SOUTH AFRICA: The death of the high profile African National Congress leader, Mr Peter Mokaba, rekindled speculation yesterday that he was another prominent casualty of AIDS which, according to UNAIDS figures, is still gathering momentum in southern Africa.
Mr Mokaba, a former president of the ANC Youth League who was the ANC's chief election strategist, died at his home in Johannesburg on Sunday aged 44. The ANC chief spokesman, Mr Smuts Ngonyama, attributed his death to natural causes, noting that Mr Mokaba was suffering from "acute pneumonia linked to a respiratory problem".
But the question many South Africans asked was whether AIDS had turned pneumonia into a fatal disease. They remembered that he had been forced to retreat to his home in 2000 to convalesce from another unknown illness.
A man with a fiery past, who won notoriety in the white community for leading ANC rallies in the chanting of the slogan "Kill the Boer, Kill the farmer", he appeared to be much more reflective since his mysterious illness.
Mr Mokaba was adamant he would never take anti-retroviral drugs. Instead, he would eat fresh vegetables and go on long walks to guard against a resurgence of the illness he had in 2000. Within a month he was dead. His family had the solace of hearing him acclaimed as a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle by South Africans of varying ideological persuasions, from President Thabo Mbeki downwards.