Reported U.S. decision to end AIDS relief for South Africa is as reasonable as it is tragic

PRETORIA – The reported United States decision to terminate funding to South Africa under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is as reasonable as it is tragic, according to Lex Libertas. According to the report, the decision follows the South African government’s failure to address a list of basic concerns outlined below.

Lex Libertas does not celebrate the possibility that vulnerable citizens may lose access to vital HIV-related treatment and support. The tragedy is that ordinary people may now bear the cost of the government’s destructive ideological choices.

Dr Ernst Roets, executive director of Lex Libertas, said the outcome was avoidable.

‘The government was given repeated opportunities to address reasonable concerns, but chose ideological defiance instead. The American response is therefore reasonable, even though its consequences may be deeply tragic,’ Roets said. He added that accountability for government policy should not be confused with hostility towards the people of South Africa. The dispute concerns deliberate choices made by political leaders despite repeated warnings.

According to a report in The Daily Caller, the United States required the South African government to:

1. Provide exemptions or alternatives for American companies subject to Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment requirements and other race-based mandates;
2. Ensure that senior government officials unequivocally condemn all race-based incitement to violence, including the chant ‘Kill the Boer’;
3. Prevent measures that would permit expropriation of property without fair compensation and due process;
4. Designate rural crime as a priority crime and increase resources allocated to high-crime rural areas; and
5. Refrain from significantly interfering with the implementation of the American refugee programme within the confines of South African law.

These conditions correspond closely with issues Lex Libertas and other organisations have repeatedly raised in South Africa and internationally.

‘The government still has an opportunity to prevent further damage,’ Roets said. ‘But this will require it to abandon ideological posturing and address the substantive concerns that have been placed before it. Blaming the United States will not restore funding, repair diplomatic relations or protect vulnerable patients.’

Lex Libertas calls on the South African government to address the substance of the American concerns rather than blaming the United States for the consequences of its own policies.

Lex Libertas is a think tank and advocacy group working towards a viable political dispensation in South Africa, based on the principles of freedom, decentralisation and self-governance.