Article: Self-Reliance Key to Anti-AIDS Efforts, Says Museveni

27 February 2002

Article: Self-Reliance Key to Anti-AIDS Efforts, Says Museveni

Ugandan first lady speaks at AIDS meeting

By Aly Lakhaney
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Self-reliance must be a key ingredient in the toolbox used by Africans to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS, which has already killed 17 million people on the continent, says Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni.

"Instead of striving to find our own solutions, we [Africans] have often waited for others to show us the way" and "unless we reverse that trend" the battle against HIV/AIDS will be lost, said Museveni, who was spoke at the International Christian Conference on HIV/AIDS on February 20.

She told the audience that although the task at hand seemed daunting that she was "delivering a message of hope" and said that "where there is extraordinary need, there is also extraordinary opportunity, if only we have the eyes to see it."

The First Lady, who was introduced by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), cited her husband President Yoweri Museveni who coined the term "Aidism," in a recent speech. He described it as "the mentality that we cannot do anything for ourselves without foreign aid; that we must wait for foreign aid even in matters concerning our people's lives. We should not spend so much time in soliciting external aid without spending more time looking for internal solutions."

For her own part, Mrs. Museveni added, "Africa has had a problem of failing to act when it is faced with life's challenges" and to counter that, "every public organization and every willing person in Uganda was recruited in the fight against AIDS." Now, it is fought "from the highest political authority to the smallest pulpit in the remotest village," said Museveni.

"There are almost 2000 organizations engaged in one way or another in the fight against AIDS, including community and faith-based organizations," said the First Lady. And the success of these self-reliant efforts has been tremendous with HIV infection rates dropping from "18.5% to 6.1% between 1995 and the year 2000," according to the First Lady.

Despite the success, she said that "6.1% is still disastrous enough, therefore there is no room for complacency."

To further reduce the infection rate, the Ugandan government has tried to "train our [Ugandan] people to change their behavior, and to raise public awareness and response to such a level as will counter and neutralize even future epidemics," said Museveni.

Again, she cited her husband, the President of Uganda, when he said that the government is emphasizing a return to "time-tested cultural practices which emphasized fidelity and condemnation of pre-marital and extra-marital sex."

The efforts to change the behavior of Ugandans concentrate on the 11 million Ugandans under the age of 18, whom the First Lady believes are the key to a healthy future for Uganda.

"Young people must be taught the virtues of abstinence, self-control and postponement of pleasure and sometimes sacrifice" and teaching them a different lifestyle "will ensure their survival," said Museveni.

To make certain progress continues in the battle against HIV/AIDS, the First Lady said all groups involved must "relentlessly keep talking and exhorting the people so they do not relax and get confused, especially with the advent of new drugs and condoms which have now become available and which make AIDS sound less dangerous."

On the question of contraception as a means to stopping the spread of AIDS, she said "only a thin piece of rubber stands between us and the death of a continent. I feel condoms have a role to play, but they cannot be the main means of stemming the tide of AIDS."

HIV/AIDS "spread like wildfire" in Uganda because the epidemic "hit a society which was already down...the health infrastructure was in shambles and socially there was a breakdown of the family life and traditional values, and a general decline in moral conduct," said Museveni.

The government in Uganda has therefore tried to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic by promoting family values in tandem with religion. On that score, Museveni acknowledged, "that we have received assistance from some of our brothers and sisters in the Church outside Africa. For this we are grateful."