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THE DENIAL OF POLITICS AND THE POLI



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Dear Netters and T'others, 

A piece I wrote on AIDS, denial and politics was published in "The Nation" of 8
November and circulated on the nets. However, there is a small but significant
mistake in their 3rd para (my 2nd) , which I'm sure you all spotted, namely the
placing of  "not" in front of "compatible". But just in case....

"The Nation" text states that: ".... The General ... fails to understand that a
figure of 25,000 people testing positive is not compatible with an estimate of
440,000 or more HIV infections countrywide...."  
Clearly he thinks that the figures are incompatible, and is arguing that the
UNAIDS estimate is wrong. 

The point I was making  -- in fact the point that inspired me to write the
thing in the first place -- is that a figure of 25,000 TESTING positive IS 
compatible with an ESTIMATE of 440,000 HIV infections, especially in a country
where people fear that testing and reporting will land them in trouble with the
authorities, and where the bulk of the infections is likely to be in areas
where there is little or no testing. It's not a question of  setting Khin
Nyunt's figure of 25,000 against the UNAIDS estimate, but of pointing out that
he (probably) does not understand the epidemiological implication of the
figures,  and makes policy based on this lack of understanding. 

 If I were to re-write the piece, I would probably change the sentence around
and say that "an estimate of 440,000 HIV infections country-wide is by no means
incompatible with a figure of 25,000 testing positive". 

By the way, the 440,000 figure was considered conservative in 1997 when UNAIDS
first used it.  Given the  low level of preventive action and harm reduction
measures by the "authorities",   the current figure is likely to be far higher.

Anyway, pending the correction I'm sure the paper will issue, here is the
original (with original title) . Actually they changed very little apart from
the "not".  I've also enclosed the original AP wire  where Khin Nyunt is
reported as making his statement.

David Arnott

**************************

THE DENIAL OF POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF DENIAL 


On 12 October, General Khin Nyunt told a meeting of Asian health ministers that
claims of an AIDS epidemic in Burma were totally false. Khin Nyunt, Burma?s
Chief of Military Intelligence, seen by many as the most powerful figure in the
junta, dismissed a UNAIDS estimate that there may be 440,000 HIV infections in
Burma, saying that only 25,000 people in the country had tested positive for
HIV, and that Burmese "cultural values and traditions prohibited sexual
promiscuity". (AP wire, 12 October )

The General either fails to understand that a figure of 25,000 people testing
positive for HIV is compatible with an estimate of 440,000 or more HIV
infections country-wide, and that the principal vector of HIV spread in Burma
is needles shared by intravenous drug users rather than sexual promiscuity, or
he understands perfectly well, but goes ahead and issues the denial anyway. In
either case, we are reminded that in Burma, the military leaders make ALL
policy, whether they understand the specific issues or not. (We also find
generals lecturing farmers about rice cultivation, and ruling on a whole range
of other areas -- the economy, for instance -- which are outside their field of
competence.) This is completely logical, in spite of the economic and
humanitarian consequences, once we understand that the main function of the
policy is to keep the military in power rather than to serve the people. 

Technically, the way forward on the HIV/AIDS front is clear follow Thailand?s
lead in overcoming denial and adopting pro-active, open and rights-oriented
policies. The problems are political: the measures required -- free flow of
information, wide consultation and public education, needle exchange, anonymous
testing and treatment, free distribution of condoms etc. would threaten the
opaque, top-down regime in Rangoon. So, in the interest of regime survival, the
policy is Denial (of HIV/AIDS, and similarly of economic failure, military
complicity in the drug economy, human rights violations, the right of the NLD
to govern and so on).

But Burma has neighbours. In 1997, Professor John Dwyer, Founding President of
the AIDS Society for Asia and the Pacific described Burma as "the epicenter of
the epidemic in Asia?*. Since then, the Burmese HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread,
along with the growing drug traffic, ever deeper into India and China. Both are
now in the grip of escalating drug and HIV epidemics originating in Burma, and
Thailand is flooded with Burmese methamphetamines. China?s has more than
600,000 registered drug addicts, with the real figures estimated at several
times that, and for several years the country has been experiencing a crime
wave related, in great part, to drug trafficking from Burma

