THE Democratic Alliance (DA) has published yet another "hit list" to follow its ranking of the country's worst hospitals. The new list ranks SA's top AIDS dissidents.
In reality, though, the list appears mainly to be a ranking of people who irritate the DA. Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad is on it. So are writer-lawyer Ronald Suresh Roberts and lawyer Christine Qunta, whose low estimation in the eyes of the DA would not surprise any regular reader of this newspaper.
But sympathising with people who might be AIDS dissidents does not necessarily make the supporters or sympathisers dissidents themselves. Christine Qunta is suing this newspaper, for instance, on behalf of a real AIDS dissident, a German charlatan who claims to be able to cure AIDS with vitamins.
That doesn't make Qunta an AIDS dissident. Lawyers who defend murderers aren't killers themselves. Roberts, who admires President Thabo Mbeki, who probably would qualify as a dissident, could not possibly be labelled one himself on the basis of the few lines of support he has offered Mbeki on AIDS. He is writing a book on Mbeki, and has done little more than suggest Mbeki was right to stress the value of nutrition in fighting the disease.
And Essop Pahad? If he has defended Mbeki, it is because that's his meal ticket. No one listens to Essop Pahad any more.
The DA has clearly used its "research" to settle some personal scores. It does itself no good at all. In particular, health spokeswoman Dianne Kohler-Barnard is developing a reputation as a thoroughly unreliable source of information on her specialist subject.
It was Kohler-Barnard who penned a letter to newspapers a few months ago alleging, quite incorrectly, that Matthias Rath had been accused of murder in Germany. That's why Christine Qunta is suing this newspaper, and, we presume, the DA on Rath's behalf. Little wonder Qunta is on the DA list.
Roberts's articles attacking Leon for his activities in military service and in which he has raised Leon's father's past as a hanging judge would no doubt also have marked him for inclusion on the "dissident" list. But if the DA had any courage it would have included two names it would no doubt rather not -- noseweek editor Martin Welz, for being the first to promote dissident views on AIDS in his magazine, and writer Rian Malan, for effusively backing Mbeki on AIDS.
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