Peacekeepers Still Fail in AIDS Protection

By Nick Wadhams
July 18, 2005
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/18/AR2005071801231.html

UNITED NATIONS -- Despite some progress, U.N. peacekeepers still haven't been trained well enough to protect themselves or the people where they're deployed from AIDS, the top U.N. AIDS official said Monday.
Dr. Peter Piot urged the U.N. Security Council to make that training an explicit and timebound goal, but council diplomats agreed only to address the issue again and made no firm commitment.
Piot, chief of UNAIDS, spoke during an open council meeting to discuss progress five years after it passed a landmark resolution on HIV/AIDS. The document, Resolution 1308, was the first time the council cited a health issue as a threat to national security, and zeroed in on the problem of peacekeepers both spreading and contracting AIDS.
The issue has become especially relevant after the United Nations found earlier this year that peacekeepers in Congo had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money. Abuses have been reported in peacekeeping missions ranging from Bosnia and Kosovo to Cambodia, East Timor, West Africa and Congo.
Nations have come a long way in making sure their militaries address the AIDS pandemic, but soldiers need more access to testing and counseling, he said.
We are still too far from the point where responding to AIDS is a part of core military business, Piot told the council.
Some steps have been put in place _ such as distributing condoms on mission, including AIDS outreach in peacekeeping mission mandates and sending more AIDS advisers on deployment.
In some missions, rules have been put in place to protect people from peacekeepers and making sure the troops behave. Congo has a total anti-fraternization policy, while in other places, peacekeepers are prohibited from some bars or are required to wear only their military uniforms.
The man who was the driving force behind Resolution 1308, former U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said he was disappointed with the presidential statement adopted by the council at the end of its meeting.
Holbrooke _ as well as Piot _ wanted the council to declare the AIDS pandemic an international emergency and to put renewed emphasis on testing. He also had hoped the council would review the issue at least every year; in the end, it said it would welcome regular briefings, as needed.
Holbrooke said he was encouraged that the debate even took place.
There was a new mood in the room, Holbrooke said. Countries that refused and even objected to this event five years ago today supported it. And bureaucracies move slowly but they're moving.