6 January 2008
Gay Nobel Nominee Weds Partner
South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat and
his partner Dali Weyers married yesterday in the presence of close friends and
family at the Imperial Yacht Club in Lakeside, near Cape Town.
The ceremony was conducted by Supreme Court
Judge Edwin Cameron, who officiated at the
ceremony after being specially appointed to do so by Minister of Justice
Brigitte Mabandla.
Cameron told reporters he was honoured and
excited to have been chosen to marry Achmat, whom he had known for 16 years.
"I
have married opposite-sex couples before, but this is my first same-sex wedding,
and I must say I'm excited for them," said Cameron.
"This is not just an intimate act of love, it's also a political affirmation."
Guests included the former Deputy Minister of Health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge,
and Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille. Former British High Commissioner Ann Grant was
Master of Ceremonies.
Achmat, the head of the Treatment Action
Campaign, has long been a thorn in the side of the South African government
which disputes the value of anti-retroviral drugs. He is credited with
single-handedly forcing the government to finally approve a five-year plan to
distribute free AIDS treatment drugs to all who need them.
In
2003 he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Born
in Johannesburg, Achmat was raised in a Muslim community in Cape Town. He
started his political life at 14, as one of the leaders of the 1976
anti-apartheid school boycotts.
Between 1976 and 1980 he was arrested, tried and imprisoned five times. As a
result, he never completed high school.
After being
diagnosed with HIV, Achmat threw himself into
the gay rights movement founding the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian
Equality and then starting the AIDS activist group Treatment Action Campaign.
Expensive anti-retrovirals were affordable by only a handful of South Africans
with millions more condemned to death by a government that refused to distribute
the medication to the poor.
In
December 1999, Achmat refused treatment until the drugs were made available to
all South Africans who needed them. His campaign drew international attention to
the country's growing crisis.
In
2003 the South African government abandoned its claim that HIV did not cause
AIDS and agreed to make anti-retrovirals available to all who needed them.
Nelson
Mandela has called him a national hero: an ordinary man whose extraordinary
resolve could help save thousands of African lives, at the cost of his own.
Achmat
and Weyers met in 2005. Achmat had been invited to speak to an HIV/AIDS support
group that Weyers was involved with.
