Re: Membership of AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (ASAP)
suspended

Your message about ASAP's latest manoeuvrings is welcome. It is high
time that organizations and individuals concerned with AIDS and
Asia, including the taciturn UNAIDS, took a firm stand on this
group, and its activities and pretensions on the regional stage.

For too long it has been a self-appointed small faction, despite
technically having had 'elections' once every two years (for a
while), among a miniscule membership. Somehow, when they set
themselves up some 14 years ago, they managed to give themselves the
power, in perpetuity, to choose the venue of international
conferences on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (called ICAAPs), and to
dictate the contents of these gatherings.

ASAP is not accountable to anyone, in terms of what it does or in
financial terms, except in a very limited technical and legal sense -
- and even that technical legality doesn't apparently apply any more
now.

Transparency, openness, accountability -- these are not words
usually associated with ASAP.

The latest action, to suspend membership and continue as a sort of
junta, is only a logical continuation of its past behaviour and
should surprise no one.

ASAP's handout at the Bangkok conference talks meaninglessly about
this suspension being due to "matters largely beyond ASAP's
control", and being "consistent with legal advice received". So much
for clear, open explanations.

It all sounds very much like the way the cancellation of the Kobe
ICAAP planned for November 2003, was announced by ASAP in July last
year.

Then the rest of the world was told next to nothing about why this
had happened: vague words about fears of SARS recurring in the
winter 2003-04; rumours that the registration figures were down on
predictions and a financial loss was likely to be made.

A pitifully short and unimpressive apology from ASAP, and the
bizarre statement (that nobody apparently had the power to
contradict) that -- despite the huge and glaring failure of both
ASAP and the Kobe organizing committee -- Kobe would still be
organizing the next conference in 2005 (no SARS in 2005, presumably).

No discussion about whether this was a wise idea -- including on
supposedly fearless discussion groups such as SEA-AIDS. No public
reaction from UNAIDS, APCASO, APN+.

Lack of accountability and openness in ASAP has always started with
its arbitrary choice of conference venues.

For 2003, Vietnam wished to host the conference, and expected to do
so until the surprise announcement of Kobe, the second ICAAP
conference in a row to be held outside the heartland of Asia.

Places in India had also expressed an interest. There being no
bidding system whatsoever for would-be host cities -- let alone any
fair or transparent system -- any choice was bound to appear totally
random.

Many people felt when Kobe was declared the venue, back in 2001,
that it was time that an ICAAP was held in a country with a
significant AIDS epidemic, or with the threat of such an epidemic.

India and China are the two outstanding examples of feared large
epidemics in the coming years. Vietnam could also have been a
reasonable candidate on these grounds. Japan and Australia decidedly
are not.

Since the Kobe debacle of last year, some cities in southern India
have expressed a strong interest in holding the 2005 ICAAP. ASAP
prefers not to hear their voices.

If ASAP is allowed to continue this sorry game any longer, we will
no doubt hear soothing words at next year's conference about how
ideally suited Hawaii is -- or Auckland or Hobart -- to organize the
2007 ICAAP.

If Kobe does indeed host the 2005 ICAAP, then it will be eight years
(or more) between Asian countries with at least a moderately a
significant epidemic hosting the gathering -- between Kuala Lumpur
in 1999 and (at the earliest) a venue in 2007. A lot of wasted time
for the epidemic to have taken firm hold in China and India.

Enough already. Those concerned with AIDS in Asia have put up with
this secretive group for too long. Is there any way that a
representative group (excluding the ASAP 17), acting fairly,
transparently and with full accountability, in terms of choosing a
conference venue, organizing the conference proper and running
the finances, both of the conference itself and of its own
organization, can be set up quickly -- one that will begin by
choosing a venue for an AIDS conference in Asia in 2005 and
proceed from there? ASAP can then fade into well-deserved
oblivion.
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Author wish to remain anonymous (Moderator)