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In South Africa and cities around the world, thousands of angry demonstrators have told the giant drug companies: "Our lives matter more than your profits!" Outside the Pretoria High Court on 4-5 March, thousands of activists from COSATU and many other organisations, expressed their fury at the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA).

These fat-cat multinational companies have taken our government to court to stop them providing the sick and the poor with cheaper medicines. The people's reaction has shown these drugs barons that nowhere in the world is there any support for their deadly manoeuvres.

After two days the case was adjourned, after the Court's decision to accept evidence from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which represents people living with HIV. Having been accepted as a 'Friend of the Court', TAC will give evidence about how brand name medicines are unaffordable for millions of people living with HIV in South Africa.

"For the first time, the pharmaceutical industry will have to justify to South Africa and to the world why their drug prices are so high and why their patents should be so aggressively protected, when millions of people are dying and cheaper drugs exist," said Zachie Achmat, chairperson of the TAC.

This followed a week of worldwide demonstrations in support of the South African government, calling on companies to drop the case. Thousands of people from unions, churches, NGOs and people living with HIV/AIDS took to the streets in Pretoria, Cape Town, and Durban and in cities around the world.

"We thank the efforts of our members whose voices have ensured that the courts have understood the importance of this matter," said Joyce Pekane, Deputy President of COSATU.

The campaigners however condemned the pharmaceutical industry for first trying to block TAC's application, and for then requesting a further four months to reply to it. "The pharmaceutical companies have already delayed this case for three years. Every day's delay means no affordable medicines and more people dying," said Dr Eric Goemaere, Head of Mission for Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) in South Africa.

The judge acknowledged that this case was of vital importance to people in South Africa and around the world and only granted the PMA three weeks to respond to TAC's application. The court case will resume from 18 to 26 April 2001.

COSATU, TAC, MSF, Oxfam, and the Consumer Project on Technology will continue to support the South African government's position in this case and will again mobilise their members and the community to demonstrate at the adjourned case on 18 April.

In 1997 the government passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, to make drugs more affordable and improve the functioning of the Medicines Control Council.

COSATU support this law because it introduces a legal framework to make medicines more available and affordable in the public sector. This framework introduces four important elements:

In 1998 the PMA and 39 multinational drug companies took legal action against the government to stop this Act. Consequently for three years the government has had to suspend the implementation of the Act. As a result of this delay, more than 40 000 people have died of AIDS-related illness, most of them because they could not afford expensive drugs.

In 2000 alone, drug companies around the world made sales of more that $315 billion -more that the gross domestic product of all SADC countries. So why are these companies taking the government to court?

Their main concern is that generic substitution will remove their ability to retain profits from their pharmaceutical operations, to which they are entitled as the result of substitution by default. They will not lose their normal profit but this huge unnecessary profit.

They are also worried that price controls will interfere with their constitutional right to trade and want this provision of the Act to be declared unconstitutional.

They always say they spend money on research and development and that parallel importation of generic drugs conflicts with the World Trade Organisation rules on intellectual property. They are so wrong. The rules do not cover parallel importation, which is used by many European Union countries and the USA.

The Medicines Act deserves the support of all people in South Africa and internationally. It attempts to improve the health care system by lowering the price of essential medicines. This is very crucial for people living with HIV/Aids. If the PMA succeeds, it will be an enormous blow for poor people in South Africa and the developing countries.

We want to live

The PMA wants us to die Throughout the night of 4-5 March, protesters held a vigil in Church Square, Pretoria. They lit candles in memory of the 400 000 people who have died with AIDS in South Africa.

Prudence Mabela of the National Association of People Living with AIDS spoke movingly on behalf of the HIV-positive people. "I am pleading. Please support us. We want to live. HIV is not equal to death but the PMA is saying that their profits come first. We mean nothing to them because we are poor and cannot afford their drugs but we really need them.

" COSATU President Willie Madisha said: "The battle lines are drawn, between the people of this country and the pharmaceutical companies who are motivated by profit. The companies must not succeed. It will set a precedent and people will continue to die. The people of our country must have access to the drugs they need.

"We have a right to life but the pharmaceutical companies are saying you don't have that right - you must die. We must arise as the people of this country to make sure the pharmaceutical companies do not win."

On 5 March, thousands of protesters marched to the US Embassy to try to hand over a memorandum to President Bush. The embassy officials however refused to accept the memorandum, even when it was hand delivered by a POPCRU member who was on duty.

These are some of the comments made by speakers at the embassy: "As communists we will fight side-by-side with our people to make sure patent rights are owned by the people and not the giant transnational corporations who come here so they can continue to make profits while our people die. It is a struggle against imperialism, which has many heads but one body.

"We must start to produce cheap versions of generic drugs, as Brazil has done. The next step is a mass international defiance campaign - patent rights belong to the people!" - Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the SA Communist Party.

"South Africa is again taking the lead, telling the pharmaceutical companies that enough is enough. It is fantastic hypocrisy for them to say that poor people cannot manage these drugs. Look at Brazil - deaths from AIDS have been cut by half. That proves that poor people can manage. But what does the USA do? Take Brazil to the World Trade Organisation. The struggle goes on!" - Glenys Kinnock, Socialist Member of the European Parliament, speaking on behalf of Oxfam.

