Box Turtle Bulletin

Where Are The Religious Leaders?

With Uganda poised to pass what would become one of the most draconian anti-gay laws in the world, human rights advocates, LGBT activists, and diplomats from around the globe are lobbying members of the Ugandan government to set aside the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But there is one set of voices that is conspicuously silent: church leaders. So far, the only religious voices to speak up about it are those who favor its passage, including Scott Lively and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer. The Family “Research” Council’s Tony Perkins, while not addressing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill directly, praised Uganda over the weekend as “a modern example of a nation prospered by God.” (Perkins had previously lied about what the bill would do if enacted and lobbied Congress against a resolution condemning the bill.)

So far, those are among the few religious leaders speaking up about the bill, all of them supporting it directly or indirectly. And so far, major religious leaders against the bill have been conspicuous by their silence. The HRC called on them to speak up in a press release last week:

“American faith leaders know that calling for the death penalty – or even calling for imprisonment of – an entire community is not in line with Christian values,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “American Christian faith leaders with ties to Uganda, like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes, must reach out to their influential Ugandan friends to ensure that the human rights of Ugandans are not put up to a vote.”

American Christian faith leaders have been active in Uganda for decades and have significant ties to Ugandan political leaders and faith leaders. Such influential American faith leaders, including Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, and voices from the Trinity Broadcasting Network, have a moral obligation to urge their Ugandan friends and allies to condemn the bill. Many of these American faith leaders have shown a commitment to fighting the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Uganda and know passage of this bill would curtail these efforts. Public statements and private conversations by these American faith leaders, if they are done immediately, could save the lives of thousands of Ugandans.

Rick Warren last addressed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in late 2009, when he condemned the bill. Three years is an eternity in politics, and he has been silent since then. Silence will only mean that Scott Lively and Tony Perkins is speaking for them.

Anti-Homosexuality Bill Moved to Top of Uganda Parliament’s List

Today’s Order Paper (DOC: 45KB/3 pages) for Uganda’s Parliament shows the Anti-Homosexuality Bill moved to the top of the section titled “Notice of Business to Follow.”  When the anti-gay bill first appeared on the Order Paper last week, it was placed third behind a motion to urge the government to bail out a steel mill and the presentation and adoption of a report of an investigation of the energy sector. Those two items have now been bumped down a notch.

Today’s business is tied up over controversial clauses in two Petroleum Bills which are currently being considered in Parliament. Those bills’ opponents vow to hold a demonstration in Kampala over the overly broad powers that the legislation would grant to the Energy Minister, a presidential appointee, to grant and revoke oil exploration, extraction, refining and transport licenses and contracts. Opponents say the bills provide very little oversight or transparency for those activities, making the legislation, essentially, a mechanism for legalizing graft. Uganda has recently been named the most corrupt country in eastern Africa. If the oil bills become law or if the public demonstrations agains them become too noisy, some fear that Parliament may turn to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in order to create a public distraction.

U.S. State Dept. Envoy Meets With Ugandan Leaders on Anti-Homosexuality Bill

In Monday’s daily State Department briefing, the subject of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill was raised by a Washington Blade reporter. Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokesperson, said that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson met with Ugandan leaders last weekend and raised concerns about the bill, which is expected to be debated in Parliament as early as this week:

“As we have regularly said, we call on the parliament of Uganda to look very carefully at this because Uganda’s own Human Rights Council has made clear that if this were to pass, it would put the country out of compliance with its own international human rights obligations,” Nuland said. “And so, (Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie) Carson had a chance to make that point again and our strong opposition to this, to the president, to the parliament and to key decision makers in Uganda.”

Nuland confirmed that the bill was passed out of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee last week, but was unable to confirm reports that the committee recommended the removal of the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” because the committee has refused to make the draft recommendations public.

“I don’t know that we have actually seen the version that passed committee,” Nuland said. “They’ve been a little bit close hold about this, partly because there’s been so much controversy in the international community. So our concern is about any criminalization of homosexuality, obviously.”

