This is an archive of the Treatment Action Campaign's public documents from
December 1998 until October 2008. I created this website because the TAC's
website appears unmaintained and people were concerned that it
was becoming
increasingly hard to find important documents.
The menu items have
been slightly edited and a new stylesheet applied to the site. But none of the
documents have been edited, not even for minor errors. The text appears on this
site as obtained from the Internet Archive.
The period covered by
the archive encompassed the campaign for HIV medicines, the civil disobedience
campaigns, the Competition Commission complaints, the 2008 xenophobic violence
and the PMTCT, Khayelitsha health workers and Matthias Rath court cases.
In 2003, TAC's choir produced an album called Jikelele. You can now download the album's songs from this web page. The album cover stated:
In South Africa HIV/AIDS has a crisis of truth-telling and good governance. At the highest levels of government the truth about HIV/AIDS and treatment to save the lives of millions is being denied. This is crippling treatment and prevention efforts. The songs in Jikelele reflect the abandonment of our people by the government and the AIDS profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry. The songs also speak of hope and personal responsibility. In addition, they mourn fallen comrades such as Simon Nkoli, Christopher Moraka, Nkosi Johnson, Queenie Qiza and many others.
Jikelele is a production of Treatment Action Campaign(TAC) volunteers in South Africa. Across our country, volunteers have been the backbone of TAC's efforts to get affordable quality treatment, including antiretrovirals, to people living with HIV/AIDS around the world. Our songs show that treatment literacy, HIV/AIDS education and advocacy take many forms. Social criticism is central to our songs.
Jikelele is an arrow directed to the hearts those in government and pharmaceutical demanding that they fulfil their constitutional and moral obligations to protect the right to life and dignity of all people.
TAC volunteers have spontaneously adapted the songs that united us in the struggle against apartheid to the new struggle against government neglect and corporate greed. The songs touch on all the main facts of the disease: People are dying. Medication is at hand. Globalise Treatment struggles.
TAC is inspired by efforts of oppressed people all over the world struggling for social justice and dignity.
Recording by Bradley Bordiss
We don'd care even if they do not want to give us AZT because we will shrug off HIV
Be consoled Mama,
Be colsoled mama,
don't cry mama,
We took him and brought him home.
He just cried, saying "it's AIDS"
Go well Comrades
You are the heroes.
You have fought strongly in the battle against AIDS.
We say these words to you Simon Nkoli, Gugu Dlamini, Sibusiso Mkhize, Christopher Morape.
Your spirit is right with us.
Be consoled Mama.
Be consoled Mama.
Never Give Up!
Comrades!
Hold on!
Oh! I Was Sitting in the dark dying of Aids.
Zackie arrived, arrived MSF to set me free.
They set me free
I didn't know about this TAC.
Then Sipho arrived and taught me
I didn't know anything about the anti-retrovirals drugs until MSF came to educate me
They set me free
Oh! Come, come mother, come father, come sister, together with your big brother.
We are going to defeat HIV
Defeat it......HIV
I received a letter from TAC
It speaks nicely saying Biozole is now available
Oh Zackie Achmat we love you
Ola Zackie our buddy, son of Achmat.
We solute you brother, all of us here in South Africa.
You sacrificed your life going all the way to Thailand to import Biozole illegally.
You were defying the state.
You have shown that here in South Africa we can make it.
We can defeat HIV brother.
Now we salute you baba!
Keep up the good work.
Make it a point we don't suffer the way we suffering now.
Simply because we see the state doesn't care about us any longer.
What did we do to you Thabo Mbeki.
We want AZT.
We want Biozole.
We want Nevirapine from you Thabo Mbeki, Thabo Mbeki, What is our debt?
What is out sin?
Is it Aids?
Thabo please, speak to Pfizer, Spek to Glaxo
Talk to BMS to reduce prices,
What did we do to you Thabo Mbeki
Have a look, Pfizer is making fun of us
Have a look, Mbeki is making fun of us
We are going to give them a minute to change their ways
Have a look, Manto has contempt for us
We are going to give them a minute to change their ways
Those who would divide us,
Do not enter into TAC
.......Change Comrades
.......Change your step
TAC is asking when will the prices go down, Tshabalala doesn't want to......Helele Ma
Joing TAC......Helele Ma
Tshabalala doesn't want to,
Thabo Mbeki doesn't want to,
Pfizer doesn't want to
Be consoled, Nation.
Don't Cry our TAC is going to conquer for us.
Be consoled, Nation.
Don't Cry our TAC is going to conquer for us.
Be consoled, Nation.
Don't Cry our TAC is going to conquer for us.
In HIV/AIDS our TAC will conquer for us.
Whoo hu hu hu whoo hu hu hu
We are dying, dying, dying, dying, dying with HIV
It's killing us......HIV
HIV is killing us
BMS we want D4T
BMS we want DTI
It is killing us
We know AZT Globally
AZT - we know it.
It is protecting children from HIV globally, globally
MTCT
Prevention
We know Nevirapine.
It is protecting children from HIV globally, globally