Activists slam Thai govt
2004-07-12 09:57
Bangkok, Thailand - The Thai government was roundly criticised on Monday for pushing HIV infected people into the background at the opening ceremony of the International Aids Conference.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was the first speaker late on Sunday but left without waiting to hear the evening's last speaker: HIV-infected Thai delegate Paisan Swannawong. Because other dignitaries followed Thaksin out of protocol, Paisan spoke to a largely empty arena.
"Row upon row of political leaders and bureaucrats are all too eager to speak to HIV-infected to curry favour with the popular and the powerful, while the real issues are ignored," said Stuart Flavell of the Global Network of People Living With Aids.
Paisan, of the Thai Drug Users Network, spoke eloquently about his experience as a drug user and the human rights of people living with HIV.
The prime minister lit a giant candle in a symbolic inauguration of the meeting before leaving, prompting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and most other conference attendees to file out for a buffet dinner outside the arena.
This was an insult to the nearly 40 million people living with HIV, Flavell said.
"Those 40 million of us were talked about abstractly and replaced by a candle," Flavell said. "Spare us your support and your pity."
Separately, the International HIV/Aids Alliance said it would hold the International Aids Society and the Thai government - the conference organisers - responsible for the "appalling compromise of integrity."
The Thai organisers called it "unfortunate."
Thaksin was not aware that Paisan was going to speak after him, and had to leave because he had other engagements, said Vallop Thaineua, the co-chair of the conference. "It was very unfortunate. He did not mean to avoid Paisan," he said.
Activists also protested against the Thai government's war on drugs that left more than 2 500 people dead last year. The government says most were drug traffickers killed in gang wars but human rights activists say many were innocent victims of extra-judicial killings by the police and suspected drug users.
Rodrigo Pascal, the co-ordinator of a Chilean group called Vivo Positivo, said the next Aids conference in Toronto in 2006 should avoid such an embarrassing error by ensuring that HIV/Aids victims should speak at the beginning rather than at the end of the opening ceremony.
- AP