Over the past year Ronald Suresh Roberts has hounded the author William Gumede for ‘plagiarism' on the basis of the latter's weak referencing (subsequently corrected) in the 2005 version of his book on Thabo Mbeki. In Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, June 2007, Roberts complained that Gumede had "stolen whole phrases, paragraphs, facts and concepts from a whites-only panel of journalists." He furthermore poured scorn on Anton Harber's argument that while Gumede and another author had both used "some of the same quotes ... these were common quotes doing the rounds at the time."
In a lecture on August 6 Roberts sanctimoniously described "making excuses for plagiarism" as one of the expressions of "functional illiteracy." He opined: "In a properly functioning literary culture, plagiarism is the cardinal sin, for obvious reasons. It is a theft from another writer and it is a fraud upon readers. It defeats the orderly circulation of ideas. It spells a lack of integrity."
However, in a bizarre twist Anthony Brink - the AIDS dissident whom Roberts first befriended and then betrayed - has now accused Roberts of plundering his work for the two chapters on AIDS in Fit to Govern. In his manuscript Lying and Thieving: The fraudulent scholarship of Ronald Suresh Roberts [PDF] Brink accuses Roberts of stealing his work, his ideas, his prose, and his research. This is a story which, if made up, would - as P.J. O'Rourke once put it - get you drummed "out of the Subtle Fiction Writer's League." Brink's plagiarism claims against Roberts were duly reported on in The Weekender last Saturday. The key question is do they hold up to scrutiny? To answer that, it is first necessary to sketch some of the background, before going on to evaluate some of the material itself.
The contract Roberts signed with ABSA on January 13 2004 for the writing of the Mbeki book required that he "devote himself to the Book full time until the Completion Date and refrain from taking up any other employment or doing anything else which will have a negative effect on the Author's ability to comply with the provisions of the Timetable and in particular to complete the Book by no later than the completion date." In return ABSA promised to fund Roberts with a R1,2m sponsorship which would run from 15 December 2003 (backdated) to March 31 2005, by which time the manuscript was supposed to be complete.
However, Roberts - who was still working on his biography of Nadine Gordimer - was only able to produce a rough draft by the end of March 2005. This initial version (then titled ‘Fit to rule?') had no AIDS chapter to speak of, just an assemblage of long and mainly irrelevant quotes. The extension of the ABSA sponsorship was dependent on Roberts producing a proper section on HIV and AIDS by August 29 2005, and having a penultimate manuscript ready by September 19 2005. Once again his time was squeezed by his work on the Gordimer biography, which was eventually to be published in October 2005.
In the circumstances Roberts's meeting with Brink was a fortuitous one (for Roberts at least). While Roberts was starting from close to zero, Brink had already accumulated a huge collection of material on the controversy that had erupted as Mbeki had challenged the Western orthodoxy on HIV/AIDS. This included a great deal of ‘oppo research' on Mbeki's opponents on the AIDS issue, such as Judge Edwin Cameron and Zackie Achmat, the leader of the Treatment Action Campaign.
Brink writes that he met Roberts at an Exclusive Books in Cape Town in April 2005. They struck up a conversation and Brink told Roberts that he was working on a comprehensive analytical history of the AIDS controversy in South Africa, titled ‘Just say yes, Mr President': Mbeki and AIDS. Brink claims that Roberts asked to see his working draft and they headed back to his flat, where Brink burned the manuscript onto a CD. He also gave Roberts a copy of The trouble with nevirapine and Debating AZT.
Brink and Roberts proceeded to form a tight friendship, with Brink proof-reading the manuscript for No Cold Kitchen - A biography of Nadine Gordimer. At that time Roberts viewed the terms "AIDS dissident" and "AIDS denialist" interchangeably - using both terms to describe Brink in the Gordimer biography. In one passage he quoted Brink quoting Edwin Cameron, which he referenced as follows: "Cameron, Carte Blanche, 4 November 2001, quoted by Advocate Anthony Brink, Just Say Yes, Mr President." In another, he praised Brink's "acid Swiftian wit" in the manuscript.
It is common cause then that by October 2005 Roberts had received Just Say Yes, read it, used it, and appreciated it. He had also needed it. But did he steal from it for Fit to Govern?
Brink claims that Roberts's "thieving" extended from quotes and facts to themes and ideas. It is difficult to assess the latter without having access a full manuscript of Just Say Yes. An audit of the more concrete claims in Lying & Thieving suggested that many of Brink's complaints are well-founded. In some cases Roberts does seem to have an autonomous source for his information, even if it was first brought to his attention in Just Say Yes. There are numerous instances, however, of Roberts directly taking (without attribution) Brink's research and incorporating it into his book.
Many of the quotations Brink collected were rare (unlike the ones Gumede used). They were often copied across from newspapers or television programmes or, in at least one case, translated from Afrikaans. Many are inaccessible through Google (other than from Brink's own website) and it is highly unlikely that Roberts would have chanced upon them independently.
