Mandela repudiates Mbeki on AIDS stance

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Reuters) -- Former President Nelson Mandela has repudiated the controversial position on AIDS of his successor, Thabo Mbeki, saying HIV is the primary cause of the disease that threatens to kill six million South Africans.

In an interview published by Independent Group newspapers on Friday, Mandela, 82, said he would respect "the dominant opinion which prevails throughout the world" that HIV causes AIDS until he was shown conclusive and scientific proof this was wrong.

Mbeki, who succeeded Mandela in June last year, has taken the opposite view, saying he will not accept the link unless it is proved anew by an international panel he has appointed to test the link between the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS.

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Appearing to suggest that Mbeki should align himself with the scientific community, Mandela said: "I would like to be very careful because people in our positions, when you take a stand, you might find that established principles are undermined, sometimes without scientific backing."

Welfare Minister Zola Skweyiya told reporters earlier this month the AIDS pandemic would kill about six million South Africans over the next 10 years if it was left unchecked.

More than 10 percent of South Africans -- about 4.2 million people -- carry the HIV virus and the disease is spreading in the country faster than anywhere else on earth.

Since Mbeki first voiced his doubts in the upper chamber of parliament last year, only one cabinet minister from the ruling African National Congress, Labor Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, has dared to say publicly that HIV causes AIDS.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang told a news conference last week she had never denied a link, but became angry when pressed to state that HIV did cause AIDS, saying: "You cannot put words into my mouth ... I am not a schoolgirl."

Mbeki told parliament last week his strategy to fight AIDS was based on the "thesis" that HIV caused AIDS, but refused to say he accepted the link.

In a statement strongly contested by doctors, he told legislators that a virus could not cause a syndrome.

Asked in a recent interview with Time magazine whether he would acknowledge a link, Mbeki said: "This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus."

AIDS activists charge that Mbeki's reluctance to acknowledge a link is undermining efforts to promote safe sex amongst young people and to help HIV-positive mothers protect their babies.

The powerful South African Congress of Trade Unions (Cosatu), Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane and opposition leaders have repeatedly urged Mbeki to abandon his skepticism and put out a strong message on the HIV-AIDS link.

Mandela has been careful to avoid criticizing Mbeki, but in his interview with Daily News editor Kaizer Nyatsumba, he said his successor worked under great pressure and added "... now and again (he) must come under severe criticism."

He also criticized Mbeki's reported refusal to meet white opposition leader Tony Leon, head of the Democratic Alliance, saying that dialogue was the only way to resolve problems.

Mandela, who retired without seeking a second term as president, criticized Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe for clinging to power.

"I would have wished that somebody would talk to (him) to say: Look, you have been in office for 20 years. It's time to step down," he said.

Mandela said he accepted that the skewed distribution of land between blacks and whites needed to be addressed, but added he had serious reservations about what he called Mugabe's "use of violence and the corroding of the rule of law."

About 30 people have died and scores have been injured in a struggle over land largely owned by farmers from the tiny white minority. A collapse of international confidence in Mugabe's rule has driven the economy to the brink of collapse.

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