Makgatho Mandela

Makgatho Mandela, 54, died in a Johannesburg clinic where he had been receiving treatment for more than a month. His wife, Zondi, died in 2003 from pneumonia.

"We have called you today to announce that my son has died of AIDS," the 86-year-old Nobel Peace laureate said at a news conference.

"Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and to say somebody has died because of HIV. And people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary," said Mandela.

His announcement challenged the taboo that keeps many Africans from discussing an epidemic that infects more than 25 million people across the continent.

In South Africa, which with some 5 million HIV/AIDS infections has the highest AIDS caseload in the world, the disease kills more than 600 people each day, activists say.

"There is no disease that we must be afraid of identifying that a member of the family has died from," Mandela said. "That is the only way of making ordinary illness ordinary."

The Japan Times Weekly: Jan. 15, 2005
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