Moreover, there is compelling evidence that Roberts' simply cut-and-pasted quotes and sections from Brink's manuscripts. The same quotes with the same cuts and the same ellipses are arranged - in a number of instances - in the same order in Brink's work and Fit to Govern. In at least two cases Brink's minor transcription errors are carried across into Roberts's work. In all but one of the cases examined and listed Roberts failed to reference Brink's work (and even there the reference was partial). On many occasions Roberts seems to have simply copied Brink's attribution, and then pasted it into his own as the reference.
Below are seventeen examples of Roberts using Brink's work without providing proper attribution in return.
1.) BRINK ON THE ‘HIT HARD, HIT EARLY' APPROACH
In his manuscript of Just Say Yes Mr. President Brink wrote:
[The] New Scientist reported on 16 December 2000, under the headline, No More Cocktails, that: ‘Four years of "hit hard, hit early" HIV treatment may be on the way out in the US, as evidence mounts of the drugs' serious side effects. AIDS experts in the US are about to complete a humiliating U-turn when the Department of Health and Human Services launches its revised HIV treatment guidelines in January.' The language couldn't have been stronger in a popular science magazine characterised by its allegiance to the commercialised scientific establishment.
As leading US AIDS journalist Laurie Garrett put it in Newsday on 17 January 2001, ‘Instead of telling American physicians to "hit early, hit hard", a policy in effect since 1996 that calls for giving HIV-positive patients powerful drug cocktails before the patients actually experience any symptoms of illness, the new National Institutes of Health guidelines will call for caution and delay in treatment.' She mentioned an epiphany arrived at by ‘prominent AIDS physician' Charles Carpenter of Brown University, a member of the AIDS advisory committee to the NIH, which he shared with the Royal Society of Medicine in London in a speech he had given in December: ‘In retrospect, we now realize the risk of drug toxicity is greatly enhanced by taking these drugs early.' Which your regular guy might suppose means that the sooner you start taking your poison, the sooner you flake. NIAID's Anthony Fauci, one of the Co-Chairs of the panel convened to review the official treatment regime, agreed, more or less, that not only is the medicine dangerous, it doesn't even work: ‘It's clear we're not going to eradicate the virus with the drugs we have now. And we're starting to see a greater and greater realization of the accumulation of toxic side effects.'
2.) On pg 185 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
The New Scientist stated on 16 December 2000: ‘Four years of "hit hard, hit early" HIV treatment may be on the way out in the US. AIDS experts are about to complete a humiliating U-turn when the Department of Health and Human Services launches its revised HIV treatment guidelines in January [2001]'. Laurie Garrett wrote in Newsday, on 17 January 2001: ‘Instead of telling American physicians to "hit early, hit hard", a policy in effect since 1996 that calls for giving HIV-positive patients powerful drug cocktails before the patients powerful drug cocktails before the patients actually experience any symptoms of illness, the new National Institutes of Health guidelines will call for caution and delay in treatment.' Garrett quoted Brown University's Charles Carpenter, a member of the US regulatory panel: ‘In retrospect, we now realise the risk of drug toxicity is greatly enhanced by taking these drugs early.' Anthony Fauci, who served as co-Chair of the same regulatory panel explained why AIDS orthodoxy had shifted away from the Ho approach: ‘We're starting to see a greater and greater realisation of the accumulation of toxic side effects.'
NOTE: There is no reference to this passage in the footnotes.
2.) BRINK QUOTING JOEL NETSHITENZHE
In his March 15 2000 article for Village Voice, "Flirting with pseudoscience" Mark Schoofs reported:
The president, an Internet enthusiast, "has read much literature on the issue of AIDS, including the literature of those who might not hold the conventional view," said Joel Netshitenzhe, chief of government communications. "And the question he has posed from time to time is whether there has been sufficient interrogation of the issue. He merely says, 'Instead of believing, be sure you have established the facts.' And I thought that would be a measure of a good president."
In Just Say Yes Brink rendered this passage as follows:
Mbeki spent November and December 1999 reading. And reading. Joel Netshitenzhe, director of government communications, confirmed that he had ‘read much literature on the issue of AIDS, including the literature of those who might not hold the conventional view. And the question he has posed from time to time is whether there has been sufficient interrogation of the issue. He merely says, "Instead of believing, be sure you have established the facts." And I thought that would be a measure of a good President.'
On pp. 191-192 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
Joel Netshitenzhe, director of government communications, summed up Mbeki's Socratic approach: The President had ‘read much literature on the issue of AIDS, including the literature of those who might not hold the conventional view. And the question he has posed from time to time is whether there has been sufficient interrogation of the issue. He merely says, "Instead of believing, be sure you have established the facts." And I thought that would be a measure of a good President'.
NOTE: There is no footnote to either Just Say Yes or Schoofs. In Schoofs article Netshitenzhe's quote begins before "has" it begins after the "had" in Brink's and Roberts'.
