Chengiah Ragavan is an old comrade of mine who in the 1980s invited me and a couple other activists to form with him 'African National Congress Formation Group, Montreal Chapter'. Chengiah always presents a frank, multi-sided presentation of the political situation.
-Andrew W. Taylor
http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2001/120601/news5.html
Muddling through catastrophe
by WAYNE HILTZ
Teaching sociology at Concordia and fighting tooth and nail against apartheid in his native land during the 1980s and early '90s, South African exile Chengiah Ragavan was widely known as an uncompromising seeker of truth and fighter for justice.
Returning briefly last weekend at a local gathering of dozens of old friends and students, the former African National Congress...Montreal representative and a renowned race-relations scholar showed that he has lost none of his radical fire. Ragavan spoke frankly about the many serious problems facing his country--deep popular frustration at the lack of real change, the economic control by Western financial interests, and rampant violence and crime.
Last, but certainly not the least, his country is going through a full-blown AIDS crisis that affects about 4.5-million people, or one out of nine South Africans. Ragavan feels that President Thabo Mbeki has gotten a bad rap after reportedly denying that HIV causes AIDS--a statement picked up and widely played in the Western media.
As a parliamentary researcher on the issue before leaving South Africa two years ago, Ragavan argues that the president's position is more nuanced. "[The HIV denial] is not exactly what Mbeki stated," he asserts. "He said that HIV does cause AIDS but there are also other causes such as abject social conditions."
Ragavan points to a UN report released last week on AIDS in former Soviet republics such as Ukraine that essentially backs up that view. "If you're only talking about HIV causing AIDS, that's a limited discourse," Ragavan concludes.
The extent of the South African AIDS epidemic has spurred the creation of a powerful anti-AIDS movement that remains highly critical of President Mbeki's increasingly isolated position. The South African leader has come under intense fire for his statement that anti-retroviral drugs are toxic and for his refusal to declare the disastrous situation as an emergency, which would entitle the country to produce cheaper, generic drugs without breaking World Trade Organization rules.
There has also been a more paranoid response to the AIDS epidemic. Many township youth, says Ragavan, are convinced that the virus is a form of "bio-terrorism" to limit population growth in Africa. "They believe that it's not an accidental plague that has visited the world. Scientifically, of course, that can't be taken seriously."
A lot of blame for the AIDS crisis in South Africa can be laid at the government's feet. But the strategies and investment choices made by powerful external organizations are another major factor in its spread and lack of prevention. Ragavan discovered that the World Bank's $300-million (U.S.) earmarked for fighting AIDS in Africa is going much more to multinationals, particularly pharmaceuticals, to do research and to agencies who have spent funds on "plush offices" and other bureaucratic expenses.
"Why aren't the primary health-care providers on the ground receiving any sums of money from the various regional organizations set up by the World Bank?" he demanded. "It's a tragedy to see people dying in the numbers that they are and very little is being done."
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