Archbishop Desmond Tutu berated South Africa's government on Friday over delays in introducing an HIV/AIDS drug treatment plan and said its leaders' unorthodox views had led to unnecessary deaths.

Recalling fallen anti-apartheid heroes, the Nobel peace laureate said they would be shocked by the devastation caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which he said was killing 900 people every day in the country.

"They would be glad that a more realistic plan was in place but they would lament the fact that too many died unnecessarily because of bizarre theories held on high."

South Africa has one of the world's biggest HIV caseloads, with about one in nine people infected with the virus, and President Thabo Mbeki's government has come under fire from activists for failing to halt its spread.

The country was late and appeared reluctant in its efforts to roll out life-saving anti-retroviral drugs to fight the deadly disease -- the mainstream approach to the epidemic.

Mbeki has been criticized for clouding the anti-HIV/AIDS fight by arguing that AIDS is the result of poverty, chronic disease, malnutrition and other environmental factors, a stance seen to have delayed widespread drug use.

Tutu also criticized the goings-on in the health department, where Mbeki sacked the deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge for insubordination, sparking a public outcry and strengthening fears over his commitment to fighting AIDS.

Madlala-Routledge, a rising star in the South African Communist Party, had publicly criticized the health minister, a close Mbeki ally, who had angered activists by suggesting fighting AIDS with garlic and beetroot rather than drugs.

Speaking at the Nelson Mandela University in the Eastern Cape province, where he was presented with an honorary degree, Tutu said former anti-apartheid activists would be shocked at the extent of crime in modern South Africa.

"Why was there so much corruption? Undoubtedly they would be shocked that so many still lived in shacks. They would be shocked that the gap between rich and poor was growing," he added.

Africa's biggest economy has grown steadily over the past few years, and has seen the emergence of a strong black middle class, but the lion's share of the economy is still in white hands and the majority of blacks languish in poverty.

On the brighter side, Tutu said the activists would be thrilled to know that their sacrifices were not in vain.

"They would laugh and be glad that apartheid had been defeated, that democracy reigned supreme... no more humiliating signs "Natives and dogs not allowed,"" he said.

"They would be so proud that their President (Mbeki) was playing such a prominent role in Africa and elsewhere, especially with peace initiatives," he added.

South Africa's embattled Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was accused by AIDS activists on Wednesday of fuelling the country's HIV crisis by obstructing efforts to combat the disease.

A raft of non-governmental organisations, including the leading AIDS lobby, said the recent sacking of the deputy health minister had raised fears that a widely-praised AIDS programme was being undermined only months after its launch and that "denialism" was back in vogue.

"We hoped that government would put the lives of our people before misplaced loyalty," read a letter addressed to Deputy President Phuzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and signed by groups including the Treatment Action Campaign lobby, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and South African Council of Churches.

"Instead, our people continue to die and become infected because of lack of leadership and deliberate obstruction from Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and her director general Thami Mseleku."

South Africa's new five-year AIDS plan -- aiming to halve new infections and treat 80 percent of sufferers -- was lauded at home and abroad when it was finally unveiled earlier this year.

It was drawn up under the leadership of Mlambo-Ngcuka, chairwoman of the National AIDS Council, and the now sacked deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge while Tshabalala-Msimang was recuperating from an illness and subsequent liver transplant.

The plaudits which greeted the plan were in stark contrast to the ridicule heaped on Tshabalala-Msimang over her championing of garlic and vegetables to help combat HIV which affects some 5.5 million South Africans.

However since her return to work, the goodwill seems to have evaporated and Madlala-Routledge's sacking on August 8 has fuelled anger towards Tshabalala-Msimang.

"We fear that denialism about the scale and needs of the AIDS crisis as well as the crisis in the public health system more broadly is once again ascendant in the health ministry," read the letter.

Tshabalala-Msimang has also faced calls to resign from the opposition this month after newspaper allegations she had a drink problem and was convicted of theft while working as a hospital administrator in Botswana three decades ago.

However she continues to enjoy the backing of President Thabo Mbeki who has himself questioned the link between HIV and AIDS in the past.

Some AIDS victims are being buried alive in Papua New Guinea by relatives who cannot look after them and fear becoming infected themselves, a health worker said Monday.

Margaret Marabe, who spent five months carrying out an AIDS awareness campaign in the remote Southern Highlands of the South Pacific nation, said she had seen five people buried while still breathing.

One was calling out "Mama, Mama" as the soil was shoveled over his head, said Marabe, who works for a volunteer organisation called Igat Hope, Pidgin English for I've Got Hope.

"One of them was my cousin, who was buried alive," she told reporters.

"I said, 'Why are they doing that?' And they said, 'If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die.'"

Villagers had told her it was common for people to bury AIDS victims alive.

Marabe appealed to the government and aid agencies to ensure the HIV/AIDS awareness programme carried out in cities and towns was extended to the rural areas, where ignorance about the disease is widespread.

Women accused of being witches have been tortured and murdered by mobs holding them responsible for the apparently inexplicable deaths of young people stricken by the epidemic, officials and researchers say.

A recent United Nations report said PNG was facing an AIDS catastrophe, accounting for 90 percent of HIV infections in the Oceania region.

HIV diagnoses had risen by around 30 percent a year since 1997, leaving an estimated 60,000 people living with the disease in 2005.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela announced Wednesday a giant benefit concert in London next June to promote his 46664 campaign against HIV/AIDS.

The gig will take place in Hyde Park on June 28 to mark his 90th birthday the following month, Mandela said at the unveiling of a statue of him in London's Parliament Square.

The campaign, named after Mandela's prison number during his 27-year incarceration, aims to raise awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which is rife in sub-Saharan Africa.

South Africa is one of the countries worst-hit by HIV with prevalence standing at 18.4 percent in 2006, and 5.41 million people living with the illness.

Mandela told the crowd in Parliament Square that Oliver Tambo, his late fellow anti-apartheid leader, would have been proud had he lived to see the statue.

"We thank the British people once again for their relentless efforts in supporting us during the dark years," he said.

"We remember the Free Mandela campaign and the time we gathered in 1990 at Wembley Stadium following our release from jail.

"We are proud to announce that in celebration of my 90th birthday next year my international AIDS campaign, called 46664, will once again call on you as a British nation to gather.

"On the 27th of June 2008, 46664 will host a concert in Hyde Park.

"I want very much to be back in London to attend this concert and I hope to see you there."

Hyde Park is no stranger to giant concerts, having already hosted the Rolling Stones, Queen, Pink Floyd, Luciano Pavarotti, The Who, Eric Clapton and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It also hosted London's Live 8 concert against global poverty in 2005.

The four 46664 concerts already held so far were in November 2003 in Cape Town; March 2005 in George, South Africa; April-May 2005 in Madrid and June 2005 in Tromso, Norway.

Mandela lost a son to AIDS in January 2005.