3.) BRINK QUOTATION OF A BBC NEWS ARTICLE ON MANDELA
On March 2 2003 BBC News online ran article by David Dimbleby on a programme called
Nelson Mandela: The Living Legend to be broadcast on BBC One on Wednesday 5 and 12 March 2003. It contained the following passage:
The epidemic was well established when he [Mandela] was campaigning for election as president. He intended to speak about it but met a setback.
"Africans are very conservative on questions of sex. They don't want you to talk about it. I told them we have got this epidemic which is going to wipe out our nation if we don't take precautions.
"Advise your children that they must delay as much as possible before they have sex. When they do, let them have one partner and condoms.
"I could see I was offending my audience. They were looking at each other horrified."
He was advised that to talk about it might lose him election. "I wanted to win and I didn't talk about Aids."
Once safely in the presidency he still demurred. Judge Edwin Cameron, a leading Aids campaigner and himself HIV positive, believes he should have made it a national priority.
"He more than anyone else could through his enormous stature have reached into the minds and behaviour of young people," he said.
"A message from this man of saint-like, in some ways almost god-like stature would have been effective. He didn't do it. In 199 ways he was our country's saviour. In the 200th way he was not."
Mr Mandela's defence is that he had no time to concentrate on the issue. He was fully occupied trying to prevent the country falling into civil chaos, even war.
But he implicitly accepts the criticism. "It's no use crying over spilt milk," he said.
Brink renders these quotes as follows in Just Say Yes:
Mandela would be reborn as a believer much later on, following an evangelical visit to his home by Judge Edwin Cameron. Mandela unconvincingly explained his indifference to the festivities to David Dimbleby in the documentary Nelson Mandela: The Living Legend, broadcast on BBC One on 5 and 12 March 2003:
Africans are very conservative on questions of sex. They don't want you to talk about it. I told them we have got this epidemic which is going to wipe out our nation if we don't take precautions. ‘Advise your children that they must delay as much as possible before they have sex. When they do, let them have one partner and condoms.' I could see I was offending my audience. They were looking at each other horrified.
So he took his advisors' advice to drop the subject, he said: ‘I wanted to win and I didn't talk about AIDS.' Why didn't he start jabbering about AIDS after winning, then? Because he ‘had not [had] time to concentrate on the issue'. In any case: ‘It's no use crying over spilt milk.' About which Cameron remarked: ‘He more than anyone else could through his enormous stature have reached into the minds and behaviour of young people. A message from this man of saint-like, in some ways almost god-like stature would have been effective. He didn't do it. In 199 ways he was our country's saviour. In the 200th way he was not.'
On pg. 191 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
To see that Achmat has lied, look no further than what his drug-lobby ally, Cameron, said of Mandela: ‘He more than anyone else could through his enormous stature have reached into the minds and behaviour of young people. A message from this man of saint-like, in some ways almost god-like stature would have been effective. He didn't do it. In 199 ways he was our country's saviour. In the 200th way he was not.'
Actually, Mandela told the BBC in an interview that he had deliberately downplayed AIDS because his advisors told him that to talk about it could cost the ANC votes in the 1994 election.
Africans are very conservative on questions of sex. They don't want to talk about it. I told them we have god this epidemic which is going to wipe out our nation if we don't take precautions. ‘Advise your children that they must delay as much as possible before they have sex. When they do, let them have one partner and condoms.' I could see I was offending my audience. They were looking at each other horrified. I wanted to win and I didn't talk about AIDS.
NOTE: In his footnote Roberts has two references:
[191 Edwin Cameron, quoted in the BBC 1 documentary Nelson Mandela: The Living Legend, broadcast on 5 and 12 March 2003.
191 "He more than anyone else...": Nelson Mandela, interviewed by David Dimbleby, BBC Documentary, "Nelson Mandela: The Living Legend", BBC One, 5 March and 12 March 2003."]
Apart from the error in the footnoting ("he more than anyone else" is a quote from Cameron) it seems that Roberts has not just copied the quotes from Brink but his attribution as well. An accurate reference would be to the source article (from BBC News online 2 March 2003) not to the documentary aired in two parts two weeks later.
4.) BRINK QUOTING MBEKI ON ‘SALESPERSONS' FOR AZT
On March 26 2000 Adele Sulcas reported in the Sunday Tribune on a letter sent by Mbeki to a "well-known Cape Town immunologist Dr Jonny Sachs." It reported:
In his response to Sachs Mbeki insists the debate must remain open: "I am taken aback by the determination of many people in our country to sacrifice all intellectual integrity to act as salespersons of the product of one pharmaceutical company." This refers to Glaxo Wellcome, the British manufacturers of the anti-HIV drug AZT.
"I am also amazed at how many people, who claim to be scientists, are determined that scientific discourse and inquiry should cease, because ‘most of the world' is of one mind."
"The debate we need is not with me, who is not a scientist, but (with) the scientists who present ‘scientific' arguments contrary to the ‘scientific' view expressed by ‘most of the world'.
