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INSIDE AFRICA

Special Edition: Apartheid Museum

Aired December 16, 2006 - 12:30:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FEMI OKE, HOST: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA, our weekly look at life and news on the continent. This week, the show comes from the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, with the country's marking its annual Day of Reconciliation holiday. And the holiday dates back to 1994, from the first multi-racial elections. The idea being to bring together a divided nation. We'll be talking a lot more about that later in the program.
Plus, I have to take you on a tour of this remarkable museum.

But first, we turn our attention to another important issue that's been making news this week: Malaria.

Malaria kills one African child every 30 seconds. And the disease is the number one cause of death for children under five in sub-Saharan Africa. Around the world, the illness claims more than one million victims per year. Most of those victims are children. These are sad facts, especially when we know that even small, preventative measures can have major benefits in the battle against malaria. Jeff Koinange has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 26-year old Sidi Nyanche is angry. Her infant daughter, she says, didn't have to die. Four-month old Aisha (ph) died of malaria, a disease that's as preventable as it is curable. But in places like Kalifi (ph) on the northern coast of Kenya, malaria is for many, too many, a death sentence.

"My child died for nothing," she says. "Her death could have easily been prevented."

Last year alone, malaria claimed the lives of more than 34,000 children in Kenya, four victims every hour. In fact, according to experts, malaria is the biggest killer of children under the age of five, a bigger killer than even HIV/AIDS.

DEVY KOECH, DIR., KENYA RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Malaria is predictable. It is preventable. It is treatable. And it is curable. No one should die of malaria. It's only our lack of- our lack of preparedness is our sin. We shouldn't lose people. Since we talked, we've lost two people already. We -- there is no reason for anyone to die of malaria.

KOINANGE: And yet, they continue to die unnecessarily, although now there could be hope on the horizon, and it could be as simple as using a net over one's bed.

But these aren't your ordinary mosquito nets. The regular nets are ineffective against the mosquitoes found in places like Kenya. Scientists developed specialized nets, treated with a chemical repellant.

ROSE KIBE, POPULATION SERVICES INTL.: The (inaudible) for the purpose of repelling and killing mosquitoes, thereby giving you twice the protection that you normally have when you use an ordinary net.

KOINANGE: More than 10 million of these insecticide-treated nets, or ITNs, have been distributed, but that's only half of what's needed to prevent the spread of malaria in Kenya.

KIBE: The use of insecticide-treated nets has been proved to reduce malaria morbidity of illness or incidents by after 50 percent, where people who are using (inaudible) treated nets consistently, every night. And child mortality has been seen to decrease by up to 20 percent for children under five who are sleeping under insecticide-treated nets. It has proven to be one of the most effective methods of prevention for malaria.

KOINANGE: But having the nets is one thing. Trying to convince a largely rural population with varying cultural beliefs and superstitions quite another.

KOECH: Some people returned that nets back to the health centers where they've collected them, because there was a slight (ph) belief that some ghosts were talking to them at night, and so they were wanting to take the blood of those under the nets.

KOINANGE: But as challenging as it sounds, this technique seems to be working. And experts say malaria deaths in Kenya are slowly on the decline.

KIBE: Communities only need to understand the reason that they need to use the nets. This is the most important thing. If they understand that it is to protect them from malaria, and malaria is not caused by all the other things such as dirty water or eating mangos, or eating too much (inaudible), then they will understand the value of protecting themselves.

KOINANGE: Advice that comes too little too late for some, like Sidi Nyanche's infant daughter, but advice the mother is now seriously taking. She has two other children in the most-at-risk group, but who now at least stand a fighting chance against Africa's biggest killer disease.

Jeff Koinange, CNN, Johannesburg.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: The World Health Organization says as many as 500 million people in more than 100 countries catch the disease each year. Thanks to modern medicine, many of them survive, but without treatment, malaria can kill within a few hours.

