The following is a letter from Jan Lamprecht in South Africa to radio show host Jeff Rense. As anybody who knows Africa will tell you South Africa is a land of great contrasts; of enormous natural beauty and terrible brutality and savagery.

The White South African women are some of the most beautiful on Earth. I recall when I first arrived in South Africa around 30 years ago, walking down a street in Jo'burg in a state of dazed bewilderment and shock. I kept passing the most wondrous looking women, young Joni Mitchel look alikes with long flowing hair and short skirts. I simply couldn't believe it, but then I was about 16 at the time.

On the other hand it is also a land of great violence. The murder rate alone is one of the highest in the world and at least 10 times higher than the U.S. Anyway I thought Jan Lamprecht's letter offered some intriguing perspectives on an increasingly ominous situation there...

Hi Jeff,

With regard to some of our discussions about AIDS in Africa, I heard something today which proves to me that your analysis of the extent of the epidemic is dead-on.

You said that based on your own information on AIDS, it would decimate the black population in 5-10 years.

Also, you posted a message on your website from me, where I speculated that the reason the infection rate had gone DOWN for the first time EVER, is because the infection rate must be over the 50% barrier.

Here's what I heard today. A friend of mine, whose wife is a nurse, told me that his wife believed the black population in South Africa would be decimated in the next 7 years. She based it on the fact that she knows people at the former J. G. Strijdom hospital in Johannesburg. According to them, 60% of all blacks are HIV positive. I think, on average, a person with HIV lives about 10 years.

It is important to note, as I understand it, that the greatest concentration of HIV is in Natal where, to my knowledge, it passed this rate a long time ago. To my knowledge, Johannesburg is not particularly bad and so it may serve as a reasonably accurate indicator of the general state of the country.

According to the Govt, the infection rate is 20%. But, anybody with a basic knowledge of the situation will know that it must be much worse.

I heard too, that the Minister of Population Development said last year that if AIDS continues unchecked, the black majority might end up becoming a minority in decades to come.

What I'm going to do, is a bit of basic R&D phoning officials and seeing if I can get some off-the-record facts. Currently there is a furious campaign against American pharmaceutical companies trying to get medicine to treat AIDS. But clearly, it is more of a political ploy than something which will help.

I heard that some of the GENERIC medicines being brought in to combat AIDS were not in fact AZT, but merely cheap drugs which treat one or so of the symptoms produced by AIDS. The South African Communist Party is playing a massive role in using this to foment anti-US sentiments and in attacking the "profiteering" of drug companies. I have watched with interest as people from the Communist party have been making the most of this to attack the "evils" of globalism and to stir up sentiment against the USA. They tried to give a memorandum to the US Embassy, for President Bush, but the US Embassy refused to accept it.

All of this of course, amounts to nothing, since I read on the Drudge Report a few weeks back that even AZT is no use in the long run. Its been found in the USA that after 2-3 years of use of AZT, the AIDS mutates and is no longer stopped by AZT. So, the bottom line is: You die anyway, it just takes longer. The costs are tremendous.

(Note - AZT...an old, failed chemotherapy drug...has been properly termed 'AIDS by prescription' by many because it decimates the bone marrow...the very seat of the immune system...and can bring about the condition of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome all by itself even without HIV. - JR).

Previously, the Govt had actually decided not to give AZT to pregnant mothers. The reason being the mothers would die and there'd be hundreds of thousands of orphans. Then, other political parties said this was inhumane. So, then they changed their tack. The problem is, with an epidemic like this, which matches the Black Death in Europe, there is nothing you can do. Companies who provide assistance to their own workers who have AIDS, have calculated that when the infection rate hits 40%, the companies no longer make any profits because all of it will be eaten up by the 40% which have AIDS. Medical Aid societies have been on the verge of collapse for years. The only way they survive is by paying out less and less and continually cutting back on the benefits they provide because AIDS is sucking out more and more of the money. Personally, I'm amazed they've survived this long.

To my knowledge, AIDS in South Africa is actually less than anywhere else in Africa, or at least, very much lower than elsewhere. I know in Zimbabwe it is reaching incredible proportions.

It leads me to wonder if Robert Mugabe's attempts at driving whites out of the country could in any way be linked to his fears of what Aids is doing to the blacks there? Its merely a thought I add out of curiosity since there can be no doubt that these governments know the facts but its all very hush hush.

There was a story that in Kenya, some local scientists developed a vaccine for the most common strain of Aids. I wonder how much this will help in reality. The story then attacked Western governments for not taking an interest in this. Kenya is now experimenting with the vaccine. But, if it was this easy, then why did US and Western scientists not follow that line of thinking? My understanding is that there are too many strains and they are constantly mutating so all such vaccines are basically worthless.

Aids is becoming a big political issue in Africa now. It is also highly emotive since the Communists are tapping into the fears of people who are doomed and dying. This is a very dangerous thing to do.

This brings to mind something which you Americans might find humorous. Fidel Castro sent an army into Angola and it stayed there for a long time fighting. I heard that tens of thousands of Cubans got Aids while they were in Angola. Apparently, it was so bad that Castro tried to keep them in Angola so that they would not return to Cuba. Apparently, the returning soldiers were spreading Aids in Cuba. I think the Angolan government granted citizenship to thousands of Cuban soldiers to keep them there.

The greatest force in Africa in the next 20 years will undoubtedly be Aids. This, of course, MUST have an impact on the political thinking at higher levels in Africa - but exactly what it is, remains to be seen.