"By resorting to the use of the modern magic wand at the disposal of modern propaganda machines, an entire regiment of eminent ‘dissident' scientists is wiped out from public view, leaving a solitary Peter Duesberg alone on the battlefield insanely tilting at the windmills."
In an electronic version of Debating AZT, dated September 2004, Brink renders this passage as follows:
Mbeki also answered a letter from Cape Town immunologist Dr Johnny Sachs, deploring "individuals in leadership positions" doubting the integrity of the HIV/Aids causation model: "I am taken aback by the determination of many people in our country to sacrifice all intellectual integrity to act as salespersons of the product of one pharmaceutical company [AZT manufacturer, GlaxoWellcome.]... I am also amazed at how many people, who claim to be scientists, are determined that scientific discourse and inquiry should cease, because ‘most of the world' is of one mind... The debate we need is not with me, who is not a scientist, or my office, but [with] the scientists who present ‘scientific' arguments contrary to the ‘scientific' view expressed by ‘most of the world'... By resort to the use of the modern magic wand at the disposal of modern propaganda machines, an entire regiment of eminent ‘dissident' scientists is wiped out from the public view, leaving a solitary Peter Duesberg alone on the battlefield, insanely tilting at the windmills."
On pg. 194 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
"Mbeki approached the matter with intellectual modesty and justifiable assertiveness. As he said in a subsequent exchange of letters with Tony Leon:
I am taken aback by the determination of many people in our country to sacrifice all intellectual integrity to act as salespersons of the product of one pharmaceutical company [AZT manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline.] ... I am also amazed at how many people, who claim to be scientists, are determined that scientific discourse and inquiry should cease, because "most of the world" is of one mind ... The debate we need is not with me, who is not a scientist, or my office, but the scientists who present "scientific" arguments contrary to the "scientific" view expressed by "most of the world." ..."
NOTE: There is no reference attached, and this passage is most certainly not to be found in Mbeki's exchange with Tony Leon. The matching ellipses and square brackets give its true origin away.
5.) BRINK ON THE SIDE-EFFECT OF ACHMAT'S TREATMENT
Anthony Brink, ICC complaint, page 34:
An article in the Daily Dispatch on 28 May 2004 revealed that not only had the toxicity of his triple-combination ARV regimen crippled and incapacitated Achmat both physically and mentally, he had also been determinedly concealing this - for the reason that he had not wanted to lose face to President Mbeki and Dr Tshabalala-Msimang ... [CUT - JM]
‘Things have changed in Zackie Achmat's life,' went the report:
Once readily accessible and always quick with a sound bite, a personal assistant now monitors the cellphone and diary of the chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and screens visitors before ushering them into Achmat's study. ... As much as these changes signify a new level of structure in Achmat's life and the need to manage multiple requests for interviews, the more profound changes emerge from his first six months of anti-retroviral therapy and how this has forced the charismatic activist to review his life. ... a frightening setback ... occurred in February and March ... which shook Achmat's self-confidence. ... ‘Going into my fifth month I started feeling a sensation in my feet. At first I dismissed it, thinking I'd done something at the gym. The second week it was clear to me and I thought, "I can't let Manto win and I can't let Mbeki win", and I kept quiet for three more weeks.' When Achmat finally told his doctor about his symptoms, the nerves in his feet were so sensitive that he could barely walk. A change of drugs (from d4T to AZT) has arrested the situation and his left foot feels better, but he still can't put any weight on his right foot for any length of time, nor can he walk long distances. ... Achmat, who has a clinical history of depression, says that the fact that he was immobile for a week while his doctor tried to bring the side effects under control brought on a terrible depression, the worst he's had in two years.
On pg. 197 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
Six weeks after the election, with the ANC resoundingly returned to office, Achmat admitted his deception in an interview published in the Daily Dispatch on 28 May 2004. Achmat revealed that he had deliberately concealed from the public the ‘frightening setback' in his health that had occurred ‘in February and March'. It was a setback, he reportedly said, that ‘shook [his] self-confidence'. Achmat had commenced on the anti-retroviral drugs six months earlier and the Daily Dispatch reported the following admission:
Going into my fifth month I started feeling a sensation in my feet. At first I dismissed it, thinking I'd done something at the gym. The second week it was clear to me and I thought, "I can't let Manto win and I can't let Mbeki win, and I kept quiet for three more weeks". When Achmat finally told his doctor about his symptoms, the nerves in his feet were so sensitive that he could barely walk. A change of drugs (from d4T to AZT) has arrested the situation and his left foot feels better, but he still can't put any weight on his right foot for any length of time, nor can he walk long distances. ... Achmat, who has a clinical history of depression, says that the fact that he was immobile for a week while his doctor tried to bring the side effects under control brought on a terrible depression, the worst he's had in two years.
NOTE: There is no reference given. What gives Brink away as the source of this quote is again the ellipsis which is the same in both cases (three paragraphs were cut.) According to the original article Achmat had referred to keeping quiet for "three more whole weeks." The ‘more' was dropped in Brink's transcription. The original article also referred to bringing "the side effect" (not ‘effects') under control, and Achmat said his depression was the worst "he's had in recent [not ‘two'] years". All of these small errors are carried over into Roberts's book.
