KENYA, Dec 7 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last Tuesday, Kenya’s President Moi advocated condoms to fight AIDS. “The threat of Aids has reached alarming proportions and must not be treated casually; in today’s world, condoms are a must,” he said at the University of Nairobi speaking at a graduation ceremony. His sentiments are a complete reversal from his public stand a week before when he was quoted by the press as saying that it would be morally wrong for him or the government to advocate the use of condoms as a way of controlling Aids. The President has also established a National Council on AIDS and ordered schools to begin special courses on the topic beginning in January.
Muslim and Catholic leaders reacted with dismay to the President’s divergence from moral values. Sheikh Ali Shee , a spokesman for the Council of Imams in Mombasa, told the press that President Moi reversed his stance on condoms due to “pressure from donors to support the use of condoms.” Confirming the Sheikh’s suspicions, one day after the President’s speech promoting condoms, the governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, announced that Kenya had fulfilled all conditions demanded by the International Monetary Fund for a mission to negotiate poverty reduction loans.
The Sheikh called for chastity, and a ban on immoral publications and TV programs saying they were contributing to the spread of AIDS.
The Catholic Church in Kenya noted in August that the United Nations Population Fund was exerting pressure on the country, attempting to impose abortion, contraception and sex education regimes. Bishop Nicodemus Kirima, the head of the Nyeri Catholic Archdiocese stressed the seriousness of the international pressure last Saturday. Speaking at St Mary’s Boys Secondary School he said that the Church’s stand on contraception would never change “even if one was to be killed for opposing condom use”. Bishop Kirima urged chastity and said sex-ed would exaccerbate the spread of AIDS since it “would open floodgates to irresponsible and immoral youths.”
With files from Nationaudio.com and Eclesiales.org.