Last Friday, the BBC rushed to report that the death penalty had been removed from the bill. In fact, nobody knows what the committee has recommended because the committee has refused to release its report to the public. In further fact, if the committee did recommend removing the death penalty, that only means that the committee recommended its removal. It’s actual removal would only happen if the full Parliament votes to accept the committee’s recommendation, which hasn’t happened yet. So despite reports to the contrary, the death penalty has not been removed, and we don’t even know for sure whether the committee has even recommended its removal. The last time the committee claimed to have recommended its removal in 2011, it turned out that it only recommended a slight change to the bill to make the death penalty’s presence much less obvious.

Nuland refused to say whether Carson raised the possibility of cuts to American aid to Uganda if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law:

“I’m not going to get into any hypothetical situations,” Nuland said. “Our focus now is on raising awareness of the concerns within Uganda about this bill, so we don’t get to that stage.”

Asked by another reporter about whether a pledge to cut aid would be “a good, strong point to make” if the United States opposes the bill, Nuland said she won’t “make prospective points from the podium here about where we might go if this bill passes.”

The Blade has a full transcript of the exchange. Britain, Sweden, and the European Union have warned that the bill’s passage would place their aid to Uganda in jeopardy. LGBT advocates in Uganda caution that direct threats of cutting aid has in the past sparked backlashes against LGBT people there, and would almost certainly be counterproductive among Ugandan politicians. They’ve instead urged the kind of back-channel discussions which appear to be taking place now. Carson’s direct involvement is encouraging, since he is a more senior State Department diplomat than the local U.S. ambassador in Kampala. Carson has been engaged with senior Uganda officials over the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since it was first introduced in 2009.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009, as published in the official Uganda Gazette on September 25, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages.)

This is our final installment of the clause-by-clause review of Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill. There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass it before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill had been the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which on November 23 announced that they were prepare to send the bill to the full House for debate and a final vote, possibly as early as Tuesday (Nov 27).

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

A couple of the clauses in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill are administrative:

15. Jurisdiction.
Save for aggravated homosexuality that shall be tried by the High Court, the magistrates court shall have jurisdiction to try the other offences under this Act.

19. Regulations.
The Minister may, by statutory instrument, make regulations generally for better carrying out the provisions of this Act.

These clauses look rather innocuous on first glance. Clause 15 sets out which courts will have jurisdiction over which portion of the bill. Uganda’s High Court hears the most serious cases, and Clause 1 gives it sole jurisdiction over “aggravated homosexuality” (Clause 3) which currently carries the death penalty under the proposed bill. Magistrate Courts generally sit below High Court in terms of the severity of criminal cases that they hear. As far as I know, it appears that Clause 15 is probably fairly typical given the kinds of penalties that would be under consideration.

But it’s in Clause 19 that things become quite alarming. Someone will be tasked to issue further regulations to ensure that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is enforced. And who is that Minister charged with that task? To find out, you will need to find the definition in Clause 1:

“Minister'” means the Minister responsible for ethics and integrity;

In the current regime, that would be Ethics and Integrity Minister Simon Lokodo, a defrocked Catholic priest who last week led a group of armed guards in a raid of a hotel in Entebbe where a LGBT advocacy conference was taking place. He summarily ordered the arrest of LGBT advocate Kasha Jacqueline Nabageser, but Kasha slipped away and was able to avoid Lokodo’s thugs. The following June, he ordered another raid of an LGBT rights workshop. This time, four activists were detained until their lawyers showed up to remind police that no laws were broken. The next day, Lokodo announced that 38 NGO’s would be banned for acting as “channels through which monies are channeled to (homosexuals) to recruit.” If Lokodo could break up a meeting with no legal basis whatsoever, imagine the reign of terror he would engineer once he has the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with all of the opportunities for abuse it provides.