Not that the neighbours are entirely innocent. Thailand?s current problems with
her Western neighbour stem to a large extent from General Chaovalit?s early
business deals with SLORC and the abandonment of the policy of ethnic buffer
zones in the early ?90s. And China froze the regime in place around the same
time with a $2billion injection of arms that allowed the military to expand and
modernise and block social, economic or political development in the cities and
the ethnic minority areas. In the civil war the military expansion permitted by
the Chinese arms deals facilitated the shift from a strategy of seasonal combat
to one of occupation, leading to the military advances and human rights
violations by the occupying troops, especially when cash strapped Rangoon cut
the army?s food supplies, requiring it to live ?off the land? (i.e. off the
backs of the people). This in turn helped maintain Burma?s exclusion from
international assistance which, added to the junta?s inept dirigisme, continued
the country?s economic decline. Legal exports being at half the value of
imports, the country depends on laundered drug money to stay more or less
afloat. The drug economy is therefore allowed to flourish and carry addiction
and the HIV virus across the borders. The Thai and Chinese chickens are home to
roost with a vengeance. 

The economy will not recover without investment and infrastructure development.
This will only return with a process moving towards an economically competent
and publicly accepted administration able to carry out the hard but necessary
tasks like currency devaluation and tax reform. The same applies to the ethnic
insurgencies, which can only be settled by political means, which are beyond
the capacity of the military.

Without a substantial political shift in Burma, the country will continue to be
the epicenter of the HIV and drug epidemics and, on account of inept economic
policies and exclusion from international assistance, an impediment to regional
economic and social development. 

What may help to break the logjam and open up political space in Burma is a
coordinated regional and international approach, in particular by Thailand
(acting for ASEAN), China and India. So far, however, apart from a smidgen of
ASEAN diplomacy, these countries have tended to act bilaterally. China is a key
player, and apparently scolds the junta behind closed doors, but is still stuck
in the view that only a strong military in Rangoon can provide the stability
needed to further China?s economic and (says the Expansionist China school)
strategic interests. But it?s not happening Chinese traders suffer the erratic
swings of the Burmese economy and the idiosyncratic fiscal policies of the
generals; the modern transport routes through Burma to South Asian markets and
beyond which Yunnan needs have not been built; and the economic impact of the
HIV/AIDS and drug epidemics is only just starting to be felt. 

These problems, which cross international borders and threaten the
comprehensive national security of the neighbours, cannot be regarded as purely
the "internal affair" of one country. Thailand is in a particularly good
position to take a lead, at least behind closed doors, to bring China and India
into a regional effort to ?encourage? the Burmese military to take the first
steps beyond denial towards a political process 

*. See "AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific Newsletter", Vol. 1, June 1997.


: 
Myanmar general claims AIDS is being used in propoganda war 
Agence France Presse October 12, 1999 08:56 GMT . A leading member of Myanmar's
military junta Tuesday accused opponents of the regime of using AIDS as a scare
tactic in a propoganda war against Yangon. 
Powerful first secretary General Khin Nyunt told a gathering of health
ministers from across the region 
that claims of an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in his
country were totally 
false. 
"It is regretable that some quarters are using the AIDS scare to attack Myanmar
since their allegations 
are false and groundless," Khin Nyunt said. 
However the general, who also heads Myanmar's powerful military intelligence,
admitted AIDS was 
"one of the challenges of the 21st century". 
Earlier this year the United Nations AIDS program warned of a growing epidemic
in Myanmar and said 
the junta was largely ignoring it. 
It said Myanmar was one of the danger zones in the region, with an estimated
440,000 Human 
Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV) positive people out of a population of about 48
million. 
But Khin Nyunt said in the past decade only 25,000 people had tested positive
for HIV, which causes 
AIDS. 
He said Myanmar did not have a major problem with AIDS because its "cultural
values and traditions 
prohibited sexual promiscuity". 
"We are convinced it will not reach pandemic scale," said Khin Nyunt. 
He said the government had embarked on HIV education and public awareness
activities to combat the 
spread of AIDS. 
Khin Nyunt told ministers at the three-day World Health Organisation (WHO)
meeting here that 
Myanmar's biggest health concerns were malaria, tuberculosis and acute
respiratory tract infections. 
Ministers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri
Lanka, Thailand and 
North Korea were attending the first WHO regional meeting to be staged in
Myanmar. 



