Bush Has Praise for Uganda in Its Fight Against AIDS

ENTEBBE, Uganda, July 11 President Bush praised Uganda today as a model for how African nations can succeed in combating AIDS and pledged that the United States would help underwrite efforts to fight an epidemic that has cost millions of lives and disrupted efforts by many countries to lift themselves from poverty.

ENTEBBE, Uganda, July 11 President Bush praised Uganda today as a model for how African nations can succeed in combating AIDS and pledged that the United States would help underwrite efforts to fight an epidemic that has cost millions of lives and disrupted efforts by many countries to lift themselves from poverty. Speaking to an AIDS support group here on the fourth day of his Africa trip, Mr. Bush praised Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, for working to remove the stigma of AIDS and aggressively pursuing a program that includes drug treatments, as well as promoting abstinence, condom use and education about the disease.Uganda is among the few developing nations to have reduced its AIDS infection rate. Mr. Bush put the rate at 5 percent, down from 30 percent a decade ago. Although there is some debate among experts about whether the decline has been that sharp, there is general agreement that it has been impressive. One of the main reasons, they say, is that Mr. Museveni, far more than other African leaders, has cast aside cultural taboos and political worries to tackle the problem head on.”You have worldwide influence here because you’ve provided a model of care for Uganda,” Mr. Bush told volunteers and H.I.V.-positive people he met here. “Life by life, village by village, Uganda is showing that AIDS can be defeated across Africa.”Having developed the will to combat the pandemic, Mr. Bush said, Africa now needs more money to do so. Referring to his proposal to spend $15 billion over five years to help some of the world’s poorest nations to step up their efforts against the disease, Mr. Bush said the United States would help provide it.”And this is my country’s pledge to the people of Africa and the people of Uganda: You are not alone in this fight,” the president said, with Mr. Museveni looking on. “America has decided to act.”In coming to Uganda, Mr. Bush was not only sending a message to other poor countries that it was both possible and necessary to strike a more aggressive stance in dealing with the disease. He was also trying to demonstrate to Congress that increased assistance from the United States would be money well spent, despite his own insistence that Congress hold spending down on most programs outside of the military.Mr. Bush did not mention that the House took action on Thursday to finance his AIDS initiative next year at $2 billion, about what the administration had originally requested but $1 billion less than allowed under legislation Mr. Bush signed enthusiastically this spring.Condoleezza Rice, the president’s national security adviser, told reporters today on Air Force One that Mr. Bush “believes very strongly in full funding of this.” She left unclear whether the White House considered its target for full financing next year to be $2 billion or $3 billion.Mr. Bush’s high-profile call to action on AIDS in Africa, an issue about which he had shown little interest before this year, stems from a number of factors. Eager to repair the image of the United States around the world after the deep diplomatic rifts over the war in Iraq, he has stressed on this trip that he wants the United States to be known around the world not just for its military might but also for its compassion.But his stance also reflects a growing feeling in one of his core constituencies, religious conservatives, that dealing with the suffering caused by AIDS in Africa is a moral imperative. In doing so, religious groups have forged an alliance with liberal activist groups that have long called on rich nations to do more to help.”I believe God has called us into action,” Mr. Bush said today. “We are a great nation; we’re a wealthy nation. We have a responsibility to help a neighbor in need, a brother and sister in crisis.”In Mr. Museveni, Mr. Bush is dealing with a leader who has helped Uganda make tremendous economic progress after the ravages of Idi Amin’s brutal dictatorship of the 1970’s. Mr. Museveni is a favorite of the White House because he has been among the most helpful of East African leaders in pursuing terrorists on the continent and because he is a free-market conservative who says that trade rather than handouts is the key to his country’s future.A high standing with Washington has helped Mr. Museveni at home, where he is under increasing pressure to allow more political opposition and to give up what some of his critics said was an effort to remain in office after the end of his second five-year term in 2006. Under the country’s Constitution, he is limited to two terms.It was not clear whether Mr. Bush, in a half-hour private meeting with the Ugandan leader, pressed Mr. Museveni not to remain in office indefinitely or discussed with him plans for an increased American military presence here.Mr. Bush’s arrival in Uganda brought out the biggest crowds of his trip so far, with hundreds and perhaps thousands of people lining the road from the airport to the hotel where the leaders met. After meeting with AIDS patients, Mr. Bush heard a moving rendition of “America the Beautiful” by a choir of children who had lost one or both parents to AIDS or to war. They finished the song with broad smiles on their faces and their arms stretched toward heaven.(Source: The New York Times, 11 July 2003, By RICHARD W. STEVENSON)