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IRP Gatekeeper Editors See South Africa’s Hope and Misery

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - "The inequalities are vast."

The speaker was South African Anglican Archbishop Njongokulu Ndungane, successor to Desmond Tutu. As dynamic and thoughtful as his predecessor, he was reflecting on the state of his country eight years after the first free elections. Though there is much reason for hope, he said, "we have policies that are making rich people far too rich and poor people poorer."

It was the final day of a two-week "IRP Gatekeeper" fact-finding visit to SouthAfrica for 12 U.S. news editors, and the archbishop's comment summed up much of what the editors had seen and heard. South Africa combines the richest and poorest of Africa: a country of huge potential still fighting enormous problems that stymie its development.

On the one hand, South Africa enjoys a high literacy rate of 92 percent, a healthy yearly economic growth of three percent, and political stability in the wake of the historic 1994 elections that enfranchised black voters after decades of apartheid rule by the white minority. With vast diamond, gold and mineral resources, the country's promise is huge: its economy already comprises nearly half of all production in sub-Saharan Africa.

But a staggering AIDS epidemic - arguably the most severe of any country in the world - and persistent widespread poverty among its majority black residents are major problems. On the issue of income inequality, "there has to be a greater sense of urgency," said U.S. Ambassador Cameron Hume. Per capita income for South Africa's blacks is $1,000 a year. For whites it is $7,000.

Saki Macozoma, one of South Africa's half-dozen most powerful black business executives, said the encouraging signs include a "significant growth in the black middle class," primarily in South Africa's public sector. "One has to begin where we came from: people shouldn't underestimate the devastating impact of apartheid," said Macozoma, the CEO of New Africa Investments Limited, a black empowerment company, said. "Ten years ago it was illegal for a black person to form a company. There has been a lot of progress."

Yet nearly a decade after the historic 1994 elections that lifted Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) to power, there are signs that many black South African citizens are running out of patience at the slow progress of equalizing income. Unemployment is increasing, partly the result of old inefficient businesses dying off as the country shifts to a post- apartheid economy.

"In the shacks, the anger is simmering," said Eugene Mokgoasi, a 42-year-old former political prisoner on Robben Island near Cape Town, the same island where Mandela had spent years as a prisoner under apartheid. Now a tour guide at the former prison, Mokgoasi believes South Africa will face a "crisis" when Mandela, the frail, 84-year-old former president dies and his policy of "reconciliation" between whites and blacks will be sorely tested.

Under Mandela's successor, President Thabo Mbeki, the ANC governs without major political challenge, despite sporadic bombings attributed to a fringe, right-wing white group that may be seeking to undermine the government. Yet some South African critics think Mbeki is more interested in playing a leading role in African regional politics than in tackling the serious social and economic issues at home, such as the devastating impact of AIDS.

"To the president I would say: "Pay attention to the [nation's] roots - the people," said Buleneni Mvotho, an AIDS activist at the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in the Khalitchiya township outside Cape Town.

 

The IRP editors spent much of a day at Khalitchiya, visiting an AIDS clinic supported by the international group Doctors Without Borders. Among the residents the editors spoke to was Nosisa Dyasi, a 37-year-old HIV-positive mother of four who lives in a shack in the barren Driftsands neighborhood. Dyasi receives medicine for infections but she is one of the millions without access to antiretroviral therapy that could conceivably save her life.

One of 4.5 million South Africans living with HIV/AIDS in a population of 40 million, Dyasi faces the likelihood of an early death unless there is a radical shift in government priorities. Government health officials acknowledge that they have wasted valuable time gearing up to treat South Africans affected with HIV. Many blame President Mbeki, whose well-known questioning of the causal relationship of HIV and AIDS has earned him international criticism and spawned great frustration among health professionals in South Africa.

In early 2002, South Africa's highest court ruled expectant mothers with HIV have a legal right to the drug nevirapine, which has been shown to stem the transmission of HIV from mothers to children. Since then, under pressure from activists and overseas groups, the government has finally stepped up its anti-AIDS campaign, both medically and through education. Each year, the government distributes 350 million condoms.

