Pharmageddon Chapter 12

New York Thursday 3 February

The rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council was in the hands of India, which had been elected as one of the two non-permanent members representing the Asian region on the fifteen-member security council a year earlier. Ambassador Divesh Dutta occupied the hot seat.

In terms of the UN Charter, members of the security council must be available to meet at any time. None of the Southern African nations were current members of the council – the three seats reserved for Africa were held by Nigeria, Tanzania and Morocco – but South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland were invited to attend since their countries were under discussion.

After brief formalities Dutta invited Folbert to brief the Council, and the head of the WHO ran through his presentation from the previous day.

Dutta then deferred to the South African ambassador, Aaron Gumede, who loudly renewed his government’s ‘anger and dismay at the unilateral decision by the UN to withhold ARV supplies – an action which has directly precipitated the crisis which we are here today to discuss.’ The ambassadors for Lesotho and Swaziland spoke in similar vein.

Dutta was ready for this, and delegates were handed a fat folder of supporting documents and, even more tellingly, sat through a 20-minute video documentary, largely consisting of interviews with doctors and patients who confirmed that they were unable to deliver, or receive, ARV treatment in public hospitals. The three ambassadors made no response to the presentations but put on a show of disbelief, shaking their heads and muttering among themselves.

Finally the security council president tabled a draft resolution, proposing the deployment of a peace-keeping force to protect public hospitals in the four countries from armed aggressors, and to ensure the resumption of second-line ARV treatment, within a month.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have no plans to meddle in the functioning or sovereignty of those countries in any way. The proposed mandate allows for intervention solely in the delivery of public health service provision, and expires as soon as universal treatment has been restored.’

Dutta looked at the ambassadors from the three southern African countries before continuing.

‘The draft resolution offers an incentive to the host countries – they will not be asked to recover or account for drugs which may have been... removed... from public dispensaries. Instead, hospitals protected by UN troops will be directly supplied with second-line ARVs. In this way we believe we can limit AIDS-related mortality and the collateral deaths to which Dr Folbert referred, to almost negligible levels.’

The Swazi ambassador, Thomas Dlamini, signaled his desire to respond and Dutta yielded to him.

‘Mr president, although we appreciate the offer to supply ARVs to our public health facilities, we do not accept the need for foreign armed forces on our soil. I speak for all of our countries when I say if these drugs are supplied to our governments, we can guarantee that they will be distributed to all who need them.’

Dutta waited for a response, and the hands of several members were raised. He recognized the British ambassador, Lord Winthrop.

‘Mr president, we have just heard compelling evidence that the South African government, and those of Swaziland and Lesotho, are either unwilling or unable to distribute the ARVs they already have. Although I have great respect for my friend Mr Dlamini I would suggest that his government is simply not able to make good on his promise. The British government will vote in favor of this resolution, and issues an impassioned appeal to the governments of all three countries to give their full support to this initiative. It would appear that they have everything to gain, and nothing to lose.’

Winthrop was followed by Philip Grogan for the United States. ‘We’re also broadly in agreement with the resolution, Chair, although we would like to see a clause which acknowledges that UN supervised hospitals and clinics would be foreign territory, much like an embassy or UN mission, for the duration of the mandate.’

The three ambassadors from southern Africa make a show of their disapproval of this idea. Chinese ambassador Weng Shung was next. ‘Mr president, the People’s Republic of China has great respect for the sovereignty of these three nations, and respects their decisions in all domestic matters. We offer our sympathies and support to them in overcoming the challenges they are facing, and we will not agree to the deployment of foreign forces on their soil without their express invitation. Until such an invitation is forthcoming, China will veto any attempt to impose the will of foreign nations on them.’

The unbridled joy of the three ambassadors was in stark counterpoint to the stunned silence in the rest of the room.

