51st National Conference of the African National Congress
Encyclopedia
The 51st ANC
National Conference was held in 2002 at the University of Stellenbosch in Stellenbosch, Western Cape
. At this conference, Thabo Mbeki
was re-elected as president of the party.
had died because of consumption of antiretrovirals. The paper was derided by ANC member Dr. Saadiq Kariem as "ludicrous", and international criticism of the stance eventually forced Mbeki to back off from his public stance on AIDS reappraisal.
In 2007, a biography on Mbeki mentioned the author's secret contact with the president during the writing of the biography. Mbeki admitted to the authorship of the document and also confided his feelings on why he had assumed his position on AIDS and HIV
in the first place.
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
National Conference was held in 2002 at the University of Stellenbosch in Stellenbosch, Western Cape
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
. At this conference, Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mbeki
Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki is a South African politician who served two terms as the second post-apartheid President of South Africa from 14 June 1999 to 24 September 2008. He is also the brother of Moeletsi Mbeki...
was re-elected as president of the party.
AIDS reappraisal document
During this conference, an anonymously-authored document, titled Castro Hlongwane, Caravans, Cats, Geese, Foot & Mouth and Statistics: HIV/Aids and the Struggle for the Humanisation of the African, was distributed to party members, alleging that presidential spokesperson Parks Mankahlana and AIDS/HIV icon Nkosi JohnsonNkosi Johnson
Nkosi Johnson was a South African child with HIV/AIDS, who made a powerful impact on public perceptions of the pandemic and its effects before his death at the age of 12. He was ranked fifth amongst SABC3's Great South Africans...
had died because of consumption of antiretrovirals. The paper was derided by ANC member Dr. Saadiq Kariem as "ludicrous", and international criticism of the stance eventually forced Mbeki to back off from his public stance on AIDS reappraisal.
In 2007, a biography on Mbeki mentioned the author's secret contact with the president during the writing of the biography. Mbeki admitted to the authorship of the document and also confided his feelings on why he had assumed his position on AIDS and HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
in the first place.