6.) BRINK QUOTING ACHMAT AT 2003 HEALTH CONFERENCE
In online notes for Just Say Yes Brink reports the following:
‘Murderer! ... Criminal! ... Resign! ... Manto go to jail! ... Manto go home! ... You exploit the hunger of our people by talking nutrition. ... You should take off your wig and sell it to feed the poor. ... I have a sweat because I'm angry. ... I'm telling you and Mbeki once and for all....'
Zackie Achmat disrupting the Public Health 2003 conference in Cape Town on 25 March 2003, objecting to Dr Tshabalala-Msimang delivering the opening address...
In his footnote for page 208 of Fit to Govern Roberts refers to:
Zackie Achmat at a public health conference on 25 March, 2003: "‘Murderer! ... Criminal! ... Resign! ... Manto go to jail!"
On page 206 Roberts wrote:
‘You exploit the hunger of our people by talking nutrition,' Zackie Achmat had yelled at the Minister of Health, ‘You should take off your whig and sell it to feed the poor."
NOTE: This is referenced as follows: ["take off your wig...": Zackie Achmat, 25 March, 2003 at a public health conference in Cape Town.]
7.) BRINK ON TAC DISCRUPTION OF CONFERENCE
In Just Say Yes: Brink writes:
Achmat and his group then swirled into the conference hall. ‘When she comes we will disrupt her speech,' he promised, and duly did so - blowing whistles, waving large glossy ‘Wanted for Murder' posters with Tshabalala-Msimang and Irwin's heads on them.
In the footnote for page 208 Roberts writes:
Achmat's protesters waved "Wanted for Murder" posters with Tshabalala-Msimang and Erwin's heads on them.
8.) BRINK ON ACHMAT'S MARCH TO CALEDON SQUARE POLICE STATION
In Just Say Yes Brink writes:
[Achmat] then took off, marching arm-in-arm with about a hundred supporters through the city centre, and crowded into Caledon Square police station to file a criminal complaint charging Tshabalala-Msimang and Trade and Industry Minister Alec Irwin with culpable homicide. Tshabalala-Msimang, explained Heywood a bit earlier, ‘has known about the extent of the HIV epidemic, and ... has resources to alleviate [it], yet she has negligently failed to act to improve the situation'.
In his excitement Achmat got mixed up over the finer legalities and alleged that ‘people are being murdered in South Africa by the Health minister every day'. Irwin's crime, went the complaint, was his failure to issue compulsory licences for generic AIDS drugs, despite ‘being aware of the capacity in South Africa for the manufacture of generic antiretrovirals and other medication'. The TAC charged both Ministers with
failure to provide adequate treatment, including antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV/Aids ... We further demand that the accused be arrested and charged with the offence of culpable homicide or negligently causing the death of ... many thousands of people who died from Aids or Aids-related illnesses and whose deaths could have been prevented had they been given access to treatment. ... We believe that many thousands of people can bear witness to these horrible crimes.
In a footnote for page 208 Roberts writes:
Five days before personally calling the Minister of Health a murderer, Achmat had personally led a TAC march to Caledon police station in the Western Cape in an effort to secure the arrests not only of the Health Minister but also of the Minister of Trade and Industry, alleging that the Minister's had committed culpable homicide. Achmat alleged that "people are being murdered in South Africa by the Health minister every day." Erwin's alleged crime was his failure to issue compulsory licences for generic AIDS drugs. The TAC charged both Ministers with ‘failure to provide adequate treatment, including antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV/Aids ... We further demand that the accused be arrested and charged with the offence of culpable homicide or negligently causing the death of ... many thousands of people who died from Aids or Aids-related illnesses and whose deaths could have been prevented had they been given access to treatment. ... We believe that many thousands of people can bear witness to these horrible crimes.'
9.) BRINK QUOTING CHARLENE SMITH
In Debating AZT Brink wrote (paragraph 74):
To which South African AZT campaigner Charlene Smith, offered the glittering retort, "Stop giving AZT to the damn mice and start giving it to people."
And then in paragraph 76:
In the Washington Post on 4 June 2000, Smith reviled Mbeki as "chief undertaker" for denying AZT to rape victims, and claimed, "For years Mbeki has argued - erroneously and dangerously - that AZT itself is toxic."
In the footnote to page 208 Roberts writes:
"Undertaker in chief" was the dread garland bestowed upon President Thabo Mbeki by the exuberant AIDS-drug activist, Charlene Smith ("Stop giving AZT to the damn mice and start giving it to people" she said on another occasion).
10.) BRINK TRANSLATES A 2002 QUOTE FROM RAPPORT
In an article in Rapport in February 2002 Zackie Achmat was quoted as saying: ``Dink net: 'n hele geslag van tien miljoen weeskinders, sonder inkomste of werksekerheid, wetende dat hul ouers dalk nog kon gelewe het as hulle die vigsmiddels kon bekostig het."