Istanbul Friday 4 February

The call that took me back to South Africa came from a regular stringer in Cape Town. Thami Abrahams was one of a small but growing group of citizen journalists who had acquired semi-official status as correspondents for The World Online. He wrote under the alias Whineman, a conflation of his work as an itinerant wine-maker and his talent for reporting the ‘whining’ of politicians. Living in Cape Town he was certainly in the right place, since it is the seat of South Africa’s parliament, and he’d become a fixture in the public gallery and corridors of that institution, regularly unearthing stories that had eluded the old media.

‘Hey Gipsy, I was thinking it’s time for another tour of the winelands.’ Thami was a great guide to the hundreds of wineries around Cape Town, and he’d introduced me to some of the best wines I’d tasted anywhere. And believe me, this is a hard thing for an Australian to admit.

‘Any excuse will do, BT!’ Everyone called him BT, for Bra – or ‘brother’ – Thami. It stuck from his schooldays. ‘So what’s yours?’

‘Oh that’s easy. Wine is the only thing that takes away the pain of seeing my country coming apart at the seams.’ There was an undercurrent of real pain in his voice.

‘BT, are you alright?’

‘Ja, Gipsy. It’s no use complaining – nobody listens. But seriously, I think you should come and visit us, if you can. Something really big is about to happen here. Politically.’

‘Shouldn’t you be telling Georghe? Or Enoch?’

‘No, this is for you.’

‘And I guess it has nothing to do with wine?’

A tiny pause. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he wasn’t laughing. Then quite softly: ‘No, this is really serious, Gipsy...’

‘BT, you know how I love your part of the world, and even that dreadful stuff which passes for wine down there...’

‘It’s linked to pharmageddon.’

‘Ah.’ Actually, I was itching to see for myself what was going on in South Africa since they rejected the UN offer of a supervised reintroduction of second-line ARVs. But there was the small matter of my spat with the honorable minister of health.

‘Is Colin Makeba in Cape Town?’

‘No, parliament isn’t in session. All the ministers are at one of their strategy meetings at some luxury resort. Swallowing the taxpayer’s Blue Label. You don’t have to worry about him – I can promise you that.’

‘I’d love to know how you can make a promise like that, BT.’

‘You’ll understand when you get here. This is... very sensitive, so I can’t tell you more. Not even a hint. But if you can get here within 72 hours you’ll see it for yourself. It won’t be a wasted trip.’

‘Okay BT, let me see what I can do. I’ll get back to you.’

Cape Town Sunday 6 February

The approach to Cape Town International Airport is one of my favorite landings anywhere. Twenty minutes before landing, the watercolor smears of the Karoo desert give way to a series of arid gray mountains and brilliant green valleys, decorated by vineyards and fruit orchards. On a clear day you can see vast wheat- fields stretching off to the north, filling the plain between the mountains and the icy blue Atlantic.

Passengers on the right of the plane, which by now is gliding silently to lose altitude, are treated to a view of Paarl mountain – the second largest granite outcrop in the world, named by the early settlers for the pearl it imitates when the light catches it at the right angle – while those on the left look over the green patchwork of the Franschhoek valley which holds not only some of the most expensive farmland in the country but also the prison from where Nelson Mandela was finally released.

A moment more and these pastoral scenes are yanked away and replaced by streets, houses and malls, and the Airbus banks hard left on final approach to the airport. But the turn means passengers on the left are treated to a view of the university town of Stellenbosch, which is the hub of the wine industry, while those on the right hit the jackpot – the sudden unveiling of Table Mountain and the great city and harbor cradled in its outflung arms which, until now, had only been visible to the pilots. There’s nothing like it.

Whineman was waiting for me, looking a bit tense. He wasted no time in getting me to his battered 3-series BMW, and out of the airport complex. He avoided the freeway which could have taken us to the city, and headed south into the townships.

‘Is everything OK, BT? Somebody chasing us?’

He chuckled. ‘Ag no, Gipsy. It’s just... a busy time. I want you to meet some people.’ 

‘Some of your gangster friends?’

When we’d last met, BT told me about his childhood in these badlands, south of the airport, and how many of his friends were drawn into the violent gangs which ruled them. He smiled, a little tightly. This was definitely not the Thami I knew, but I couldn’t decide whether he was frightened, angry or excited.

