Barcelona, Spain — One of the biggest catalysts for the rapid spread of Aids in Kenya has been politics and politicians. When we entrust politicians to manage a disaster of this magnitude, the result can only be more disaster.

When Aids first manifested itself in Kenya, we began playing the dangerous game that most human beings like - blaming others. It became a disease of some communities and certain people. Only those from particular sectors - truck drivers, commercial sex workers, gay people - were in danger of infection.

Ilyanya Vanzat, tells us in his book, The Acts of Faith, that we blame others while running away from our own demonic weaknesses.

Stigma and discrimination became bywords in Kenya. We whisper about our neighbours, friends and colleagues. We shun them upon knowing their HIV-positive status. We create fear in the media about those living with Aids. When you get Aids, we say, you must die.

Another catalyst for the virus was and still is greed and corruption. Those who have hijacked the anti-Aids agenda in Kenya do so, not because they love Kenya and Kenyans, but because they love themselves.

They are in the fight to make money

They are in the war against Aids to make money and improve their personal stature. Today, many Kenyans are in Barcelona. But unlike their colleagues from South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania, they have been scattered all over the seaside city by individualism.

Many travelled with their families and spouses not to benefit from the world's best thinkers on Aids that UN secretary-general referred to when opening the conference but to sample the best Spanish wine, roam the beaches and use donor funds to shop.

We have been to innumerable plenary sessions, attended talk shows and Press conferences. The only clear presence we see and feel is that of Kenyan researchers and scientists. The only people we have met with focus and strategic plans are Kenyans living with Aids.

Listening to Catholic Archbishop Ndingi Mwana a' Nzeki oppose the use of condoms at his Barcelona Hotel, we realised how backward we are in the war against Aids.

How do we encourage condom use in a country whose political and moral fabric is so questionable? How do you ask the youth to use condoms when you have no effective legislation or guidelines on the drinking and sale of alcohol?

Liberalised bar and lodging business

Corruption has liberalised the construction of bars and lodges in every corner of the country. Each time a Kenyan gets some financial windfall, the only business to think of is setting up a bar and lodging facility.

Kenyans drink 24 hours a day, which is good for the beer industry and, as some may argue, for the exchequer. But in more organised societies, drinking is regulated. You cannot sell alcohol and cigarettes to minors. You cannot sell alcohol to clearly drunken and staggering individuals.

In Kenya we drink, stagger and drive. We drink, stagger and have sex. How do you ensure, poses Archbishop Ndingi, that a drunken fellow correctly uses a condom? And if condoms were so effective, how come the Aids death rate is high even in our institutions of higher learning? What about those condoms that come to Africa already defective. And are they defective by design or accident? posed the Catholic archbishop.

How can we preach condom use in a country where a government allows its people to slowly commit suicide through consumption of drugs and illicit brew?

The Kenya Government is perhaps best known for democratising social decadence rather than civil and political rights. Opposition politicians and the media are not allowed similar freedoms to those given to the alcohol and drug abuse sectors.

Luckily, Barcelona has given us some hope. It was announced here that USAid will soon offer free antiretroviral drugs to people living with Aids in Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana.

It now behoves the government to provide physical and logistical infrastructure for the supply, distribution and administration of these drugs.

If Barcelona should teach us any lessons, they are that: we must fight stigma and discrimination; we must prevail upon our politicians to address real issues; we must remove greedy individuals from the frontline in the war on Aids.

Atemi and Mwaniki are covering the Barcelona UN Aids conference for the Daily Nation.