In Just Say Yes Brink translates into English (and quotes) an interview by "Hanlie Retief in Rapport on 10 February 2002" with Zackie Achmat. It includes the line: "Just think: A whole generation of ten million orphans, without income or job security, knowing that their parents could perhaps also have lived had they been able to afford the AIDS drugs."
On pg. 209 Roberts writes:
Then, locally, there was Zackie Achmat in 2002: ‘Just think: A whole generation of ten million orphans , without income or job security, knowing that their parents could perhaps also have lived had they been able to afford the AIDS drugs.'
The reference states: "ten million orphans..." Hanlie Retief in Rapport on 10 February 2002
NOTE: It seems that here again Roberts has not just cut-and-pasted the quote but the attribution as well.
11.) BRINK ON A SPEECH BY JERRY COOVADIA
At the beginning of a speech to the University of the Witwatersrand in 2003 Professor Jerry Coovadia referred to the "explosive burst of HIV/AIDS ripping, through millions of our people, and the corrosive conflict between science and state." Towards the middle of his address he spoke about the reasons for the attraction of AIDS dissidence to the ANC government. One of the most plausible explanations for this, he stated:
"[I]s related to the social, cultural and religious barricades which most societies have constructed to exclude considerations of intimacy and sexuality in human affairs. Unbridled sexuality, especially the promiscuity of men, was too uncomfortably a part of the remembrances of racism, to be accepted by newly independent people as the prime cause of HIV. Instead the argument was shifted from sexuality to other causes of transmission."
Several sentences further on Coovadia begins a sentence, "As we stagger under the massive weight of AIDS ... "
In Just Say Yes Brink rendered this passage as follows:
"In his acceptance speech at the University of the Witwatersrand on 24 June 2003...Professor Coovadia revealed himself to be as big a racist as all of them: ‘As we stagger under the massive weight of AIDS' it is the ‘unbridled sexuality ... of newly independent people... especially the promiscuity of men' that has led to ‘AIDS ... ripping through millions of our people."
On pg. 223 Roberts writes:
"Only infrequently does someone silly blurt it out in all its gross and prurient bluntness, as did Professor Jerry Coovadia in a speech at the University of the Witwatersrand on 24 June 2003. Coovadia, sounding like Fanon's veterinarian on the welfare of Thomas Carlyle's horse, blamed AIDS upon the "unbridled sexuality... of newly independent people... especially the promiscuity of men."
12.) BRINK QUOTES CAMERON IN THE DAILY DISPATCH
On November 13 2001 the Daily Dispatch published an article by Gavin Evans based upon an interview with Judge Edwin Cameron. It contained the following two quotes at different points in the article.
a.) "I realised that the way to escape from my material and social disadvantage was through my intellect." He adds, "I have no doubt that I have natural intellectual gifts but many people have natural intellectual gifts and don't have the same openings."
b.) Thailand and South Africa had identical rates of HIV infection in 1990. Today Thailand is down to two percent. In South Africa it is 12 percent and rising.
"You have to put this down to sexual practice," Cameron says, "but there is a lack of will about confronting this fact and its implications."
In his 2004 online notes for Just Say Yes Brink renders quote (a.) as:
‘I have no doubt that I have natural intellectual gifts.' Cameron JA, HIV+ judge wants Aids justice, interview by Gavin Evans, Daily Dispatch, 13 November 2001
On page 225 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
Judge Cameron on the other hand possesses what he himself is not shy to describe as ‘natural intellectual gifts' ...
This is referenced as follows: [225 "natural intellectual gifts...": Edwin Cameron, quoted by Gavin Evans," Daily Dispatch, 13 November 2001]
Brink renders quote (b.) in Just Say Yes as follows:
In Evans's conversation over tea in the judge's chambers (or perhaps in his funky modern house with the ducks in the garden) drifted overseas: ‘Thailand and South Africa had identical rates of HIV infection in 1990. Today Thailand is down to 2 per cent. In South Africa it is 12 per cent and rising.' Cameron commented: ‘You have to put this down to sexual practice, but there is a lack of will about confronting this fact and its implications.'
In a footnote to pg. 222 Roberts writes:
222 All sorts of blushing and nervous coughing: Edwin Cameron, interviewed by Gavin Evans, said: "you have to put this down to sexual practice, but there is a lack of will about confronting this fact and its implications." Daily Dispatch, "HIV+ judge wants Aids justice, 13 November, 2001.
13.) BRINK ON MAKGOBA
In Just Say Yes Brink writes at one point:
But Makgoba disagreed: ‘I think the letter was emotional and irrational. This man will regret this in his later years. He displays things he doesn't understand. ... I think we are just creating [an image of] ourselves as an embarrassment to the world. The scientific evidence about these issues is so clear that one is really surprised that we spend so much time and energy having a heated argument about something that is very straightforward.'
