Washington, DC — Speaking at a Washington, D.C., dinner Friday night, former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings said a significant part of the fight against HIV/Aids in Africa required targeting "internal behavior and weakness" by African men.

"What right do we males have to defile young girls and virgins as a purported cure for Aids?" he asked a predominantly African audience attending a Gede Foundation fundraising dinner for an HIV/Aids resource center in Abuja. The Foundation, was established in 2002 to begin addressing health and social needs of African children.

Africans needed to recall "the nobility and dignity of life," Rawlings argued. Africa would need outside help to tackle its many challenges but "if [outsiders] are going to contribute to this problem in Africa, the question they are asking is do we deserve the assistance?"

While telling his hushed audience that "the spread of Aids is not unconnected from our inappropriate use of power and patronage," the blunt-spoken former president - in an apparent reflection on the recent World Trade Organisation's ministerial meeting in Mexico - did not leave the U.S., EU and others in the wealthy world unchallenged either: "...the double standards and skewed structures in the relationship between our world and the so-called developed world is not properly adddressed. It's so skewed it's a shame," he emphasized.

Assistance is needed and welcome, said Rawlings, but "Americanizing us or Europeanizing us [just] creates very chronic ailments. Sub-Saharan Africa is not America."