Internet ProLink PC User

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Dear Netters and T'others, <br>
<br>
A piece I wrote on AIDS, denial and politics was published in &quot;The
Nation&quot; of 8 November and circulated on the nets. However, there is
a small but significant mistake in their 3rd para (my 2nd) , which I'm
sure you all spotted, namely the placing of&nbsp; &quot;not&quot; in
front of &quot;compatible&quot;. But just in case....<br>
<br>
&quot;The Nation&quot; text states that: &quot;.... The General ... fails
to understand that a figure of 25,000 people testing positive is
<b>not</b> compatible with an estimate of 440,000 or more HIV infections
countrywide....&quot;&nbsp; <br>
Clearly he thinks that the figures are incompatible, and is arguing that
the UNAIDS estimate is wrong. <br>
<br>
The point I was making&nbsp; -- in fact the point that inspired me to
write the thing in the first place -- is that a figure of 25,000 TESTING
positive IS&nbsp; compatible with an ESTIMATE of 440,000 HIV infections,
especially in a country where people fear that testing and reporting will
land them in trouble with the authorities, and where the bulk of the
infections is likely to be in areas where there is little or no testing.
It's not a question of&nbsp; setting Khin Nyunt's figure of 25,000
against the UNAIDS estimate, but of pointing out that he (probably) does
not understand the epidemiological implication of the figures,&nbsp; and
makes policy based on this lack of understanding. <br>
<br>
&nbsp;If I were to re-write the piece, I would probably change the
sentence around and say that &quot;an estimate of 440,000 HIV infections
country-wide is by no means incompatible with a figure of 25,000 testing
positive&quot;. <br>
<br>
By the way, the 440,000 figure was considered conservative in 1997 when
UNAIDS first used it.&nbsp; Given the&nbsp; low level of preventive
action and harm reduction measures by the
&quot;authorities&quot;,&nbsp;&nbsp; the current figure is likely to be
far higher.<br>
<br>
Anyway, pending the correction I'm sure the paper will issue, here is the
original (with original title) . Actually they changed very little apart
from the &quot;not&quot;.&nbsp; I've also enclosed the original AP
wire&nbsp; where Khin Nyunt is reported as making his statement.<br>
<br>
David Arnott<br>
<br>
**************************<br>
<br>
<b>THE DENIAL OF POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF DENIAL <br>
<br>
<br>
</b>On 12 October, General Khin Nyunt told a meeting of Asian health
ministers that claims of an AIDS epidemic in Burma were totally false.
Khin Nyunt, Burma=92s Chief of Military Intelligence, seen by many as the
most powerful figure in the junta, dismissed a UNAIDS estimate that there
may be 440,000 HIV infections in Burma, saying that only 25,000 people in
the country had tested positive for HIV, and that Burmese &quot;cultural
values and traditions prohibited sexual promiscuity&quot;. (AP wire, 12
October )<br>
<br>
The General either fails to understand that a figure of 25,000 people
testing positive for HIV is compatible with an estimate of 440,000 or
more HIV infections country-wide, and that the principal vector of HIV
spread in Burma is needles shared by intravenous drug users rather than
sexual promiscuity, or he understands perfectly well, but goes ahead and
issues the denial anyway. In either case, we are reminded that in Burma,
the military leaders make ALL policy, whether they understand the
specific issues or not. (We also find generals lecturing farmers about
rice cultivation, and ruling on a whole range of other areas -- the
economy, for instance -- which are outside their field of competence.)
This is completely logical, in spite of the economic and humanitarian
consequences, once we understand that the main function of the policy is
to keep the military in power rather than to serve the people. <br>
<br>
Technically, the way forward on the HIV/AIDS front is clear follow
Thailand=92s lead in overcoming denial and adopting pro-active, open and
rights-oriented policies. The problems are political: the measures
required -- free flow of information, wide consultation and public
education, needle exchange, anonymous testing and treatment, free
distribution of condoms etc. would threaten the opaque, top-down regime
in Rangoon. So, in the interest of regime survival, the policy is Denial
(of HIV/AIDS, and similarly of economic failure, military complicity in
the drug economy, human rights violations, the right of the NLD to govern
and so on).<br>
<br>
But Burma has neighbours. In 1997, Professor John Dwyer, Founding
President of the AIDS Society for Asia and the Pacific described Burma as
&quot;the epicenter of the epidemic in Asia=94*. Since then, the Burmese
HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread, along with the growing drug traffic, ever
deeper into India and China. Both are now in the grip of escalating drug
and HIV epidemics originating in Burma, and Thailand is flooded with
Burmese methamphetamines. China=92s has more than 600,000 registered drug
addicts, with the real figures estimated at several times that, and for
several years the country has been experiencing a crime wave related, in
great part, to drug trafficking from Burma<br>
<br>
Not that the neighbours are entirely innocent. Thailand=92s current
problems with her Western neighbour stem to a large extent from General
Chaovalit=92s early business deals with SLORC and the abandonment of the