The effects of malaria vary, ranging from a mild fever to kidney failure, coma, and even death. A classic malaria (inaudible) lasts six to 10 hours and consists of coolness, fevers, headaches and vomiting. And in young children, sometimes seizures. Severe malaria includes symptoms such as loss of consciousness, organ failure, and cardiovascular shock. Severe cases are most often seen in victims with decreased immunity, one reason why children are hit so hard.

Health experts gathered in Washington this week to focus their attention on how to control and eventually wipe out malaria. The summit was held at the White House. One major step would be to get drugs to the people who need them. But as Jim Boulden reports, some of the drugs might actually be making matters worse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been known for over 100 years that malaria is spread by mosquitoes. There are inexpensive drugs available to treat the disease. Why then do more than a million people still die from malaria each year? The victims, mostly children in sub- Sahara Africa.

CHRIS HENTACHEL, MEDICINES FOR MALARIA: The problem is really getting what are prescription drugs right through to - to rural African situations. It's not an easy thing. And I don't want to sound very pessimistic. Things are a lot better now than they were five years ago.

BOULDEN: A lot better, say many experts, because combating malaria is now seen as a way to tackle many ills in the developing world. For its part, drug giant Novartis agreed to invest in brand new medicine.

DANIEL VASELLA, CEO, NOVARTIS: We're supported in that effort from the Wellcome trust and the Singaporean government, so it's a collaborative private/public partnership effort, and that always, unfortunately, will take us, you know, 10 to 15 years, unless you are very lucky.

BOULDEN: And that is the sting in the tail. Malaria research was neglected for so long that this new drive for new medicines will take years, and now the World Health Organization is raising the alarm about drugs resistance. It's on the rise, and could make the current crop of anti-malarials obsolete before the new drugs are available.

The WHO says resistance is made worse by some pharmaceutical firms flooding poor countries with a host of cheap drugs, so-called monotherapies. The WHO wants to see new combinations of the most effective drugs, and the head of the WHO malaria program has another goal:

ARATA KOCHI, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Make the existing drugs much user-friendly, such as (inaudible) combination tablets. Or some of the drugs they can use once a day, instead of twice a day.

BOULDEN: These kinds of innovations are on the cards, thanks in part to non-profit groups.

HENTACHEL: We work with drug companies, we make it less unacceptable, we pay some of the costs, we provide some of the necessary know-how; we help do the clinical trials. So putting all of those things in makes it easier for drug companies to get involved.

BOULDEN: For Novartis, the key now is getting countries to improve their medical systems.

VASELLA: You need somebody who diagnoses the disease, then you need somebody who knows how to treat the disease, and then you need the drug available in the place where you need it, and not just on the docks.

BOULDEN: Just another reason malaria kills more people now than 30 years ago. Even though a dollar's worth of drugs for three days will cure an adult. It takes only 50 cents to save a child.

Jim Boulden, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: When we come back, South Africa marks its annual Day of Reconciliation. I'll take you on a tour around here, Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum. It's a stunning monument to the rise and fall of apartheid. We'll also see how the museum fits into that theme of reconciliation. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OKE: Apartheid, literally "apartness" in Afrikaans and Dutch, was in basic terms racism made law. The system was enforced in South Africa for nearly half a century, between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid consisted of numerous laws allowing the ruling white minority to segregate, exploit and terrorize the majority, denying them basic human and political rights. Decades of internal dissatisfaction reached a crisis point in the 1980s, with rioting, protests, and mounting international pressure to dismantle apartheid.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president, officially ending apartheid and centuries of white rule.

That year, South Africa also saw it first Day of Reconciliation, a national holiday aimed at forgiving and overcoming the country's brutal past.

That past is documented here, in Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum, and also comes vividly to life. There is so much to see here. Earlier on, I took a tour. I took in just a few of the sights.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: From the minute you walk into the Apartheid Museum, you go back to a time when the flatness of your nose, the curliness of your hair or the fairness of your skin dictated how you were treated. Museum covers decades of South African history. Allegra Mkhabele guided me through.

ALLEGRA MKHABELE, TOUR GUIDE: Then these are the political executions. All of them are 131. So, the names on the wall represent each noose.

OKE (on camera): So, these names here - all of these names here are represented by a noose up here.

