuade
South Africans not to
discriminate against HIV-infected people was beaten to death
last week by her neighbors, who
accused her of bringing shame on their community by revealing
that she was HIV-positive.
The killing scared other anti-AIDS advocates and said it proved
what they have said for years --
although 3 million South Africans are infected with the virus
that causes AIDS, nearly all are afraid to
admit it because of the hostility they face.
The woman killed, Gugu Dlamini, 36, a volunteer field worker for
the National Association of
People Living With HIV/AIDS, went public on World AIDS Day, Dec.
1, speaking about her HIV
infection on Zulu-language radio and on television.
Since then, according to nurses who knew her, she was repeatedly
threatened by neighbors in her
township of KwaMashu, outside Durban, who said she was giving
their community a bad reputation.
Last Monday, she was punched and slapped by a man who told her
that many others who were sick
kept quiet about it.
South Africa has the world's fastest-growing AIDS epidemic,
according the the latest Unaids
reports, and KwaZulu-Natal, where Ms. Dlamini lived, is the
worst-hit province. Up to 30 percent
of adults there are infected.
Although Ms. Dlamini called the police that day, they did
nothing, friends told a local newspaper.
That night, a mob attacked her house and stoned her, kicked her
and beat her with sticks. She died
the next day.
"She was a nice, bright woman, and now her child is an orphan
because of AIDS," said Mercy
Makhalemele, a Durban-area administrator for the association.
"But not because she died of it.
Because she was trying to exercise her constitutional right to
freedom of speech."
Prudence Mabele, the first black South African woman to admit
being HIV-positive, said she was
threatened many times after coming forward in 1994. She moved out
of her township into downtown
Pretoria largely out of fear, she said. A gay San Francisco group
wrote letters to her local police
station then, and it seemed to help. "But I just don't know if
people should come out now," she said
Sunday.
Kevin Osborn, a former local leader of the association, said he
thought the killing would "put the
cause of people with AIDS two steps back."
Ms. Makhalemele said she was not sure, thinking it might
galvanize anger in the small activist
community.
They have an uphill task. The head of the association, Peter
Busse, said last month that fewer than
100 of the country's 3 million infected people were completely
open about it. "When something like
World AIDS Day comes around, we have trouble finding 20 people to
go on television and radio
shows," he said.
Ms. Dlamini's death is not going to galvanize much right now.
U.S.-style activism about AIDS does
not exist in South Africa, and all the association's chapters are
closed for Christmas-summer
vacation. "I'm waiting for Jan. 4. to make a big hoo-hah about
this," Ms. Mabele said. Ms.
Makhalemele said she hoped to have a protest march in Ms.
Dlamini's memory organized by late
March.
A spokesman for the KwaZulu-Natal health department called the
attack "sheer stupidity" and
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who promoted AIDS awareness in his
Christmas message to the
nation, said: "It is a terrible story. We have to treat people
who have HIV with care and support,
and not as if they have an illness that is evil."
-end Program staff:
__________________________
*********************************************************************
The Global Health Council (formerly NCIH)
Global AIDS Program
1701 K Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20006
tel: 202-833-5900
fax: 202-833-0075
email: < AIDS@globalhealthcouncil.org>
website
Ron MacInnis, Director (ext. 209)
Kim Parvez, Program Assistant (ext. 206)
Kim Green, Program Officer (ext. 215)
Ladi Olorunyomi, Program Officer / Global AIDSLink Editor (ext. 214)
Satya Krishna, Special Advisor on South Asia (ext. 213)
Patricia S. Fleming, Program Consultant
Carol Miller, Director of Advocacy
207)
**************************************************************************
Nasledujúce správy:
Odpovedať na správu: