NEW YORK (GIN)�In a public break with the current administration over its HIV/AIDS policies, former President Nelson Mandela called for an end to the debate on HIV/AIDS, saying the government and South Africans should focus on fighting the "war" against the disease.

In a recent interview with a South African newspaper, Mr. Mandela issued his strongest attack so far on the government�s lack of urgency in the fight against AIDS.

"This is a war. It has killed more people than has been the case in all previous wars and in all previous natural disasters. We must not continue to be debating, to be arguing, when people are dying," he said.

The report in the Sunday Times newspaper said that while stopping short of directly criticizing President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress, Mr. Mandela said he was talking to the ruling party about its position on AIDS and believed it would listen to sound advice.

He admitted that differences over AIDS and the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women had resulted in a cooling in relations between himself and the ANC�s senior leadership.

"I have got difficulties on questions of this nature (the government�s stance on AIDS). This is why I am meeting the ANC, so that we can sort out our differences," Mr. Mandela said.

The report mentioned that he is due to meet the ANC�s most senior officials. He also wants to meet its national executive committee to discuss the party�s stance on HIV/AIDS.

The government has steadfastly refused to provide anti-retroviral drugs to pregnant women, arguing that their efficacy still had to be proved. But during his opening-of-Parliament address recently, Pres. Mbeki hinted that the government was bowing to public pressure and would increase its mother-to-child transmission test sites.

Several ANC-run provinces have also announced that they would be expanding their Nevirapine programs.

The stand-off between Mandela and the ANC leadership came to a head in the run-up to the ANC�s 90th birthday rally in Durban, when the national working committee decided that a message from Mr. Mandela should not be read aloud, the report said.

The message said in part: "The president and the government have been subjected to merciless criticism from various quarters. Some of this criticism seems to be almost instinctual, a reflex reaction that expects things to go wrong where a liberation movement has taken over the role of government. As a lay person we do, however, find some of the points of criticism that have consistently been raised difficult to reject or repudiate.

"Knowing your organization and its leadership, we are confident that, in due course, the president and the government will take note and give consideration to those points of criticism as they are raised in the national interest and deserve to be taken seriously."

In the end, the committee decided that Mr. Mandela�s message should simply be acknowledged, the report said.

When Mr. Mandela heard this, he reportedly threatened to distribute the message to the media. On the day of the rally, it was decided that ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe would read it out.