MKHABELE: Yeah. All these executions were taking place here, in Pretoria Central Prison, so they used to hang seven people a day, on the (inaudible).

OKE (voice over): In the 1980s and '90s, South African police used a notorious armed vehicle called the Caspar (ph), sometimes knows as the "Mellow Yellow".

(on camera): When people see this vehicle, and they may have been around during the 1980s when the Caspar was around, can you see that reaction to it?

MKHABELE: Yeah, you can see the reaction, because most of them, when they come here, they say - they just said, vow! Mellow Yellow, then they start to sing that song, "mellow yellow" -- then it's - it's the song that they used to sing when they see this (inaudible) coming, then they will start running away because they were scared of it.

OKE: What was up here? (inaudible).

MKHABELE: They were putting that mission, the mission gun ...

OKE: OK.

MKHABELE: To shoot people...

(CROSSTALK)

MKHABELE: Yeah.

OKE (voice over): The Apartheid Museum brings you in direct contact with some of the violence and painful history of South Africa, but there is also a hopeful message.

(on camera): And where is that -- museum and the aim of the museum on this Reconciliation Day, the themes seem to go very closely together.

WAYDE DAVY, MUSEUM DEPUTY DIR.: By just telling the truth, we're showing who is accountable, who was responsible, and then it's about coming together. And I think the museum depicts that very well.

OKE (voice over): At the entrance to the museum, they suggest visitors have at least two and a half hours to look around, and a little tip for me: Chat with the guide.

(on camera): The last time I was here, I was here five hours, and I only got to the entrance.

So I'm so glad I have a guide. Thank you ...

(CROSSTALK)

OKE: Take care.

(voice over): And now to a man whose name will forever be linked with apartheid: Former South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk made history when he changed body politic, and with it the future of a nation. Jeff Koinange caught up with him recently, and has this look at de Klerk past and present.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOINANGE: He was the last leader of white South Africa, a man who turned his back on decades of entrenched racism and who renounced his own beliefs in white supremacy to help bring about a democracy.

F.W. DE KLERK, FORMER SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT: A new democratic dispensation is foreseen, with full political rights for all South Africans.

KOINANGE: But when Frederik Willem de Klerk, or F.W. to most, was first elected president, there was little in his past that distinguished him from his hard-line predecessors. He'd been a loyal functionary in the National Party, holding a series of cabinet posts and apparently committed to the principle of white minority rule. But within months of his inauguration as president, de Klerk had set in motion a process that was to alter the history of the country, dropping this bombshell that caught a nation by surprise.

DE KLERK: The government has taken a firm decision to release Mr. Mandela unconditionally.

KOINANGE: It was an announcement that initially wasn't popular with some whites, and many would blame him for what they call selling out. But he had made his decision, and looking back, he recalls what exactly happened that historic week.

DE KLERK: Shortly after my speech on the 2nd of February, he was brought to my office for a second time, and I announced to him that he would be released on the 11th. And he said, "I don't want to be released on the 11th." I said, "why not?" He says, "it's too soon." I say, "why is it too soon?" He says, "we need more time to prepare." I said, "Mr. Mandela, you and I are going to negotiate about many things. But you've been in jail long enough. This is not negotiable, you will be released. Let's negotiate about the time of the day and the place where you want to be released."

KOINANGE: The rest, as they say, is history. The black majority went on to win elections in 1994. Mandela became the country's first black president, and F.W. shared the portfolio of executive vice president along with Thabo Mbeki. Soon after that, de Klerk left government and politics altogether, and slowly faded from the limelight.

But time has been a healer in this healing land. F.W. de Klerk is now 70 years old, and still keeps a busy schedule. But when he's not traveling, which is only three months out of the year, he spends his days here with his second wife, Elita, on their farm in Parl (ph), an hour's drive outside of Capetown.

De Klerk is still passionate about his country, and has no regrets about the decision he made to dismantle the system of apartheid, that gave way to majority rule.

