Washington, August 6 (RHC) –- U.S. legislators and health activists criticized Washington's plans to use an HIV-AIDS campaign in Cuba to carry out political activism by saying that such covert operations put U.S. health programs at risk in other parts of the world.

The program, which was financed and supervised by the U.S. Agency (USAID) for International Development including the sending of a dozen Latin American youngsters to Cuba to recruit leaders and encourage a rebellion on the island.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who heads a commission that supervises USAID’s budget, said on Monday that the situation will be worse than irresponsible if the agency planned to design an HIV campaign with political aims.

Meanwhile, members of InterAction, an alliance for international assistance, said that the use of a group of people to do espionage under the umbrella of an HIV action is unacceptable and that the U.S. administration should never put at risk health or civic programs for the sake of conducting espionage.

According to documents prepared for the USAID-sponsored program, cited by the Associated Press news agency, the HIV workshop was “the perfect excuse” to carry out political activity.