BANGKOK, July 13 (AFP) - Demonstrations rippled across the International AIDS conference here Tuesday for the second day running as protestors targeted western politicians to demand more funds for the war on AIDS and pharmaceutical giants for resisting cuts in drug prices.
France's minister for development and cooperation, Xavier Darcos, was jeered by French members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, and sources among campaigners said similar "actions" were being planned against representatives of "big pharma".
Darcos was about to deliver a speech on behalf of French President Jacques Chirac when about a dozen protestors left their seats in the auditorium and stood in front of the podium.
Clutching a banner reading "G8 must pay", they chanted in French "Ten thousand deaths (from AIDS) per day, Darcos wants more".
Darcos listened impassively as the loud, brief but peaceful demonstration unfolded, which ended after about 10 minutes when the activists folded up the banner and left the room.
A protest also disrupted a speech by the chairman of Pfizer, one of the US pill giants at the centre of a debate here over drug patents, prices and calls for the use of cheaper generic drugs.
About 50 activists from ACT UP and other groups marched into the arena carrying black body bags, representing the millions of deaths, they said were caused by the companies refusal to allow patents to be broken.
Chants of "Free the people, break the patents!" were met by counterclaims from some 20 Americans who yelled "Socialism kills, capitalism heals."
The members of the US group were from Bureaucrash Activist Network which says on its website it fights the growth of government control.
Trouble was defused when one of the demonstrators was briefly allowed to speak to delegates.
"Expensive ARVs (anti-retroviral AIDS drugs) prevent access for all. We need cheap ARVs," activist Boonniem Wongjaikam told the forum before the protestors were ushered out.
Pfizer chairman Hank McKinnell resumed his address and acknowledged that the drugs issue "is loaded with emotion, and I understand the anger."
"We have been too slow to offer realistic solutions," he said, adding that drug companies were still at the forefront of research.
The International AIDS Society, which organised the conference, blamed protests that erupted at the previous forum, in Barcelona in 2002, for the reduced American presence here.
The American delegation comprises only 50 people, less than a 10th of that sent by China, and sources said that a number of interesting scientific presentations that US government researchers had been planning to make were cancelled because they had been unable to come.
"The impact of what happened in Barcelona is enormous," said IAS President Joep Lange, who is also co-chair of the conference.
"It is a real pity that we don't have more people from the CDC and the NIH here," he said, referring to the US Centers of Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which are among the top names in cutting-edge research on AIDS.
"The US is the biggest player in HIV/AIDS research and the only country in the world that puts sufficient money into HIV/AIDS research," a plainly angry Lange told a press conference. "
"We need to be realistic. We want the US back but we also have to work harder to get them back."
AIDS conferences have been held since 1985 and have always been the theatre for loud, sometimes disruptive but invariably peaceful demonstrations by activists.
In Barcelona, these sporadic protests unfolded over several days, peaking with an orchestrated tactic to heckle US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson during a keynote speech.
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