Mandela calls on all people to join in the war against HIV

IT will take greater unity and effort to conquer HIV than it took to tear down apartheid, former South African president Nelson Mandela told a host of music celebrities yesterday, gathered in Cape Town for an AIDS benefit concert named in his honour.

“We are called to join the war against HIV/AIDS with the same and even greater resolve than was shown in the fight against apartheid,” Mandela said as he gave Annie Lennox, Bono and other artists a tour of Robben Island, where he spent 18 of his 27 years in jail under the racist regime.

“We have to mobilise all our people, all sectors of society, all our resources and energy.”