"People in other countries in Africa are looking to you. You are not alone today. There have been demonstrations all over the world." Eric Goemaere, Medecins sans Frontieres.

Capitalism - a greedy and inhumane system

Summary of the speech by Zwelinzima Vavi, COSATU General Secretary outside the US embassy, Pretoria, 5 March 2001

We are involved in the most important struggle since we defeated the evil system of apartheid seven years ago. In some respect this war against HIV/AIDS holds the most direct threat to the very freedom we struggled for over more than 100 years.

That freedom is on the verge of being wiped out as all the people that fought for it and who should benefit from it are about going to die if the pharmaceutical companies have their way between today and 13 March.

HIV/AIDS is like foreign army on the rampage, maiming and killing thousands of women, men, children and old, leaving behind a trail of absolute destruction. When faced by such an army, our government cannot afford to spend the meagre amounts of money it has been spending on HIV/AIDS for awareness and treatment.

The R43 billion spend on weapons of war should have been spent to buy medicines that will treat those living with HIV/AIDS and poverty relief. The system of capitalism is once again exposing itself as a brutal, inhuman, anti-development, extremely greedy and selfish system ever to be designed by the human kind.

So greedy and inhumane is the capitalist system that it allows pharmaceutical companies to literally kill millions of the people in South Africa and throughout the world by denying them access to drugs that will treat opportunistic diseases that are symptoms of HIV/AIDS, in pursuit of narrow profits for a few.

The challenge by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association against the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act is not only a callous act but also shows how easy it is to turn humans against fellow humans by not just keeping others poor but by taking steps to prevent them from accessing medicines they can afford in order to save their lives.

It is time for the South African government to use its own legislation and issue compulsory licensing to local companies to produce generic drugs.

This will not only help with an effective comprehensive treatment of the millions affected but will help create thousands of new quality jobs for our people.

This new investment must be led by our government, as we can no longer trust private capital, who, as this case has proven, seek to maximise profit from the fate of millions who will eventually die.

International mobilisation against profiteering from AIDS misery

The international trade union movement has thrown its support behind COSATU's campaign against the PMA. The Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)'s General Secretary, Bill Jordan, said:

"If the PMA succeeds, it will be an enormous blow for the people of South Africa and other developing countries. The key problem at present lies in the restrictive, profiteering attitude the multinational drug companies have taken to the patents they hold on essential medicines, denying treatment to millions of people in the poorest countries of the world. Our message to these multinational companies is simple: Put lives before profits!"

In support of the call by the South African trade union movement, the ICFTU's US affiliate, the AFL-CIO, called on the Bush administration "to provide firm public assurances to developing countries that HIV/AIDS programmes which allow compulsory licensing and parallel importation in health emergencies are considered by the US government to be TRIPS-legal and will not be challenged under US trade laws."

The AFL-CIO has further demanded that South Africa not be placed on a watch-list for potential trade sanctions. Fred Higgs, General Secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), representing trade unions from pharmaceutical companies world-wide, added his voice to the call for the courts to defend South Africa's rights, saying "We believe that South Africa and other countries must have the right to buy the appropriate pharmaceuticals at prices that they can afford." The companies should instead talk to the South African government about selling drugs at affordable prices.

At its XVII World Congress in April 2000 in Durban, South Africa, the ICFTU and the world labour movement decided to raise general awareness of this epidemic and to seek immediate, strong and effective action to control and eradicate the disease.

Trade unionists from all continents condemned the lack of adequate resources for the battle against HIV/AIDS. They resolved to "actively support the treatment action campaign for access to low-cost, good quality essential medicines and to campaign for the provision of low-cost life-saving drugs, in part through the redefinition of the WTO's intellectual property agreement.

" The ICFTU statement notes that, according to UN figures, South Africa has the highest HIV infection rate in the world and is ranked amongst the countries set to be most devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. International pharmaceutical companies, for their part, have made enormous profits from the high cost of drugs that are necessary for treatment of the disease.

In 1995, the World Trade Organisation adopted a number of agreements on trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs), largely under pressure from powerful multinational corporations. These companies market drugs which often prove to be very effective in combating HIV/AIDS. But regular treatment costs over US$ 10,000 per year, per person. In industrialised countries, the social security systems cover these costs in most cases. Elsewhere in the world, it is as though this kind of treatment did not exist.

On 20 February, the Association of US Pharmaceutical Companies called on the US government to threaten 23 countries, including South Africa, with sanctions, due to their alleged violation of intellectual property rights, and to invoke trade measures against four countries (Argentina, India, Israel and Taiwan). Many of the same multinationals are contesting in court the South African's decision to ensure the swift provision of drugs to combat diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, which has already taken the lives of some 14 million people world-wide and has infected 34 million more.

Worldwide campaign : condems drugs profiteers		Capitalism - a greedy and inhumane system
We want to live : The PMA wants us to die		International mobilisation against profiteering from Aids