‘Ja, you could say that. But these are political gangsters, not drug dealers.’

He focused on driving, and I thought back to the wonderful day we’d spent touring some of the region’s wineries. In between teaching me about Cape wines he’d told me about the ethnic schisms which divide and define his country, and about his own group – the so-called colored people – who were forcibly removed by the apartheid government from their homes in the embrace of Table Mountain, and moved to the wind-swept area we were now driving through.

He’d explained that the coloreds, like the mestizos of Latin America, bore the genetic imprint of pretty much everyone who passed this way – the indigenous Khoikhoi or Bushmen, the early Dutch settlers, the slaves they imported from Malaysia and Indonesia in the 17th century, and the Bantu who migrated south in the past couple of centuries.

Unfortunately alcohol and drugs established a strong foothold in his community, spawning gangs and druglords. I’d seen something similar in the Caribbean, where many of the wealthiest members of society would be hard-pressed to explain their affluence, if anyone dared ask.

BT said that, ‘on the flats’, every young man faced a critical decision – to go straight, or to go easy. Unfortunately either choice could end with a bullet, because these crowded suburbs were some of the most violent places on earth. I wondered briefly whether I should have arranged some discreet security, but I didn’t have the same sense of impending disaster that I’d had in Pretoria, three weeks earlier.

After a few minutes BT stopped his BMW outside a little house, in a row of others exactly like it. As we reached the front door it was thrown open by a huge man dressed in a black suit. At first I took him for a bodyguard or gang-boss, but then I saw the dog-collar of a Christian cleric hidden underneath the folds of his chin. Without a sound the giant grabbed BT in what looked like a wrestling hold, then just as suddenly let him go and turned to me. Just as I was deciding whether to run or surrender, a rather flushed BT introduced me.

‘This is Dr Gipsy North, from The World Online...’ 

Goliath’s face dropped into a look of mock amazement. ‘Are you kidding me? THIS is the famous Dr Gipsy North?’

Before I could ask the giant what he was expecting, he loomed over me and I braced myself for the crunching of bones, but he merely held his right hand out to me, palm upward. I didn’t see any thorns that I could remove in order to save my life, but when I took his hand to shake he leaned forward with surprising grace and gently kissed my hand. I curtseyed, silently thanking the nuns for giving me at least one useful skill.

‘Gipsy, any friend of Shan Gupta is... very welcome here.’ This suited me just fine. I wanted this man on my side.

‘Thank you... reverend?’

He reared back and turned to BT who was grinning at this little pantomime, and looking a lot more like the old Thami Abrahams I knew. But then the mother of all fathers grabbed him around the neck and pretended to bash his head in.

‘Have. I. Taught. You. No. Manners? You. Forgot. To. Introduce. Me. To. The. Lady!’

Once more disentangled, but with his hair and clothing looking like he’d been set upon by a pack of cocker spaniels, BT completed his task. ‘Gipsy, may I present the Reverend Dr William Abrahams, the chairman of the Cape Colored Alliance. And my big brother.’

BT told me later their school-teacher father died of TB when he was still a baby, and his mother followed suit – of alcoholic liver disease – a few days before his tenth birthday. He was taken in by his older half brother, Billy, who had been ‘set free’ by his own mother when he turned 16, and was making a living as a night-club bouncer, among other things. When BT’s schooling was over he went to work as an apprentice wine-maker, and Billy announced he was enrolling at a catholic seminary.

Inside Billy’s tiny living room I was introduced to a small gathering of men and women, all of whom seemed genuinely pleased to meet me. It transpired many of them had been involved in AIDS activism, working closely with the legendary Zachie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign, which had done so much to break down government resistance to antiretroviral treatment in South Africa.

Once the introductions were done, I tried to find out what BT was being so secretive about. ‘So how are people making out here in the Cape? I mean in terms of ARVs?’

BT’s mountainous brother was clearly the leader of this genteel gang, because everyone waited for him to answer.