In another passage he states:
Makgoba was less circumspect, telling Science reporter Jon Cohen in June: ‘When politicians want to really interrupt science in a manner that distorts it, I can only think of the history of Nazism. Every time this has happened, it's preluded disaster, regimes have collapsed, and people have died.' Makgoba confirmed to Cohen in April that Mbeki had sent him about fifteen hundred pages of scientific papers critiquing the HIV-CD4 cell-AIDS model. ‘It's pure rubbish,' he said. ‘They never provided any data and, at the same time, they are taking things out of context.' He said he'd told Mbeki this in a letter offering counter-arguments in favour of the orthodox viral model of AIDS. He should stop this nonsense, he'd advised: ‘His credibility as an African leader may suffer from this.'
On page pg. 222 of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
‘Mbeki was' Makgoba said, ‘emotional and irrational. This man will regret this in his later years. He displays things he doesn't understand ... I think we are just creating [an image of] ourselves as an embarrassment to the world. The scientific evidence about these issues is so clear that one is really surprised that we spend so much time and energy having a heated argument about something that is very straightforward.'
For once this passage is accurately reference to Brink [222 "Mbeki was...emotional and irrational...": William Makgoba, quoted by Anthony Brink, Just Say Yes, Mr President.] However Roberts then proceeds, in the same footnote, to use Brink's research without any further attribution. He continues:
In the journal Science (June 2000), Makgoba initiated the analogy with Nazi history that Cameron would later dignify: ‘When politicians want to really interrupt science in a manner that distorts it, I can only think of the history of Nazism. Every time this has happened, it's preluded disaster, regimes have collapsed, and people have died.' In April 2000 Makgoba told the same magazine: "His credibility as an African leader may suffer from this.'
14.) BRINK ON DAVID BERESFORD'S 2000 OBSERVER ARTICLE
In Just Say Yes Brink writes:
The London press picked up the stridency of the Mail&Guardian's editorials, with the result that much the same vituperative tone coloured contemporaneous articles in the English papers. Writing in the Observer on 20 August, the Mail&Guardian's David Beresford reported the TAC's announcement that it was off to court in an article entitled Mbeki ‘lets Aids babies die in pain': ‘Campaigners against Aids in South Africa will start legal proceedings this week to force the government to save thousands of babies from painful and lingering deaths.' Beresford knifed Mbeki on the way:
A Sussex University economics graduate, seen during the years of struggle against apartheid as the ANC's arch‑diplomat, Mbeki was widely regarded as sophisticated and cosmopolitan. Time and experience now offer, however, another perspective - of a man whose sensitivity on race points to a previously undiscovered psychological trauma which, while deserving of sympathy, makes him among the politicians least qualified to heal past wounds.
On pg. 224 Roberts of Fit to Govern Roberts writes:
The Mail & Guardian's David Beresford announced the Constitutional Court case that eventually compelled government to supply nevirapine for pregnant mothers under a headline suggesting that Mbeki ‘lets AIDS babies die in pain'. Beresford explained: ‘Campaigners against AIDS in South Africa will start legal proceedings this week to force the government to save thousands of babies from painful and lingering deaths.'
Roberts footnote then states:
224 "AIDS Babies Die in Pain": David Beresford, Observer, 20 August, 2000: "A Sussex University economics graduate, seen during the years of struggle against apartheid as the ANC's arch-diplomat, Mbeki was widely regarded as sophisticated and cosmopolitan," Beresford wrote. "Time and experience now offer, however, another perspective--of a man whose sensitivity on race points to a previously undiscovered psychological trauma which, while deserving of sympathy, makes him among the politicians least qualified to heal past wounds."
NOTE: The only section that is not found in Brink's manuscript is Roberts's reference to the "Constitutional Court case". This is somewhat misleading as the case was going to the High Court when Beresford reported on it. It only reached the Constitutional Court in early 2002.
15.) BRINK QUOTING PETER MOORE IN 1999
In Debating AZT Brink transcribes an interview with "Dr Peter Moore, in South African investigative film journalist Vivienne Vermaak's expose, The truth on AZT, shown on e-TV on 12 December 1999." This includes the quote:
"GlaxoWellcome is a reputable company. We do not lie to people. We do not lie to researchers, we do not lie to scientists, we do not lie to physicians and we do not lie to patients."
On pg. 229 Roberts writes:
"And the news only got worse after that, from a drug-regulatory standpoint, with new consumer protection disasters arising almost week, as if deliberately mocking the comment that Dr Peter Moore made on e-TV's documentary, ‘The truth on AZT' (December 1999): ‘GlaxoWellcome is a reputable company. We do not lie to people, We do not lie to researchers, we do not lie to scientists, we do not lie to physicians and we do not lie to patients."
NOTE: There is no reference to this quote in the footnotes.
