12/4/2005: Obelisk condom

[lawman]

Friends of mine just returned from a whitewater kayaking trip to Uganda where one of their observations was in regards to the negative influence of the neo-conservative US administration on the Ugandian people.

Prior to the Republicans gaining office, there was a very strong safe-sex campaign, promoting the use of condoms (which were freely available in a economically poor country). Part of this promotion consisted of large billboards with 'condom-sense' types of advertising.

In the last 6 years, however, health related funding from the US has been only given with the stipulation that abstinence be the only promoted anti-AIDS programs. Those 'condom-sense' billboards have been replastered with abstinence related messages. It's economic blackmail pushing conservative values onto a foreign country at the expense of the health (and lives) of it's citizens. And guess what - new HIV infection rates have reversed their downward trend.

Of course I have a bias against policies like these, and I'm no fan of the Bush administration, but the above is presented with true facts.

Here's a link to a page from Human Rights Watch that has much more information:

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/30/uganda10380.htm