Call for Action: Myanmar Cyclone Nargis Emergency Response and the needs of the People Living with HIV (PLHIV) Community

For immediate release:

Contact: Shiba Phurailatpam, Regional Coordinator, APN+ Secretariat Office, Bangkok. shiba@apnplus.org , phone:+66 2 2591908-9

In the aftermath of the recent Cyclone Nargis that brought devastating damages in Myanmar, the Asia Pacific Network of PLHIV (APN+) is extremely concerned about its impact on people living with HIV and HIV prevention, care and support efforts in the country.

An informal study recently conducted by people living with HIV in Myanmar found that many HIV positive people are severely affected by the disaster, left without food, shelter, clean water and medicine. Many positive people have been placed in a situation where access to HIV medicines and treatment is extremely difficult, thereby putting their lives in danger.

The current situation could greatly exacerbate the existing challenges in Myanmar where basic HIV prevention, treatment and care services are not readily available and accessible. It is important to remember that Myanmar is one of the countries in Asia where more than 1% of adult population is living with HIV. Disruptions in the supply and provision of HIV prevention commodities and clean needles could put many people at risk of HIV infection.

Under the circumstances, APN+ calls the government of Myanmar, all the relevant authorities, UN and donor agencies to ensure the following:

• Adequate supply of food, water and shelter are provided to those people living with HIV affected by Cyclone Nargis;
• That health care and HIV treatments are not interrupted;
• Involvement of the HIV positive community and local organisations in the responses, in particular in the longer term planning and implementation processes;
• That the local HIV positive community is supported to be an active participant in all community based responses focused on PLHIV;
• Prevention services such as condoms and clean needles are available and easily accessible;
• Remove all restirctions of foriegn aid workers so that more humanitarian aid can be delivered where needed.

The Asian Tsunami Study conducted by (APN+) and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) found that HIV positive people faced increased challenges such as illness, poverty, unemployment, psychological trauma and discrimination as a result of the 2004 Asian Tsunami. Therefore, disaster situation emergency responses must include comprehensive HIV treatment, care and support and prevention services, with particular attention to the needs and involvement of HIV positive people.

APN+ requests all stakeholders to support people living with HIV and those working in the response to the Cyclone Nargis disaster to ensure the availability of HIV prevention, treatment, and care and support services in Myanmar.

Global AIDS Week of Action 18-24 May, 2008

One week. One voice

Dear Colleagues,

Global AIDS Week of Action 2008 will start within the next few days and we encourage you to use this opportunity to stand together and demand accountability from your leaders.

For this year many actions have already been planned. These are just few examples;

Africa:

In Liberia – Roundtable discussions on Access to treatment, political commitments and stigma & discrimination.

In Ethiopia – Live radio discussion and panel discussion with government bodies on access to treatment and food security for rural women PLP.

In Malawi – Public debates with communities and hearing of personal testimonies, marches and petitions.

In Uganda – Week of Action - week of treatment literacy training, a meeting of communities with VCT and Family Planning Community Outreach Services, and a ‘Right to City Campaign in Kampala’.

In Sierra Leone – accountability hearing to discuss UNGASS report, awareness raising activities including use of female condoms, HIV education for children and youth.

In Nigeria – ‘Stand up Campaign’ to present 7 demands to leadership of National Assembly, round table discussion on ‘Strategies on Alternative Livelihood Options for PLWHAs’.

In Zimbabwe – theatre Road Show – HIV/AIDS awareness campaign.

Latin America:

In Uruguay – Roundtable discussions on ‘Access to treatment for PLHIV in Uruguay within the overall framework of integrated health system’.

In Argentina – Rallies will meet several hospitals and clinics in the city of Cordova to address issues such as human rights of PLHIV, access to health care services for PLHIV, stigma & discrimination and sexual reproductive health rights.

Asia:

In India – Rallies led by PLHIV will meet the health department and local administration, orientation workshop for sex workers, MSM and PLHIV of 24 districts, series of meetings, press releases of advocates and community representatives for HIV and Aids Bill, public hearing by women living with HIV/AIDS.

