Bush Too Focused on Abstinence

TORONTO, CANADA -- Speaking at the 16th International Aids Conference in Toronto, Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy on Aids, said President George Bush's $15 billion Emergency Plan for HIV/Aids was too focused on promoting abstinence.

Mr. Lewis claimed that the US is practicing "incipient neo-colonialism" by telling African nations how to fight Aids, and in some cases undermining the efforts of African countries to fight the HIV epidemic.

"No government in the Western world has the right to dictate policy to African governments around the way in which they respond to the pandemic," Mr. Lewis said.

The Bush administration backs an "ABC" plan to fight Aids: Abstinence until marriage; Being faithful to one sexual partner; and if those conditions are not practiced, the use of Condoms.

Mr. Lewis said abstinence programs had been shown not to work: "That kind of incipient neo-colonialism is unacceptable."

"We're saying to Africa: 'This is how you will respond to the pandemic' and that's not appropriate because African governments are eminently capable of deciding what their priorities are and what the response should be."

Mark Dybul, US Global Aids coordinator, rejects the criticism, saying only 7% of funding for 2005 had been spent on abstinence programs.

More than two million people died of Aids in Sub-Saharan Africa last year and there were almost three million new infections.