DE KLERK: If I were to draw a balance sheet of the positives and the negatives, then the assets by far outweigh the debts. There are so many positives. But there are big negatives. I feel I have a residual responsibility to continue to try and be helpful in a constructive way to ensure that the new South Africa succeeds.

KOINANGE: He also says he was caught off guard and pleasantly surprised that day in 1993 when the Nobel Peace Prize was announced. It was an award he shared with Nelson Mandela.

DE KLERK: Awarding it also to me, who served in an apartheid government, was not a popular decision. It was a recognition that if we the whites and the other minorities in the country did not say yes to fundamental change, it could not have happened. And therefore, the one needed the other.

I was proud to stand there next to Nelson Mandela and to share the prize with him, and I think it made a great contribution towards reconciliation in South Africa.

KOINANGE: The former president now runs the F.W. de Klerk Foundation, as well as the Global Leadership Forum, an organization that brings together former presidents and prime ministers offering confidential advice on conflict resolution.

As for his legacy, he puts it quite simply.

DE KLERK: I hope that when I die, the work that I do between now, my 70th year, and whenever I die, will add to that legacy that he made a difference for the better.

KOINANGE: Jeff Koinange, CNN, Parl (ph), South Africa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: Just ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, one South African hero's story gets the movie treatment. We sit down with the man portrayed in a Hollywood feature "Catch a Fire," and I'll catch up with you on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OKE: The ruthless rule of apartheid claimed many victims, but also many heroes. Most of them ordinary people and their stories will never be known. But one man's story has made it to Hollywood and into a movie. I met up with him and the director of the soon-to-be-released thriller "Catch a Fire."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: This is Patrick Chamusso. He fought against South Africa's apartheid system in the 1980s. You probably never heard of him. He wasn't famous then, but thanks to a new movie, millions will get to know his story.

DEREK LUKE, ACTOR: I will make this right. I promise I will make this right.

OKE: "Catch a Fire" tells the true story of Chamusso, who worked in South Africa's Secundo (ph) oil refinery. When African National Congress bombed the plant in 1980, Chamusso was wrongly accused of being a terrorist. He was dragged off the street and tortured. His treatment shocked him into action, and he became the very thing his tormenters feared the most.

PHILIP NOYCE, DIRECTOR: We have had other films in the past about this era in South African history, but they've all been about the heroes of the struggle against apartheid. This one was important because it's an ordinary man's story.

OKE: So how did you feel that Derek Luke played you? Because he is a handsome man. Not that you're not.

NOYCE: When I asked who should play him, he had a long list. Number one was...

OKE: Denzel.

PATRICK CHAMUSSO: Denzel was number three.

OKE: Oh, three.

NOYCE: Number two was...

CHAMUSSO: Cuba.

NOYCE: Cuba Gooding.

CHAMUSSO: Yes, Cuba Gooding.

OKE: Philip Noyce has had hits with films like "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger." But how did the Australian director cope with recreating apartheid South Africa? He had the perfect consultant.

NOYCE: I can remember an occasion where Patrick stepped into this frame, into the movie. He was there at the gates to the Secundo (ph) oil refinery, and some young South African extras were searching the black workers that were entering the plant, and Patrick felt that they were not showing the right kind of aggression for 1980.

OKE: Patrick Chamusso also makes an appearance in "Catch a Fire," returning to the place where he was hunted down and arrested.

CHAMUSSO: It's not an easy thing that you can just go there and then think that, no, I'm playing now, no, it wasn't like that. You have the emotion of it. You go there and real - the emotion is in your head, and sometimes you see yourself, tears rolling on your eyes.

But I'm glad that the story is being told while I'm still alive, and the message of forgiveness also can go on to the people.

OKE: Patrick Chamusso spent 24 years in the infamous prison on Robben Island before being freed. His story now comes to the big screen in the new film, "Catch a Fire."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OKE: That's it from the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. Thank you for watching INSIDE AFRICA.

INSIDE AFRICA. We look forward to seeing you next week when we hope you will let INSIDE AFRICA be your window to the continent.

I'm Femi Oke. Until the next time, take care.

END

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