Lokodo’s predecessor, James Nsaba Buturo, also saw his office as enforcer-in-chief of Uganda’s particular brand of “ethics and integrity.” And he, like Lokodo, also saw himself as the nation’s pastor, writing lengthy op-eds in Ugandan newspapers intoning on the moral evils he saw plaguing the country. Before President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 following a civil war, Buturo served in Milton Obote’s bloody regime as an enforcer who was adept at making Obote’s enemies disappear. In Museveni’s government, he wielded a softer touch, but was no less insistent in his goal of making gays disappear. While Buturo has apparently fallen out of favor with the Museveni government, having been forced to resign in early 2011, he set a pattern that Lokodo would emulate. In December 2010, Buturo banned the screening of a documentary film which depicted, in part, the work of LGBT human rights workers.

One senses that should the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law, the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity could very well change its name to the Ugandan Inquisition. And why not? There are many parallels. An early draft of the bill included a paragraph in its accompanying memorandum extolling the virtues of ex-gay therapy. That paragraph was dropped when the bill was introduced into Parliament in 2009, but that didn’t stop the bill’s supporters to trot out a supposedly ex-gay person as a modern-day converso. And the witch-hunts which would be unleashed by Clause 14, the ban on all deviation from the Ugandan Inquisition via Clause 13, the startling ease with which someone could be put to death in Clause 3 with the High Court being put in charge of the auto-da-fé — these are the measures that Tomás de Torquemada himself would appreciate.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

What Does Oil Have To Do With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill?

Well, for one thing, it might mean that Uganda’s Parliament may decide to take up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill on Tuesday.

Oil was discovered in Uganda in 2006, and the country’s political class have engaged in a mad rush for the spoils since then. One byproduct of the country’s fledgling oil industry is that Uganda has now been named the most corrupt country in eastern Africa, which is no small feat considering the competition. That fight over oil riches has paralyzed the oil sector, and so far not a single drop of crude has made it onto the world markets. Right now, Parliament is in a fierce argument over two bills, one to regulate the exploration, development and production, and a second to regulate its refining, storage and transportation. Those two bills appear in Parliament’s Orders Papers ahead of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which is currently listed under “Notice of Business to Follow.”

Several members of Parliament are trying to block the oil bills over what they decry as its lack of transparency and the overly-broad powers granted to the Energy Minister, who is a Presidential appointee, to negotiate, grant, and revoke oil contracts with virtually no oversight. This only guarantees that the floodgates of corruption will open even wider. Some M.P.s threaten a public demonstration on Tuesday, with police promising to break up any “unauthorized” demonstrations. Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, warned via Twitter that the ruling party in Parliament may decide to take up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in order to divert attention from the demonstration. Mugisha isn’t the only one to see a connection between the anti-gay legislation and oil. Last February, journalist Dayo Olopade noticed that three days before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was reintroduced into Parliament, President Yoweri Museveni had signed a controversial new contract:

“You’d think that the government, given pressure regarding the oil sector, would begin the legislative session with the oil reforms,” says Angelo Izama, an experienced Ugandan journalist on the oil beat. “But they began with the gay bill. It’s not accidental.” The semi-successful diversion, coupled with disregard for parliamentary procedures, illustrates the lack of checks on the behavior of the Museveni government.

Update: This report from Uganda’s NTV suggests that tomorrow’s demonstration might grow:

Scott Lively Tickled Pink Over Imminent Passage of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

He’s actually behaving like a proud papa:

World Net Daily has just published a major story on Uganda, where  President Museveni has publicly repented for the sins of the nation in  the model of 2 Chron 7:14 on the 50th anniversary of the country’s  independence.  It also breaks the news that the Ugandan Parliament has  dropped the death penalty provision of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill  which is now expected to pass into law with overwhelming public  support.  I am heavily quoted in the article.

Breaking Update.  The story has been picked up by Drudge!! and is  running in the top spot in the left column.

Here is the article on WND.  http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/ugandan-president-repents-of-personal-national-sins/

This is a huge blessing for Uganda and for me personally after having  been vilified globally (and falsely) for two years by the leftist  media as the accused mastermind of the death penalty provision.   Please give this story your best push for maximum exposure.   Blessings,   Pastor Scott Lively

Drudge!!! And here’s Lively on WND:

Lively added that (Uganda President Yoweri) Museveni is definitely drawing a contrast between Uganda and the West.

“This incident is also important as a contrast to the picture being painted of Uganda by the godless left of a backwards, violent and savage culture intent on murdering homosexuals,” Lively said.

“On the contrary, Museveni is calmly and confidently setting the course of his nation by the guidance of the Bible, in a way that also shows great courage and resolve,” Lively said.

Homosexual activist groups have criticized the government of Uganda and Museveni for passing laws criminalizing homosexual behavior. A current bill before the Ugandan Parliament increases the jail sentences for homosexual acts and includes criminal penalties for those who encourage or promote homosexuality. The bill had included the death penalty for those who commit multiple acts of homosexual behavior, but the provision has been removed, BBC News reports.

Scott Lively speaking at the infamous anti-gay conference in Kampala, Uganda, March 7, 2009.

Lively is best known for his role, reported first here on BTB, as featured speaker at an anti-gay conference held in Kampala in March 2009. During that conference, Lively touted his book, The Pink Swastika, in which he claimed that gays were responsible for founding the Nazi Party and running the gas chambers in the Holocaust. Lively then went on to blame the Rwandan genocide on gay men and he charged that gay people were flooding into Uganda from the West to recruit children into homosexuality via child sexual molestation. Lively would later boast that his March 2009 talk was a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.”

And what a bomb it was. During that same trip, Lively met with several members of Uganda’s Parliament.  The public panic stoked by the March conference led to follow-up meetings, a march on Parliament, and a massive vigilante campaign waged on radio and the tabloid press. Only two weeks after the conference, rumors were circulating that Parliament was drafting a new law that “will be tough on homosexuals.” That new law, in its final form, was introduced into Parliament later in October. Lively eventually disavowed the proposed death penalty, but he really had to struggle with it a while before finally deciding that it was not worth supporting because, after all, its presence might tank the rest of the bill. Otherwise, he said, it was “an encouraging step in the right direction” which “deserve(s) support from Christian believers and other advocates of marriage-based culture around the world.”

Bryan Fischer Cheers Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality BIll

And he’s having “the Father of the Ugandan Homosexual Movement” — whatever that means — on his show tomorrow. We can expect that Lively will likely endorse Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, especially now that there are unconfirmed rumors that the death penalty will be removed. (Don’t believe those rumors until you see it in writing. They’ve tried to pull that lie many, many times before, and Lively was happy to play along.)

Contact These Uganda Polls About the Anti-Homosexuality Bill

This list comes via Ugandan LGBT advocate Kasha Jacqueline. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill could come to a vote as early as this week. To be effective, please be polite, but also be firm. The best rule of thumb to observe would be to put yourself into their shoes and try to imagine the arguments that would appeal to you. Also remember that all Ugandan are as proud of their country as you are of yours. Insults will inevitably backfire, and it will be LGBT Ugandans suffering the consequences, not those who sit comfortably in countries far away lobbing emails and phone calls. Don’t given them propaganda that can be used against your brothers and sisters. Ugandan LGBT advocates also strongly advise that bringing up foreign aid is another sure-fire way to provoke a backfire.

For reference to specific parts of the bill, please refer to our detailed examination of the nineteen clauses of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, beginning here.

1. President: Yoweri Museveni

His Excellency, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Museveni (Mr. President, subsequently)
Office of The President
Parliament Avenue
Telephone: +256 (0) 414 343 311
Fax: +256 (0) 414 436 102
E-mail: museveni@starcom.co.ug, aak@statehouse.go.ug

2. Secretary, Office of the President

Mrs. T. Kinaalwa
Tel. 041 4 233 717
Fax 041 4 256 143
Email: Ugandasecretary@op.go.ug

3.  Speaker of the Parliament: Rebecca Kadaga

Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga
Parliament of the Republic of Uganda
Tel: +(256) 377 000/150
Fax: +(256) 414 346 826

