KILLING THAI DRUG USERS

Dying for Thai drugs

The most cost-efficient way to rid Thai society of HIV-positive injection
drug users is, apparently, to murder them. In a bid to draw world attention
to the issue, NYC-based Human Rights Watch and Montreal-based Canadian
HIV/AIDS Legal Network this weekend are awarding their annual International
Award for Action on HIV/AIDS to the Thai Drug Users' Network. The network
has been operating across Thailand to reduce drug abuse and HIV infection
while documenting up to 3,000 government-sponsored killings of drug users in
the last year. "People are terrified because anyone can suggest a name for a
[anti-drug/HIV] blacklist," explains Karyn Kaplan, TDN's international
advocacy co-ordinator. "They go down to the police station and when they
leave cops follow people suspected of [taking] drugs and kill them. There
were no trials. They were just shot."

The murders first gained international attention at the international AIDS
conference held in Bangkok this past July. But now that the international
media are gone, activists fear the TDN itself now faces a government
crackdown. Which means the lives of people like Kaplan, who will be a
keynote speaker at this weekend's award ceremonies in Montreal, are now
literally in danger.

"I grew up a privileged kid in New Jersey and went to Thailand in 1988 to
teach English with the YMCA," Kaplan says. "Then I began meeting vulnerable
people, like little girls sent to Bangkok from their villages to work in the
sex industry. HIV was the most pressing issue facing them. There was a lot
of frustration and anger that these young people in the prime of their lives
had no clue what was happening [with HIV] and were dying."

Today, 16 years later, Kaplan is still in Thailand and has no plans to move
back to New Jersey. She also has a Thai boyfriend. "My mom came to visit me
in Thailand last month and she just wants me to be happy," Kaplan says. "And
I am happy. This is what I do. I get a lot of strength from my mother and in
turn I offer strength to people who need it."

Surf to http://aidslaw.ca/ for more on the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network,
and www.actupny.org/reports/thai_support.html for more on the Thai Drug
Users' Network.