THE AIDS REBEL.(South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat)

Khayelitsha is a sprawling, ramshackle township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Most of the settlement's residents live in huts that have been constructed with corrugated tin and insulated with cardboard, plastic tarps, and sheet metal. More than five hundred thousand people live in the township; half are unemployed, and the average monthly wage is less than a hundred dollars. The dominant language is Xhosa. Although Khayeli-tsha resembles a squatter's retreat, it was in fact designed by the apartheid government. In 1983, the white regime decided to purge blacks from settlements close to the heart of Cape Town. The authorities dumped the evicted residents in Khayelitsha, which means "Our New Home."Houses were laid out in a grid pattern to help the police control disgruntled inhabitants. Since then, many families have established roots in Khayelitsha, but the crowded, unsanitary neighborhoods have also become home to viruses and germs. Khayelitsha has long had one of the highest tuberculosis rates in the world, and in recent years it has been decimated by aids. About fifty thousand people are infected with H.I.V.

On a warm March morning, a man named Zackie Achmat walked through Khayelitsha's dusty streets. He wore a white sweatshirt bearing a large message in garish purple letters: "h.i.v. positive."It was a typically audacious gesture by Achmat, a former male prostitute who has become South Africa's most prominent aids activist. He is the chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign, or tac, a grassroots movement that works to secure life-saving aids medicines for poor South Africans. Achmat, who is forty-one years old, is the most important dissident in the country since Nelson Mandela. He looks nothing like his elegant predecessor, however. His skin is golden, reflecting his Malaysian heritage, and his wide, boyish face is incongruously framed by chic, horn-rimmed spectacles.

Achmat, who lives in Muizenberg, a pleasant coastal town twelve miles from Khayelitsha, received a mixed greeting from the locals. Some people shuffled by him, straining to avoid eye contact. For them, Achmat is an unwelcome reminder of an unstoppable and unspeakable menace. South Africa has five million H.I.V.-positive people, more than in any other country. (If the disease were as prevalent in the United States, more than thirty million citizens would have H.I.V.) A more common reaction to Achmat, however, was awe. People gaped and whispered as he passed by, as if he were a pop star. A few had the nerve to approach. "Zackie, thank you for all you've done,"one woman said. "Please keep fighting."

Achmat pumped his fist and nodded. "We will,"he said. "And we'll win!”

A few minutes later, Achmat came across a pair of teen-age girls walking arm in arm. One wore an "h.i.v. positive"shirt just like Achmat's, which had been given to her by the local tac branch.

"Khayelitsha fashion,"Achmat said. He then passed an older woman planting vegetables in a small garden patch. She, too, was wearing an "h.i.v. positive"shirt. Her face lit up when she saw him. "I have seen you only on television,"she said.

Achmat pointed to a "Wanted"poster that had been plastered to a nearby telephone pole by tac supporters. The poster featured head shots of the health minister and the trade minister, both of whom were high-ranking members of the African National Congress, or A.N.C. The government has refused to distribute drugs like AZT to the public, and, in response, tac was charging the officials with "culpable homicide."Such pugnacious rhetoric repelled some South Africans, but Achmat said it was justified.