The SABC did not refuse to air a controversial documentary on the Thabo Mbeki era and Aids deaths, the Health-e news service said today (November 17).

“They never refused to air it,” said Health-e managing editor Kerry Cullinan.

“They took a long time to decide whether they wanted it. They never gave us a reason why.”

Beeld newspaper reported today that the documentary would be screened on etv’s 3rd Degree after the SABC refused to air it.

“The programme was initially made for SABC’s Special Assignment, but the corporation apparently decided the allegations against Mbeki were too controversial and even unfounded,” Beeld reported.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago refused to comment before he had more information on the issue.

The documentary, entitled “The Price of Denial”, investigates the impact of former president Mbeki’s government’s denial about HIV/Aids and treatment for ordinary South Africans living with HIV/Aids.

A 2008 Harvard University study, led by Harvard-based Zimbabwean physician Dr Pride Chigwedere, found former president Mbeki and former health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang were directly responsible for more than 330000 Aids-related deaths during their tenure.

“At the peak of the epidemic, the government, going against consensus scientific opinion, argued that HIV was not the cause of Aids and that antiretroviral (ARV) drugs were not useful for patients and declined to accept freely donated nevirapine and grants from the Global Fund,” the study found.

However, Cullinan said the documentary was “about the consequences for normal people. It’s more about looking at the human stories of people who did not get HIV treatment.”

The issue of genocide charges against Mbeki had been raised for some time, said 3rd Degree executive producer Debora Patta.

“The film looks at the havoc that Aids denialism has wreaked,” she said.

“It’s a damning documentary. We offered Mbeki a chance to respond and he declined.”

During an address in Rustenburg, Young Communist League leader Buti Manamela called for Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang to be charged with genocide.

In response, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said the ANCYL would not allow Mbeki to be charged.

“Thabo Mbeki might have made mistakes, but we can never charge him. We must not charge one of our own,” Malema said at the gala dinner of the Pan African Youth Union at Emperor’s Palace in Boksburg yesterday. – Sapa