3. Prime Minister: Amama Mbabazi

Rt. Hon. Amama Mbabazi
Postal Building
Yusuf Lule Road
P.O. Box 341
Kampala
Phone: +(256) 414 254 252
Fax: +(256) 414 341 139
E-mail: ps@opm.go.ug
http://www.opm.go.ug/

4. The  Minister of Foreign Affairs:

Hon. Sam Kutesa
Email: mofa@starcom.co.ug
Tel:  +(256) 41-257 525/345 661/258 252
Fel: +(256) 41-258 722/232 874

5. State Minister of Ethics and Integrity: Simon Lokodo

Hon. Simon Lokodo
Office of The President Parliament
Tel: +(256) 414 301 600
Fax: +(256) 414 343 177
E-mail: info@dei.go.ug

6. Minister of Health: Christine Ondoa

Hon. Dr. Christine Ondoa
Tel: +(256) 414-340 874 /231 563 /9
Email:  info@health.go.ug

7. Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs: Kahinda Otafiire

Hon. Kahinda Otafiire
Tel: +(256) 41 230 538
Fax: +(256) 41- 254 829
E-mail: mojca@africaonline.co.ug, info@justice.go.ug

8. Minister of Gender, Labour & Social Affairs: Kabwegyere Tarsis

Hon. Kabwegyere Tarsis
Tel: +(256) 775 785 282, +(256) 782 808 191
Email:  support@whatcouldbe.info

9. Director General Uganda AIDS Commission

Dr. Kihumuro Apuuli
Office of The President
Parliament Avenue
P.O. BOX 7168,
Kampala, Uganda
Tel: 071 2 968 028
Tel: +(256) 414 288 065, +(256) 414 258 173
Email: uac@uac.go.ug

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties

The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009, as published in the official Uganda Gazette on September 25, 2009. (Click to download, PDF: 847KB/16 pages.)

There is now a renewed push by Uganda’s Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to pass the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. The bill had been the hands of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which on November 23 announced that they were prepare to send the bill to the full House for debate and a final vote, possibly as early as Tuesday (Nov 27).

There has been considerable confusion over what would happen if the bill were to become law. Most of the attention has focused on the bill’s death penalty provision, but even if it were removed, the bill’s other eighteen clauses would still represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record. In an update to a series which first appeared last February, we will examine the original text of the bill’s nineteen clauses to uncover exactly what it includes in its present form.

In Clauses 16 and 17, we’ve seen how eager those behind the Anti-Homosexuality Bill are to extend the bill’s reach far beyond Uganda’s borders, not just through its extradition clause, but also to criminalize acts committed by Ugandan citizens and legal residents while they are abroad. Which means that if you advocate for LGBT citizens while in the U.S., where the First Amendment guarantees everyone the right to freedom of speech, and you will be slapped with a five to seven year prison sentence upon returning to Uganda for violating Clause 13 even those the “offense” didn’t take place on Ugandan soil. The next section, Clause 18, will only further solidify Uganda’s contempt not just for the laws of other nations, but also for International Law itself:

18. Nullification of inconsistent international treaties, protocols, declarations and conventions.
(1) Any International legal instrument whose provisions are contradictory to the spirit and provisions enshrined in this Act, are null and void to the extent of their inconsistency.

(2) Definitions of “sexual orientation”. “sexual rights”, “sexual minorities”, “gender identity” shall not be used in anyway to legitimize homosexuality, gender identity disorders and related practices in Uganda.

This clause would have the effect of pulling Uganda out of all treaties which it has already become a signatory if it decides that those treaties would infringe, in any way, on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. But Uganda’s constitution (PDF: 460KB/192 pages) already spells out Uganda’s obligation to observer all treaties that it entered into before it went into effect in 1995 (see Article 287 on page 171):

287. International agreements, treaties and conventions.

Where—

(a) Any treaty, agreement or convention with any country or international organization was made or affirmed by Uganda or the Government on or after the 9th day of October,1962, and was still in force immediately before the coming into force of this constitution; or

(b) Uganda or the government was otherwise a party immediately before the coming into force of this constitution to any such treaty, agreement or convention,

The treaty, agreement or convention shall not be affected by the coming into force of this constitution: and Uganda or the Government, as the case may be, shall continue to be a party to it.