‘Gipsy, we’re doing much better than the rest of the country. It’s true that the police grabbed the ARVs out of our hospitals, but they only did it because we asked them to. To keep them away from the gangs. But they are keeping the clinics supplied, and nobody in this province is going without ARVs.’

‘Nobody?’

He looked me in the eye. ‘Everyone who was getting ARVs before, is getting them now. There’s no treatment interruption in the Cape.’

I was amazed that BT hadn’t written a word about this for The World Online. But then I realized he would have been crazy to say anything – it would have been an invitation to... well, hang on a sec! If the cops were in on it, what about the politicians? I asked.

‘We’re all on the same side here, Gipsy.’

‘Then... I’m confused.’ I looked over at BT, who was looking just a touch pleased with himself.

‘It’s like Billy says – the local politicians are working with us, so are our cops. If I’d written anything about this – if any of the media had – Pretoria would be all over us, trying to get us to hand over our ARVs. They must know that treatment is carrying on here, but they don’t want people in the rest of the country to hear about it because it would make them look bad.’

‘And a lot of people would come here to get treatment, I suppose?’ It seemed like an obvious thing to say but, judging from the reaction in the group, it was a direct hit.

‘It’s just a matter of time before they come, Gipsy.’ Billy’s voice sounded like it was coming out of a deep cave. He must have delivered a sensational sermon. ‘As soon as it becomes public knowledge that there are ARVs in Cape Town, we will be swamped.’

I had a lot of questions, and they had a lot of answers. The Western Cape province – known to all as ‘the Cape’ – had always been different to the rest of the country. It had a different climate, different landscape, and a much more cosmopolitan feel to it. The ethnic makeup of the Cape was also dramatically different, with about half its people being ‘colored’, compared to the 80-percent dominance of Africans in the rest of the country.

The Cape was the only one of South Africa’s nine semi-autonomous provinces which was not controlled by the African National Congress – and it also had by far the lowest HIV prevalence, and by far the best response to the epidemic.

The Cape Colored Alliance turned out to be a bit like the Freemasons – a low-profile association of influential people, looking after each other. Since ‘each other’ meant the majority of the people of the Cape, this also meant looking after their province. Their influence was exercised through every facet of government service, the political parties, churches, trade unions, business and, as I had just learned, the media. I was left in no doubt that, in this part of the world, these men and women called the shots.

When BT first heard about the looting of ARVs he told Billy, who got on the phone to the police. His next calls were to the five men who controlled the drug-trade in the province.

‘I told them – these are the Lord’s drugs. They are out of bounds. I may have said a few other things. They listened.’ His audience chuckled, the way that powerful people do.

‘Then we told every doctor and nurse at every clinic to issue only a week’s worth of ARVs at a time, so they don’t have a lot of drugs lying around, and we also told them to tell their patients to say nothing to anyone about these ARVs. We said – if you tell anyone, we’ll find out, and next week there will be nothing for you.’

‘Has it worked?’

He shrugged. ‘Ja, kind of. People whisper, you know. But they know it’s a secret, so it hasn’t got too far. The other thing we did was to go looking for suppliers of ARVs. The one thing that you can’t teach any Capey is how to get drugs!’

This time the group erupted in laughter, and it seemed to be a cue to hand out a fresh round of beers, which were very welcome in the stifling heat of the tiny sitting room. I guessed it was a kind of compliment that I hadn’t been asked if I wanted my frosty in a glass.

‘So, Billy, are you getting fresh supplies of ARVs right now?’

‘Not yet. We could get stolen drugs but we turned those down. These are the Lord’s drugs – we don’t want to buy them from the devil. We’ve been talking to the drug manufacturers, and to some international organizations, just so they know we aren’t in the same boat as the rest of the country.’

I could see he didn’t want to be drawn on the exact details, but I felt sure he was talking about the UN. I made a note to check with Nikki. ‘So how long can you last without fresh supplies?’

‘About one more month. The private hospitals and pharmacies are working with us. Like I said, we’re all on the same side.’