In Nepal – Press conference ‘Global Aids Week and UNGASS’ to stress the importance of the week of action and UNGASS and 11 commitments signed by Nepal, radio and television debates, interaction programme and a mass rally for ‘Universal Access to Food, Nutrition and Treatment’.

In Cambodia – series of community drives in capital and other districts, civil society platform to draft Charter of Demands on Universal Access and a press conference.

In Pakistan – Press conference for a launch of Pakistani shadow UNGASS report and dissemination of Charter of Demands.

Have you planned your own activities? Send us the details (it needs to be only 2/3 lines describing activity, date, time and contact person) and we’ll make sure they go on the Global Aids week website (www.globalaidsweek.org) This is the only way you can share you event with the world. Copy your message to info@globalaidsweek.org and your plans will be uploaded immediately.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Attapon Ed Ngoksin

Communications assistant

International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC)

Secretariat: 176/22 Sukhumvit 16, Klongtoey Bangkok Thailand, 10110 Tel: +66 85 4417600

“One week – One voice”

Support the Global Aids Week of Action May 18 – 24, 2008. To find out more visit the website www.globalaidsweek.org

U.S. Senators Block Key HIV/Aids Legislation

NEWS - 14 May 2008
By Brian Kennedy - Washington, DC

A group of United States senators is blocking a bill that would help HIV/Aids patients in Africa and around the world, and could postpone the bill's passage until next year.

The bill reauthorizes and expands on previous legislation to fight HIV/Aids, under which the program known as the President's Emergency for Aids Relief (Pepfar) was established. The new bill, which authorizes $50 million in spending over the next five years, passed the House of Representatives on April 2 by a vote of 308-116. In order to become law, it must now pass the Senate and be signed by President Bush.

However, seven Republican senators object to the removal of a requirement that a minimum of 55 percent of spending should be directed to the treatment of HIV/Aids patients. The seven have signed a hold letter, which will postpone a vote on the bill indefinitely.

The formal title of the bill is the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008. It is named for two prominent U.S. congressmen, Lantos a Democrat and Hyde a Republican, who died recently.

Senator Richard Burr (Republican-North Carolina), one of the seven senators blocking the legislation, told a press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington DC Tuesday: "The focus is not on delivering medicine, it is not on treatment, it is not on addressing the population of individuals with HIV/Aids in Pepfar countries… It is focused on what was politically accommodating. There are no hard targets."

"What we know is treatment is prevention," added Senator Tom Coburn (Republican-Oklahoma), another senator blocking the bill.

The move has several critics, including John Bradshaw, director of the Washington office of Physicians for Human Rights, who said in a statement to AllAfrica that the Pepfar program must be "flexible and respond to what is needed in each country - and people on the ground are in the best position to make those decisions, not senators in Washington dictating artificial, numerical targets."

The senators blocking the bill even have critics within the Republican Party. Michael Gerson, a former member of the Bush administration who played a key role in the first Pepfar bill, wrote in an op-ed published today in the Washington Post that the actions of the seven Republican senators are "destructive."

"The 55 percent treatment floor would force the program to waste money in pursuit of an arbitrary, nonsensical spending target – the worst kind of congressional earmark," Gerson wrote. He accused the senators of insisting on a minimum figure for treatment as a means of discouraging what they saw as "feckless or morally dubious" spending which might promote abortion or the purchase of needles for drug addicts.

The supporters of the seven senators claim that the delay is necessary for millions of people with HIV/Aids. Michael Weinstein, the president of Aids Healthcare Foundation, the organization that put together the Capitol Hill press briefing, said "the removal of the language that requires Pepfar to direct a specific amount of its funds toward lifesaving Aids care and treatment will cost millions of lives."

Coburn added: "We are deadly serious about making sure [Pepfar] stays an effective program."

Gerson, however, accused Coburn of "undermining the bill." He reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Democrat-Nevada), who schedules floor time in the Senate, supports the bill but will not introduce it if it leads to a long, drawn-out quarrel. Gerson added that President George W. Bush is not making the bill his top legislative priority.

"Given these obstacles, supporters of Pepfar reauthorization now estimate a 50 percent chance it will shelved until next year," Gerson wrote.

Coburn seemed to agree with this prediction, telling reporters that the bill was still in an early stage of Senate processes.