16.) BRINK QUOTING THE MBEKI LEON CORRESPONDENCE:
In Just Say Yes Brink quotes one of President Thabo Mbeki's letters to Tony Leon:
In my letter of July 1, 2000 I took issue with you about the matter of double standards. In one instance this related to the matter of the rule of law, about which you campaigned with regard to the land question in Zimbabwe. In this regard, you accuse me of making ‘a nonsensical comparison'. Since the issue of the rule of law is a matter of principle, I believe that it is fundamentally incorrect to argue, as you did, that AZT should be prescribed for rape, despite the fact that the existing legal procedures had not been followed enabling this drug to be registered and legally dispensed for this purpose. Strangely, you, the Leader of the Official Opposition, argue that my insistence on the observance of the rule of law is nonsensical. Whereas you would not accept what I said in the National Assembly about the fact that Glaxo Wellcome neither asserted the anti-HIV efficacy of AZT in cases of rape and had not applied for its licensing for such a situation, I trust you now accept the truthfulness of these statements, since they have been confirmed by representatives of the company. After all, relative to them, you do not occupy the position of ‘an effective opposition'.
In Fit to Govern Roberts writes on pg. 229:
Indeed those who generally shouted loudest about the rule of law, suddenly turned around and dismissed it Mbeki wrote to Leon, repeatedly raising ‘the matter of double standards' where the rule of law was advocated in the Zimbabwe context but not within the South African AIDS debate, where the call was for the relaxation of the rule of law in favour of drug companies, including a call for a declaration of an AIDS ‘emergency':
In this regard, you accuse me of making "a nonsensical comparison". Since the issue of the rule of law is a matter of principle, I believe that it is fundamentally incorrect to argue, as you did, that AZT should be prescribed for rape, despite the fact that the existing legal procedures had not been followed enabling this drug to be registered and legally dispensed for this purpose. Strangely you, the Leader of the Official Opposition, argue that my insistence on the observance of the rule of law is nonsensical.
Mbeki had pointed out that AZT had no US regulatory approval for use in rape cases. Leon flatly denied that. The company itself, Glaxo Wellcome, confirmed Mbeki's version and implicitly confirmed Mbeki's point: relative to the drug companies, Leon was not an effective opposition."
NOTE: Brink does not give a date for this letter (it is July 17 2000) and in his footnote Roberts only references it as being from "TM, during the famous exchange letters with DA leader Tony Leon, July, 2000." It is evident from this passage that Roberts does not understand the issue around which this particular argument turned.
Brink quoted further from this correspondence in Just Say Yes as follows:
But it was all lost on Leon: ‘I do not think that politicians are under any "moral obligation" (in fact quite the opposite) to claim the right to deliver final judgement on questions of scientific fact. It is a totalitarian principle that political leadership is somehow on a higher plane to technical expertise and is thus entitled to override the autonomy of all institutions in society.'
Mbeki replied:
Let me assure you that as long as I have to occupy a decision‑making position, so long will I take such decisions as may be necessary and morally defensible, whatever institution makes recommendations according to its mandate and possibilities. The idea that, as the executive, we should take decisions we can defend, simply because views have been expressed by scientist‑economists, scientist‑agriculturists, scientist‑environmentalists, scientist‑pedagogues, scientist‑soldiers, scientist‑health workers, scientist‑communicators etc, is absurd in the extreme.
Roberts writes on pg. 230 of Fit to Govern:
Tony Leon alleged that Mbeki was mired in ‘a totalitarian principle that political leadership is somehow on a higher plane to technical expertise and is thus entitled to override the autonomy of all institutions in society'. Mbeki replied:
Let me assure you that as long as I have to occupy a decision-making position, so long will I take such decisions as may be necessary and morally defensible, whatever institution makes recommendations according to its mandate and possibilities. The idea that, as the executive, we should [not] take decisions we can defend, simply because views have been expressed by scientist-economists, scientist agriculturists, scientist-environmentalists, scientist-pedagogues, scientist-soldiers, scientist-health workers, scientist-communicators etc. is absurd in the extreme.
NOTE: In his footnotes Roberts states that "The block quotation from Mbeki lower down the page and the one on page 230 ("Let me assure...") are also from Mbeki's side of that correspondence." Once again a vague reference is given without specific dates. However, what gives the game away are two minor errors in Brink's transcription of Mbeki's letter. In his letter to Leon on August 5 Mbeki wrote:
Let me assure you that as long as I have to occupy a decision-making position within our politics, so long will I take such decisions as may be necessary and morally defensible, whatever institution makes recommendations according to its mandate and possibilities.
The idea that, as the executive, we should not take decisions we can defend, simply because views have been expressed by scientist-economists, scientist-agriculturists, scientist-pedagogues, scientist-soldiers, scientist health workers, scientist-communicators, etc, is absurd in the extreme. [My emphasis]
In transcribing this letter Brink omitted the "our politics" and the "not" (both in bold.) Roberts carries both these errors over into his book. What is surprising is that Roberts - given an office in Tuynhuys and full access to parliament - appears to have never bothered to read the full and original version of the correspondence. Instead, he seems to have simply relied on Brink's partial extracts for his account. Is it a sign of functional illiteracy to fail to read correspondence before writing and opining about it?