‘This is just wonderful, Billy. But... I’m wondering why you invited me here. You obviously don’t want me to write about this.’

Billy looked over at his brother with pride. ‘Well done, boetie. You really didn’t tell her anything.’ BT beamed and Billy turned back to me.

‘No Gipsy, we want you to witness something else.’

I noticed the group was very still, all staring at me. I looked back at Billy. ‘Let’s hear it.’

‘Tomorrow night we’re going to close our borders with the rest of the country.’ 

‘You’re... what?’

‘We’re going to declare our independence from South Africa. We’re going to secede.’

I’m glad now that I couldn’t see myself. I must have looked like a nut case, just staring at Billy and the others. Wouldn’t be surprised if my mouth was open. Oh god. I remember wondering why they invited me to hear this? Georghe would sell his mother to be here.

I must have said something, but all I remember is that BT described how they had canvassed the various political parties in the province, the police, the military, the hospitals, and had been amazed to find how receptive they all were to the idea. What sounded at first like a joke rapidly morphed into an inevitability. But everyone knew they had to move fast, or not at all.

Logistically it was not difficult. Most of the Cape is shielded from the rest of the country by a great arc of mountains – the same ones I’d admired earlier from the aircraft. Physically isolating the province meant cutting off a handful of road- and rail-passes over those mountains, as well as the roads along the narrow coastal plains to the east and north. Air and sea ports were easily controlled, especially since the chief of the navy – based at Simonstown – was a co-conspirator, as was the commander of the local air-force base at Langebaan.

They did not foresee a military response from the Pretoria-based government – at least not in the short-term. I drew a round of guffaws at the mere idea that anything could happen quickly. However, in time, an armed response of some kind was inevitable, as all the implications of the move sank in.

I was surprised to find that BT was doing most of the talking, and it dawned on me that his monumental brother may have the authority, but Whineman was the brains of the outfit.

‘Our trump-card is the navy,’ BT said. ‘We have four frigates in Simonstown, and they have 76mm guns which can stop tanks on either of the coastal approaches. And we can easily defend or sabotage the passes through the mountains.’

‘What about the airforce?’ I didn’t expect what seemed like a perfectly logical question to trigger a round of head-shaking and sneers from the group. BT looked embarrassed, but Billy silenced the others with a wave of his hand.

‘Ag, I’m sorry Gipsy,' he rumbled. 'It’s a good question. I’m not sure if you know about the Gripen fighters our government bought? With the same money we could have introduced ARVs five years earlier. Well, we’re laughing because there’s nobody to fly those planes. The air-force doesn’t have any pilots qualified to fly them – only three guys who are certified to train pilots but, guess what – all three are here in the Cape!’ This time I joined in the laughter.

I could see BT was looking at his watch and trying to catch his brother’s eye. Finally he did so and tapped the dial. Billy reacted immediately.

‘Gipsy, we have to go to meeting. Final arrangements for tomorrow. We’ll drop you off at the Mount Nelson and pick you up around noon tomorrow. Then we’re driving up to a place called Three Sisters, in the Karoo. That’s where history will be made.’

From Billy’s little home in Manenberg, the Abrahams brothers drove me around the side of Table Mountain, pointing out landmarks as though we were out for a Sunday drive. We passed the hospital where the world’s first heart transplant took place, and got a bird’s eye view over the city, harbor and, out in Table Bay, the little island which had been home to Nelson Mandela for 27 years. A couple of minutes later they dropped me off at the Mount Nelson Hotel, a grand old pink landmark.

I was waiting for one of the brothers to ask me not to breathe a word of their plans, but they didn’t. They didn’t have to.

Three Sisters, Monday 7 February

Driving through the Karoo reminded me of the Australian outback. In the main city of Beaufort West the only thing I saw up close was the bathroom in a gas station – an urgent necessity after a six-hour drive from Cape Town. When I emerged, BT and Billy were waiting at the car with a bucket of fried chicken, French fries and coke. My last meal was brunch at the Mount Nelson, eight hours earlier, so I suspended my usual resistance to force-fed fowl, re-heated oil and sugar-water, and tucked in while they told me that the doctor who conducted the first heart transplant at the hospital we passed yesterday was born right here.