Furthermore, the constitution already spells out the manner in which Uganda enters into a treaty (see Article 123, pages 89-90).

123. Execution of treaties, conventions and agreements.

(1) The President or a person authorised by the President may make treaties, conventions, agreements or other arrangements between Uganda and any other country or between Uganda and any international organisation or body, in respect of any matter.

(2) Parliament shall make laws to govern ratification of treaties, conventions, agreements or other arrangements made under clause (1) of this article.

The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, a Ugandan human rights group, explained the constitutional problem posed by Clause 18 (PDF: 344KB/17 pages, see page 10):

Parliament cannot legislate or simply wish away these (treaty) obligations just because they are inconsistent with a domestic legislation. Indeed, international law prohibits such a thing. … Parliament has only a procedural role to incorporate treaties into Ugandan law – and that is the full extent of its powers. It cannot purport to proscribe the limit of the President’s treaty making powers. Nor indeed, can Parliament bind its own future action by purporting to exercise in advance its power to scrutinize treaties signed by the President and determine which of them to ratify.

All that Parliament can do is to either ratify or refuse to ratify a treaty after it is signed, and in the latter case such treaty does not become part of Ugandan law. This is the balance of executive power and democratic input achieved by Article 123, and one that clause 18 of the Bill is incompetent to amend.

Recommendations from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in May, 2011 (Click to download, PDF: 57KB/6 pages.)

When the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee reported back to Parliament in May 2011, it saw the wisdom of the Civil Society Coalition’s argument, but only partly. It struck out the words “nullification of inconsistent” from Clause 18’s title, and recommended changing subclause 1 to read:

“(1) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, any international legal instrument subsequent to the coming into force of this Act whose provisions contradict the spirit and provisions enshrined in this Act may be ratified by Parliament”.

Justification

To enable Parliament have a final say on such instruments before they can bind the country.

The committee’s recommendation would have had the effect of retaining the legal effects of treaties to which Uganda was already a signatory, but it would nevertheless seek to place an extra-constitutional restriction on future Parliaments’ ability to comply with future treaties. It would also still violate the constitution by interfering with the President’s constitutional powers to sign future treaties. Why the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee believed that their proposed modification was any more in compliance with the constitution than the bill’s original text is mystifying. Regardless, the Eighth Parliament expired before it could act on the committee’s recommendation. When the bill was re-introduced in the Ninth Parliament, it was brought back with the original October 2009 language intact, including Clause 18, which is still officially part of the bill.

Clause By Clause With Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill:
Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

Don’t Believe It Until You See It: News Reports Claim Uganda Drops Death Penalty From Anti-Gay Bill

We’ve seen this before. News reports are emerging that the Ugandan Parliament’s Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee has “dropped” the death penalty from the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, exchanging it for life imprisonment for those charged with “aggravated homosexuality” — which could be just about anyone, given the overly-broad wording of the bill’s clauses. What’s distressing is that mainstream and LGBT journalists are picking it up despite Ugandan politicians stressing that they can’t release the committee’s draft recommendations to the public, so all we have are Ugandan politicians’ word for it. The BBC has bungled the story several times before; you’d think they’d be more cautious. I can’t tell you how many times there have been pronouncements that the death penalty was dropped only to find out that it was still in the bill. But I’ll try:

