African rights
From Mr R.W. Johnson Sir: Essop Pahad's letter about me (30 September) is misleading on many different levels: 1. He writes that I 'purport to write on behalf of a foundation he heads which enjoys the respected patronage of Helen Suzman'. I did no such thing: I wrote in my own name. I would never purport to repre- sent Helen's — or, indeed, anyone else's views. Essop Pahad, as a leading member of the South African Communist party, is, of course, used to a situation where every- one has to take the same line on pain of expulsion.
2. Pahad attempts to vilify Helen Suz- man's old party — originally the Progres- sive party, today the Democratic party — as somehow complicit in apartheid. This is nonsense. The party was founded in 1959 to oppose apartheid with the slogan 'Merit not colour' and it never advocated the vote `only for hand-picked blacks'. What Pahad has to say on this score is just crude SACP propaganda.
3. Pahad challenges me to name any occasion on which President Mbeki has said that HIV does not cause Aids. Okay: President Mbeki recently told parliament in Cape Town that 'a virus (HIV) cannot cause a syndrome (Aids)'. As no less an authority than Hoosen Coovadia, chair- man of the recent World Aids Confer- ence, has pointed out, President Mbeki's view that poverty causes Aids can hardly account for babies — who have known neither wealth nor poverty — that are born HIV positive.
4. Pahad says that I 'have never so much as met' Mbeki. Untrue: I have met him several times.
5. Pahad says I make allegations of insan- ity against Mbeki: actually, I argued that such interpretations of his behaviour were less likely than a more complex form of denial.
6. Pahad says that I 'call the party of Mandela and Mbeki racist and the old apartheid party liberal'. I said neither thing: I said Mbeki's stand was clearly racist and I made no mention of the old National party at all. Incidentally, the two chief grounds for questioning Mbeki's judgment — his support of Mugabe and his denial of the HIV-Aids link — have now led former President Mandela to dissociate himself publicly from Mbeki, declaring that HIV does cause Aids and that it is high time for Mugabe to resign. I strongly support Man- dela's stand on both issues.
R.W. Johnson
Johannesburg, South Africa
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