An hour or so later, just as the sun was setting behind us, we turned onto an unmarked gravel road. A couple of hundred yards further on, hidden from the highway by a small hill, we found a group of military and police vehicles. A soldier carrying an automatic rifle flagged us down but, after a short exchange we were waved on and BT parked his BMW next to a large trailer, which turned out to be the command centre, where we were greeted with minimal formality.

Billy took a moment to introduce me to the officer in charge – an army major who was all business. The man greeted me civilly but I could see his mind was on the task at hand as he ushered us into the trailer which, blessedly, was air-conditioned. Inside we found two more men, one a provincial traffic policeman and the other an officer in the regular police service. Both seemed to have a lot of gold braid on their uniforms. Introductions over, the army major launched forth in Afrikaans but, at a word from Billy, switched mid- sentence to English.

‘...so I said anyone who has a problem with what we are doing here can leave.’ 

‘Did any go?’ Billy asked.

The major remained deadpan. ‘No, I told them if they wanted to go, they’d have to stay on the northern side of the border after we close it.’

The men snorted appreciatively, and the major continued. ‘But they want to know how much force they must use... to stop people getting through.’

Billy responded immediately. ‘No killing. Under no circumstances. Even if we get fired on. And don’t shoot out their tires or do anything to disable their cars – they have to be able to get back to Colesberg. The word from Cape Town is to use the Casspirs as a barrier and a show of force.’

One of the cops spoke up. ‘Reverend, you know that we’ll all have to disobey direct orders – from Pretoria?’ 

‘We’ve been through that, captain...’

‘Ja, I know, and I’m not arguing. My question is – what do we say to other officers who come from Colesberg or Bloemfontein and demand that we stand down?’

‘The provincial commissioner raised that last night. The decision was for each force to say they are just supporting the others. So you refer any police to the major here, and he refers any army guys to you. You all say you are acting on orders from Cape Town, and that you can’t make a decision here – their chiefs in Pretoria must sort it out with your chiefs in Cape Town.’

The men seemed okay with that – I guessed that buck-passing was old hat to them. The discussion dragged on, and soon slipped back into Afrikaans. After a while I caught BT’s eye and gestured that I was going outside.

The night was warm, pitch black, and dripping with the smell of charred animals. I followed my nose and found thirty or so young men standing around a barbecue, with a single gas lantern providing the shadows. Somebody saw me coming and the group fell silent, then a guy in a uniform of some kind came over to me.

‘Good evening, ma’am. Do you want something to eat?’

‘Thanks – but I was hoping somebody would offer me a drink.’

‘Hey, are you Australian?’

I knew what was coming next, so I tried to dodge the bullet. ‘Yeah, but a very bad one – I don’t follow rugby or cricket...’ In Oz this would be no laughing matter, but here it seemed to melt the ice.

Unfortunately there were no beers on offer but I was handed an icy can of grape juice and the guys started quizzing me about my home country. They seemed disappointed when I said I hadn’t lived in Oz for nearly 20 years, but they soon got over it and asked instead about my work. It was interesting to discover that, out of a collection of army grunts and two flavors of cop, gathered in the middle of the desert at the bottom of Africa, all but one knew and used The World Online. It was equally interesting that not one of these men volunteered the reason they were here, or asked why I was there. Actually, I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

After a while BT and Billy joined us, along with the officers, and the burned offerings were duly consumed. Fortunately there were some potatoes and corn on the cob, which were pretty good. I was trying to eat them off a paper plate when I was approached by a young man in army uniform.

‘Dr North, I am Corporal Eric Zondi. I’m... a big follower of TWO.’ He glanced around to see if anyone else was listening. ‘I’m Jimmy9,’ he murmured.