Katie Wyly contributed to this report.

STOP THE ARRESTS, DETENTION AND SALE OF REFUGEES IN MALAYSIA

Press Release - May 14, 2008

Yesterday, Prime Minister, YAB Abdullah Ahmad Badawi launched a fund for cyclone-hit Burma after Kuala Lumpur's aid team landed in Rangoon. In his speech, he stated "We help them on humanitarian grounds, there is no politics in this matter. When there are people suffering, we Malaysians always offer assistance."

We applaud the Prime Minister and all Malaysians who have come forward to give aid and support to the people of Burma. It is the right thing to do where cyclone Nargis left 100,000 dead or missing and affecting two million or more people.

But right now in our country, there are more than 60,000 Burmese refugees with children who are being hunted down with a form of vengeance by the RELA and the Immigration department and mercilessly being arrested and detained in inhuman conditions in the various Immigration detention centers.

The recent burning of Lenggeng detention centers, reflects the harsh treatment given to migrant detainees and the total mismanagement of the camps by Immigration and RELA authorities.

The NTV 7 revelation , “Refugees for Sale” under the program Siasatan, of the involvement of enforcement officers in the blatant trafficking of women, children and men from the refugee community during the deportation to the Thai border smacks of embedded corruption and blatant arrogance and abuse of power of the enforcement agencies with RELA. To date, the Home Minister has not made public of investigations carried out on these agencies and what steps are being taken to make them accountable.

Meanwhile arrests and abuse have been stepped up, and the sale of them continue with even greater vigor that refugees are forced to flee their homes in Malaysia. We know of pregnant women, even up to 8 months pregnant with other children running for their safety to areas of high risk to their health and their children’s health. Refugees live in great fear of their safety once more from this form of state violence and repression.

The current government cannot continue to behave like the junta of Burma that oppresses and represses the people at gun point. The Burmese refugees are here because their lives have been deeply threatened. They came into this country with the sole hope and believe that a nation that practices democracy and is not experiencing conflict will protect them.

The Prime Minister must live and practice his statement that when people suffer, we must offer assistance. Why can’t we offer support and assistance to the refugees who are here with us in this country? Why are we arresting them and selling them as slaves or threatening them with deportation to Burma when we know that their lives will be at great risk even death? Is this not brutally inhuman?

Knowing very well the deep political crisis in Burma and now with the catastrophe of cyclone Nargis, is not just and right that refugees be recognized as refugees? Should we not start our humanitarian response to the refugees in the country by stopping the arrest of all refugees and going further to recognize them as refugees?

Tenaganita calls on the Prime Minister to show our humanitarian values and response by stopping the arrest and detention of all refugees; stopping the deportation of refugees; recognizing them as refugees so that they can stay and work in the country. We also urge the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar to thoroughly investigate the continued abuse, trafficking and sale of refugees and corruption allegations and reports made on RELA and the Immigration officials.

It is only in recognizing the truth and in acting to redress the intense human rights violations perpetrated against the refugee community can we regain our humanity as a nation.

Dr. Irene Fernandez

Director

_______________________________

TENAGANITA SDN BHD

Penthouse, Wisma MLS

No. 31 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman

50100 Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

Tel: +603 2691 3691 / 2697 3671

Fax: +603 2691 3681

Email: tenaganita@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.tenaganita.net

ASEAN MEETING

ASEAN Regional Consultation on Project Development for Finalizing The Regional Proposal and Plan of Action for Greater Involvement and Empowerment of People Living with HIV

On May 7 to 9 I was invited to speak in the ASEAN regional consultation in Vientiane, Lao PDR. This meeting was attended by ATFOA focal points from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Myanmar. The participants from Viet Nam and Brunei Darussalam were absence. In addition, representatives from APN+, UNDP, RAK THAI and Third World Network also presented.

This consultation workshop had an output which is a Statement of Commitment. Migrations, migrant and mobile population had been mentioned a lot during this meeting and finally it has a special section in the statement. This is good because this statement will be finalized and brought to the ASEAN countries to be discussed at the country level. ASEAN Secretariat had committed to monitor the implementation of the statement at the country level.