Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Health, Human Rights

RIGHTS: UN Fetes Thai AIDS Fight But Group Protests Latest Policy

Ushani Agalawatta

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2003 (IPS) - Thailand is being recognised for its fight against HIV/AIDS as world leaders gather to discuss progress against the scourge at a U.N. General Assembly session next week.

Acknowledged among a small group of ”success stories”, including Uganda, Zambia, Senegal and Cambodia, Thailand is as an example of "a strong prevention campaign since 1990 (which) has broadly contained the pandemic", says a secretary-general’s report on implementation of the U.N. Millennium Declaration regarding HIV/AIDS.

This week, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) honoured former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun for his efforts in battling HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region.

”He made tough and bold decisions to combat the epidemic. He publicly acknowledged that the epidemic in Thailand was being driven by practices in the country that no one wanted to admit, namely the use of commercial sex workers by Thai men, injecting drug use and gender inequality, including the sale of children into sex work," the agency said.

”Thailand’s programme under Mr. Panyarachun’s administration is being showcased by UNAIDS as one of three ‘best practices’ in the world (the other two being in Africa – Uganda and Senegal)”.

Panyarachun became Thailand’s 18th prime minister in 1991, and simultaneously began his crusade against HIV/AIDS. In the early 1990s, he says, the country was at a crossroads, "where you were damned if you do or damned if you don’t”.

"HIV/AIDS was something that was convenient for us to gloss over, to pretend that it did not exist," he told reporters.

But the facts and figures painted a bleak picture – 143,000 new infections in 1991 and the prospect that within the next 20 years, almost 10 percent of Thais would die of AIDS.

”What it boiled down to was that we needed political leadership; we needed to formulate, in succinct terms the government’s policy, which would address not only the cure or combating stage but also education and the prevention stage, which would cost a lot," Panyarachun said.

"One of the reasons why we were so successful is because we were the first ones to overcome the denial stage, denial of the existence of the problem and the hope that it would simply go away."

With a population of around 64 million people, it has been estimated that without Panyarachun’s vision and leadership, Thailand would be facing 10 million HIV infections by the year 2010; instead, the count is projected to be around one million.

UNAIDS says that almost one million people acquired HIV in Asia and the Pacific in 2002, bringing the number of people in the region living with HIV to 7.2 million. India, China and Indonesia are now the countries most threatened by a growing epidemic.

Avert, a U.K.-based charity working to prevent HIV and AIDS worldwide also acknowledges Thailand’s success.

”The key elements of the programme were a massive public information campaign launched through the media, government, and NGOs … led by a multi-sectoral National AIDS Prevention and Control Committee, chaired by the prime minister," says the group’s Internet site.

Its success "is a result both of a sound policy and the determination of Thai people", Avert adds.

But a major human rights organisation says Thailand’s success in fighting AIDS is now under a cloud.

According to Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/AIDS programme at Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Thai government is using the fight against AIDS – particularly the spread of the disease via intravenous needles – as a way of cracking down on alleged drug dealers.

As of April this year 2, 270 people have been killed in this government-backed campaign, says New York-based HRW.

"There is no question that in the early history of the epidemic (HIV/AIDS) they made remarkable progress, but it is truly being undone by the Thai government’s horrific campaign against drug dealers," Csete told IPS.

"This campaign is one of the worst practices in HIV prevention," she added.

Current Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced the crackdown on the narcotics trade in February 2003.

According to HRW, the Thai government’s interior minister made this comment about drug dealers: ”They will be put behind bars or even vanish without a trace. Who cares? They are destroying our country.”

According to Csete, "it is alarming that the next major HIV/AIDS conference will be held in Bangkok, without the United Nations speaking out against these human rights abuses".

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated that at the end of 2002, 42 million adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Asia-Pacific countries still have a limited window of opportunity to stem the tide of new infections and combat the growing HIV/AIDS pandemic, Nafis Sadik, special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, said earlier this month.

”You must learn to confront it, address it, and talk about it. It is something that concerns all of us, as a personal as well as a policy matter."

"If we continue to live as if HIV/AIDS did not exist, if we ignore and stigmatise people in our families and communities who carry the infection, then HIV/AIDS will creep up on us like a thief in the night. It will destroy our lives. It will tear us apart: our families, our communities and our countries."