I get this all the time. TWO stringers come up to me and introduce themselves as though they are long-lost friends. The truth is that it’s nearly always impossible to remember anything they’ve posted – but this time I did.

‘Of course, Jimmy... I mean, Eric. I look out for your posts.’ I wasn’t flattering him – he’d posted many stories about AIDS in the military, specifically the systematic victimization of HIV positive soldiers in an attempt to drive them out of the force. 

All this bigotry achieved, of course, was to discourage soldiers from being tested for the virus, and to force those who knew they were infected to say nothing, which is a far more dangerous situation. Jimmy9 exposed the truth in a series of posts which, although they needed quite a bit of editing, were detailed and compelling. I was pretty sure the army would love to find out who he was.

‘Eric, how do you feel about what you’re doing here?’

‘It’s about time,’ he said earnestly.

‘Aren’t you worried? About what the rest of the country might do?’

He shrugged. ‘Ja, maybe. But life is cheap in South Africa. At least this makes it interesting.’

‘Eric, there must be lots of your mates who support the Pretoria government. How will they feel about this?’

He looked at me a little surprised. ‘But doctor, I support the government. I grew up in an ANC family, my uncle is a member of the provincial parliament. But... this is different. This is about survival. What they’re doing in Pretoria... it makes no sense.’

I remembered now just how clear-sighted his posts to TWO were, and told him so. I was sure I could see him beaming in the darkness.

‘Eric, I hope you will write about tonight, and what happens after today... from the heart. I’ll arrange to have you upgraded so you get some more of our magic string. If you like?’

The last bit was meant as a joke – who wouldn’t like more stringettes? But he didn’t laugh. ‘Thank you. I wish I could buy even more. Our rand will be worth nothing before long.’

It hadn’t occurred to me to wonder what tonight’s events would do to the already battered South African currency, but I realized now that our stringettes – which were pegged against the Euro – would be a great hedge. I made a note to ask BT how they planned to insulate an autonomous Cape against the financial collapse in the rest of the country. I felt sure he had an answer.

But when I did link up again with BT we got talking about military strategy instead.

‘It’s all about bluff, really. We’re counting on people not wanting to hang around in the desert, in the middle of summer. But if they get serious about breaking down the roadblock we’ll fall back to Beaufort West and blow up a couple of bridges. That’ll slow them down a bit...’

‘And if they keep coming?’

He shook his head. ‘If they keep coming, we can’t stop them. But the mountains can.’ 

‘Which means sacrificing the Karoo?’

‘Ja. It may come to that.’

‘And the coastal routes?’

‘No, like I said yesterday, we have the navy. And they have fucking big guns. We’re hoping Pretoria will think very hard about taking them on. But... Gipsy, the truth is we’re counting on them to wimp out. We’re doing this thing to save lives – we don’t want to start a war, which will end up killing a lot of people.’

Suddenly I knew why I was here. ‘You want to know what I think will happen...’ I said it under my breath, as the thought occurred, but I saw the confirmation written over BT’s face, in the stark light of the gas lantern.

‘Gipsy, we’re committed to this. We think South Africa... South Africans... are going to turn against each other. But, if we’re wrong, they’ll turn on us. It’s... a huge gamble. It all depends on the epidemic, and there’s nobody who has a better perspective on AIDS than you.’

Still the question was unasked, but I thought I’d take a stab at it anyway. ‘So it’s all in the timing? Go too soon, and everyone will think you’re crazy – including the people whose support you’re counting on. Go too late, and you’ll be swamped by people trying to get your ARVs, and there’ll be nothing to protect?’

He nodded gravely. ‘Exactly. So... how good is our timing?’

‘Mmm, my sense is that you’re in a kind of... calm before the storm. Most people are still hoping the rumors were right – that ARVs weren’t helping, or were making things worse.’

‘But... in the Cape we heard those same rumors, yet everyone is still taking their ARVs.’

‘Yeah. So you’re all waiting to hear whether patients who can’t get their medications are going to die.’ BT’s face was a picture of conflicting emotions. ‘And are they?’

