Lesson Not Learned - Human Rights Watch (2)

On World AIDS Day 2003, people with AIDS and their supporters courageously spoke out on the streets of Saint Petersburg, the home city of Vladimir Putin, to demand an end to the discrimination and abuse that they face.In one of the media reports of this event, a member of the city Duma and the city health committee of Saint Petersburg, Alexander Redko, told reporters that it made no sense to have a program just for HIV/AIDS because there were many other diseases that were also a problem."Do we need a special program for hemorrhoids or for dental caries?" he said. In the priority it accords to HIV/AIDS, the Russian government has for too long been acting as though HIV/AIDS is little worse than hemorrhoids.It has also been dangerously dismissive of the rights of people at high risk of HIV and those already living with it.

President Putin addressed the Russian nation in January 2002 on the subject of the country's ailing health system, but he did not mention HIV/AIDS. His first notable mention of AIDS in a national address in June 2003 was described this way by a reporter for The Economist:"He flicked out the word [AIDS] as if expelling a tiny, irritating hair, so unobtrusively that many listeners did not hear it."[238]In September 2003, following a visit by Putin to the United States, the U.S. and Russian governments announced a "cooperation initiative" on HIV/AIDS that would include technical cooperation in research and surveillance of the disease.[239]This partnership, while bringing welcome attention to HIV/AIDS in Russia, is unlikely to help Russia to move forward in the area of HIV prevention services for drug users as the United States government will not support needle exchange services, for example, either at home or abroad.[240]

In 2002, President Putin publicly committed Russia to a contribution of U.S.$20 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.[241]It did not escape the notice of international observers that, as his own federal government limped along with a U.S.$5 million annual budget for HIV/AIDS, this gift to the Global Fund gave the impression that Putin believed AIDS to be a problem for other countries but not for Russia.[242]Soon after, Putin allocated U.S. $1.3 billion in federal monies to the celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Saint Petersburg.[243]

BRON