policy of ethnic buffer zones in the early =9190s. And China froze the
regime in place around the same time with a $2billion injection of arms
that allowed the military to expand and modernise and block social,
economic or political development in the cities and the ethnic minority
areas. In the civil war the military expansion permitted by the Chinese
arms deals facilitated the shift from a strategy of seasonal combat to
one of occupation, leading to the military advances and human rights
violations by the occupying troops, especially when cash strapped Rangoon
cut the army=92s food supplies, requiring it to live =93off the land=94 (i.e=
 .
off the backs of the people). This in turn helped maintain Burma=92s
exclusion from international assistance which, added to the junta=92s inept
<i>dirigisme,</i> continued the country=92s economic decline. Legal exports
being at half the value of imports, the country depends on laundered drug
money to stay more or less afloat. The drug economy is therefore allowed
to flourish and carry addiction and the HIV virus across the borders. The
Thai and Chinese chickens are home to roost with a vengeance. <br>
<br>
The economy will not recover without investment and infrastructure
development. This will only return with a process moving towards an
economically competent and publicly accepted administration able to carry
out the hard but necessary tasks like currency devaluation and tax
reform. The same applies to the ethnic insurgencies, which can only be
settled by political means, which are beyond the capacity of the
military.<br>
<br>
Without a substantial political shift in Burma, the country will continue
to be the epicenter of the HIV and drug epidemics and, on account of
inept economic policies and exclusion from international assistance, an
impediment to regional economic and social development. <br>
<br>
What may help to break the logjam and open up political space in Burma is
a coordinated regional and international approach, in particular by
Thailand (acting for ASEAN), China and India. So far, however, apart from
a smidgen of ASEAN diplomacy, these countries have tended to act
bilaterally. China is a key player, and apparently scolds the junta
behind closed doors, but is still stuck in the view that only a strong
military in Rangoon can provide the stability needed to further China=92s
economic and (says the Expansionist China school) strategic interests.
But it=92s not happening Chinese traders suffer the erratic swings of the
Burmese economy and the idiosyncratic fiscal policies of the generals;
the modern transport routes through Burma to South Asian markets and
beyond which Yunnan needs have not been built; and the economic impact of
the HIV/AIDS and drug epidemics is only just starting to be felt. <br>
<br>
These problems, which cross international borders and threaten the
comprehensive national security of the neighbours, cannot be regarded as
purely the &quot;internal affair&quot; of one country. Thailand is in a
particularly good position to take a lead, at least behind closed doors,
to bring China and India into a regional effort to =93encourage=94 the
Burmese military to take the first steps beyond denial towards a
political process <br>
<br>
*. See &quot;AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific Newsletter&quot;, Vol.
1, June 1997.<br>
<br>
<br>
: <br>
Myanmar general claims AIDS is being used in propoganda war <br>
Agence France Presse October 12, 1999 08:56 GMT . A leading member of
Myanmar's military junta Tuesday accused opponents of the regime of using
AIDS as a scare tactic in a propoganda war against Yangon. <br>
Powerful first secretary General Khin Nyunt told a gathering of health
ministers from across the region <br>
that claims of an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in
his country were totally <br>
false. <br>
&quot;It is regretable that some quarters are using the AIDS scare to
attack Myanmar since their allegations <br>
are false and groundless,&quot; Khin Nyunt said. <br>
However the general, who also heads Myanmar's powerful military
intelligence, admitted AIDS was <br>
&quot;one of the challenges of the 21st century&quot;. <br>
Earlier this year the United Nations AIDS program warned of a growing
epidemic in Myanmar and said <br>
the junta was largely ignoring it. <br>
It said Myanmar was one of the danger zones in the region, with an
estimated 440,000 Human <br>
Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV) positive people out of a population of
about 48 million. <br>
But Khin Nyunt said in the past decade only 25,000 people had tested
positive for HIV, which causes <br>
AIDS. <br>
He said Myanmar did not have a major problem with AIDS because its
&quot;cultural values and traditions <br>
prohibited sexual promiscuity&quot;. <br>
&quot;We are convinced it will not reach pandemic scale,&quot; said Khin
Nyunt. <br>
He said the government had embarked on HIV education and public awareness
activities to combat the <br>
spread of AIDS. <br>
Khin Nyunt told ministers at the three-day World Health Organisation
(WHO) meeting here that <br>
Myanmar's biggest health concerns were malaria, tuberculosis and acute
respiratory tract infections. <br>
Ministers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Thailand and <br>
North Korea were attending the first WHO regional meeting to be staged in
Myanmar. <br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>Internet ProLink PC User</div>
</html>

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