But because of the late start, much suffering looms on the horizon. The average life expectancy in South Africa is expected to drop in this decade from 59 to 49. By the year 2010, a quarter of all South African children aged 10 to 14 will be orphaned because of AIDS deaths. The impact of the disease on the country's economy has been enormous. At some of South Africa's largest and best-known companies, more than 25 percent of the workforce is infected with the HIV virus. Socially, the disease has made it more difficult to bridge the already-enormous gulf between the haves and have-nots.

"AIDS accentuates the differences between the rich and poor," said Warren Parker, director of the Center for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE) at a briefing for the IRP editors. Health insurance is not available for most of South Africa's poor; without it, the antiretroviral drugs needed to fight AIDS are unaffordable.

At a visit arranged by CADRE, the gatekeepers went to an AIDS orphanage called Bethesda House, run by the Salvation Army, in the sprawling black township of Soweto, near Johannesburg. At the orphanage, 24 children have died of AIDS since it was opened in 1993. Volunteers and caregivers do their best to comfort the children, but antiretroviral medicine is not available for treatment.

Carolyn Bolton, a doctor who works at a nearby clinic at the huge Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, said despite the court case that established the right to use nevirapine for expectant mothers, the drug is not available because of bureaucratic delays and inefficiency. Each day in South Africa, she said, 200 children are newly infected with HIV. "More children are infected in two days in South African," Bolton said, "than in the U.S. in a whole year."

Archbishop Ndungane said the country is "haunted by the stares of the orphans" and decried the "lack of forthright and decisive leadership by the government" on the HIV/AIDS issue. Though full of praise of President Mbeki on other issues, the archbishop said the South African leader "has a blind spot on AIDS." Political leadership on the AIDS issue is important in Africa, Ndungane said. In Uganda, for example, presidential leadership on the AIDS issue has helped to reduce infection rates.

Macozoma, the business executive, said the importance of addressing the AIDS issue is vitally connected to strengthening the country's economic well-being and proceeding with the goal of black empowerment. Because of South Africa's unique stature and potential, the future of all of Africa depends on South Africa's success, he believes.

"This country has the possibility of making an impact on the continent that is major," Macozoma told the IRP editors. "It can do that only if it's own house is in order."

Editors said the two-week trip to South Africa, organized with the help of Jerri Eddings, director of the Foundation for African Media Excellence, opened their eyes to many important issues. "The insights the trip provide were enormous," said Ann Hellmuth, assistant managing editor of the Orlando Sentinel. "The horror of AIDS and the eventual impact it could have on the rest of Africa and the world was brought home immediately."

David Michelmore, assistant managing editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said: "I am certainly more attuned to stories from South Africa than I was before and that should mean that we will do a better job of getting those stories into the paper."

For Deanna Sands, managing editor of the Omaha World-Herald , the trip was a chance to hear from a wide variety of citizens of South Africa, as the group's meetings included interviews with top government officials as well as shantytown dwellers. "I've traveled in developing countries before but haven't had the opportunity to hear from their respective elected leaderships," Sands said. "This time I got to compare 'on the street' with what's happening behind the big doors."

Each year, the International Reporting Project organizes a trip for up to a dozen senior U.S. "gatekeeper" editors to one important country. In previous years, editors visited Indonesia and Brazil. Information on the 2003 gatekeepers trip will be announced early in the year.

 

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The gatekeepers who participated in the South Africa trip were:

Don Belt, senior editor National Geographic Magazine
Teresa Castle, foreign news editor, San Francisco Chronicle
Andy Halper, senior producer/news & public affairs, Thirteen/WNET New York
Ann Hellmuth, associate managing editor/national & foreign, Orlando Sentinel
Charles W. Holmes, foreign editor, Cox Newspapers
Denise Johnson, editorial board member, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Renee Loth, editor, editorial pages, The Boston Globe
David Michelmore, assistant managing editor/news, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Deanna Sands, managing editor, Omaha World-Herald
Vernon Smith, deputy foreign editor, Dallas Morning News
Peter J. Spielmann, international desk editor, The Associated Press
Elisa Tinsley, world editor, USA Today

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