I thought back to my call to Miu Andersson at UNICEF last night. She’d been collecting unofficial data from her contacts in government hospitals, which pointed to a doubling of AIDS-related mortality every three weeks. But the actual numbers were still small, which meant the trend wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who didn’t have the figures. At least not yet.

‘BT, I’d say you’ve got your timing just about right.’

He stared off into the blackness. Overhead the stars were brilliant. The sound of the highway was muted behind the hill. ‘Oh man. I can’t believe we’re gambling on... so many deaths. How did we get to this?’ 

+++++

At one in the morning the major ordered his sergeant to muster the men, and ten minutes later the vehicles were moving. It took only a minute to reach the highway, and a few more to a kind of picnic spot, where the road was wide enough for articulated trucks to turn around.

Approaching traffic would be alerted by police signs, then they’d see army troops with automatic weapons, and armored trucks drawn across the road. Generator-powered floodlights cast a brilliant light over the scene.

Although the scene would have panicked me, I learned that roadblocks like this were not unusual on this road, looking for traffic violations and contraband. This explained why the drivers of the first few trucks to arrive – there were very few cars at this time of night – looked relieved when they were simply told to turn around and go back because there ‘was a problem on the road’.

The acid test soon arrived in the form of a minibus taxi. These 15-seaters are the mainstay of public transport in South Africa, and their drivers’ tempers and bad driving are legendary. Their passengers, too, were not likely to be indifferent to the news that they couldn’t get to their destination. However the sight of armed soldiers and the refusal of a traffic official to enter into discussion sent the first few back the way they had come.

I noticed BT was taking video with his cellphone. I was doing the same with my minicam, which was streaming the images live to Istanbul, just as my handheld and headset had done with every word I’d heard or uttered since I arrived.

I cornered Billy and BT. ‘So what’s the deal here, guys? When are we going to tell the world?’

Billy chuckled deep in his chest. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Gipsy! We want everyone to know. My boetie has written some stuff on what’s happening here, but we’re counting on you to make everyone take us seriously.’

We moved back to their car where I checked over Whineman’s carefully crafted story. I’d been working on one of my own at the Mount Nelson and in the car, so we were ready to roll. I hated to wake Jim at this ungodly hour but I knew he’d give me a mauling if I didn’t, so I called him first, then asked Nerisha to kick-start our stringers, so they could flesh out the story.

Inside half an hour the world knew that South Africa – in a political sense at least – was coming apart at the seams.

The night became more interesting as frustrated motorists gathered in the darkness beyond our floodlights. After a while it occurred to me to wonder why no vehicles were approaching from the Cape Town side, and BT explained they were being turned back at Beaufort West, creating a no-man’s land about 60 miles wide.

I could see the junta, as I thought of the field commanders of the three forces, watching the situation closely, but they weren’t looking too worried. I walked over and asked what they thought would happen next. 

The major responded. ‘We think they’ll hang around until they hear the news on their radios. Then my guess is they’ll head back north, to Colesberg or Bloemfontein. They may come over here and try a bit of begging and pleading – it won’t get them anywhere.’

‘And you’re not worried about any kind of violence.’

‘Ag no, ma’am. I’ve got a couple of heavy machine guns mounted up there...’ he gestured to the top of the armored trucks, ‘and they make a hell of a noise. If we even see a gun we’ll fire off a few rounds into the desert, just to give them a fright... they’ll shit in their pants.’

But it didn’t come to that – at this road-block, or the other three which had been set up at the same time. By dawn there were no vehicles in sight, and we heard the traffic police were turning south-bound traffic back at Colesberg.

At 6am the news on radio and TV led with an interview with the premier of the Western Cape, saying the political parties had formed an alliance with the backing of the armed forces to ‘isolate’ the province for a period of one month. BT murmured that the reference to one month was a strategy to ‘keep the temperature down’.

The newscast included a clip from the national president, saying that there was obviously some kind of misunderstanding somewhere, and it was only a matter of time until it was sorted out. A bemused political analyst implied the whole thing was absurd.

+++