LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Mr. Barry Botha, the editor of Veg, made some sensational disclosures about the alleged involvement of the Security Police in the internal politics of the Nationalist Party when he launched a slashing attack on the party leadership last night at the verkrampte meeting in Pretoria. He claimed that the telephones of certain M.P.s were tapped, that another M.P. was spied upon, and that he had evidence that his own telephone was tapped. In a biting comment he summarised the politics of the Nationalist Party as follows: “Intolerance, intimidation and victimisation. This happens to the detriment of its own people and because of its present policy of wooing the enemy.” — April 20 1969

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

Tiny AIDS sufferer Nkosi opens his mouth wide as his foster mother, Gail Johnson, gives him his mealtime dose of sticky AZT-laced syrup. As the debate about the anti-AIDS drug AZT rages following the release of the Concorde clinical trials in London last week — they found that the drug does not necessarily slow down the onset of full-blown AIDS in HIVpositive people — two long-term South African AIDS survivors continue to live with the disease. One takes AZT, the other doesn’t. One is five-year-old Nkosi, probably the longest-surviving HIV-positive child in the country. The other is Vincent Veal, 32, one of the country’s longest-surviving HIV-positive adults. — April 17 1994