• December 9, 2009, Bloomberg reported that the death penalty would be dropped in exchange for forcing people into ex-gay conversion therapy. That quickly proved to be false.
• The next day, M.P. David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor, told the BBC, “There has been a distortion in the media that we are providing death for gays. That is not true.” Of course, Bahati’s words themsevlves were not true, but the BBC refused to challenge him.
• On January 7, 2010, President Yoweri Museveni told Parliament to drop the death penalty. When Museveni spoke, we thought it was as good as a done deal. A Cabinet member also came forward to say that the bill would be withdrawn. It wasn’t. That same day, the Associated Press misquoted Ugandan LGBT-advocate Frank Mugisha as saying that if the death penalty were dropped, everything would be honkey-dorey. Of course, he said no such thing.
• On January 10, 2010, Scott Lively, one of three anti-gay Americans who put on a horrific conference in Kampala in March 2009 which set the stage for the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, joined his voice to the propaganda machinery by announcing his endorsement of the “revised” bill dropping the death penalty, even though the bill was never revised.
• On January 22, 2010, A special Cabinet committee reached a non-compromise “compromise” which reportedly removed the death penalty from the bill. The recommendation was never acted upon.
• On February 5, 2010, the BBC reported that the death penalty would be dropped. By then we were urging everyone to view such reports with skepticism.
• On April 26, 2011, after the bill laid dormant for nearly a year, Bahati began urging that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill be passed before the Eighth Parliament came to an end in May. He re-issued his “concession” that he would consider dropping the death penalty from the bill if it would help to move the bill forward. If nothing else, that “concession” is at least tacit confirmation that all of the prior statements about the death penalty being dropped were false. Nevertheless, the Associated Press quickly announced that the death penalty had been dropped. Again.
• On May 11, 2011. The Los Angeles Times jumped onto the bandwagon and announced that the death penalty had been dropped. Again, it hadn’t. The very next day, Human Rights Watch learned that the death penalty had, in fact, not been dropped. It had been merely substituted with wording which referred to a separate part of the Ugandan Penal Code, to a section which provided the death penalty. Only those who knew what Section 129 was would understand that the death penalty was still in the bill.
• On May 22, 2011, after the Eight Parliament ended without voting on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Bahati vowed to reintroduce the bill into the Ninth Parliament. He also repeated the false claim that the death penalty had been removed.
• On February 7, 2012, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was reintroduced in Parliament, with the same wording as the original 2009 bill with the death penalty.
• On February 8, 2012, the BBC false reported, again, that the death penalty had been dropped from the bill.
• On February 9, 2012, the Associated Press, The Advocate, and The Washington Post all reported that the death penalty had been dropped. It hadn’t.
• On February 24, 2012, PBS reported, wrongly, that the death penalty had been dropped. (On April 5, they got it right when they reported on the anti0gay bill on Newshour.)
• On June 12, 2012, M.P. David Bahati again falsely claimed that the death penalty had been removed from the re-introduced bill.
• On June 22, 2012, the Associated Press claimed that the entire bill had been “shelved.” Boy were they wrong.

That’s not an exhaustive list. That’s just what I was able to find quickly this morning.

So now we have fresh reports that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee has again “dropped” the death penalty from its recommendations to Parliament, the same announcement that they made before when their tried to pull their death-by-stealth move in May 2011. But this time, they say that they can’t release the draft of their recommendations before Parliament because, you know, it’s a “secret.” Gotta follow the rules, you know. But despite this track record, the BBC and Pink News are confidently reporting that the death penalty has been dropped. Journalists with very short attention spans might believe it, but I don’t. And neither should you until we can all see it in writing — and the recomendation is adopted by the full Parliament. Nothing gets dropped until that vote takes place, and it hasn’t happened yet.

When a Ugandan Politician Claims The Death Penalty Was Dropped But He Can’t Show You The Draft Recommendations Because They’re Secret, Then The Death Penalty Has Not Been Dropped

WBS Television in Uganda late yesterday posted another report on YouTube featuring statements by members of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, which is charged with marking up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill with recommended changes.

There are a few troubling aspects to the report. First, the reporter claims that the death penalty has been removed for “homosexuality acts with minors,” which sounds very suspiciously like several other previous reports, later proven to be false, that the death penalty had been removed. The last time we heard that line, we would quickly learn that the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, in fact, had not removed the death penalty from the bill, but instead had simply obfuscated the death penalty’s presence in the bill. A complete explanation can be found here.

The second troubling aspect is that the reporter described the clause containing the death penalty as prohibiting “”homosexuality acts with minors” — which it does, but it also imposes the death penalty for much, much more. This, too, is in line with several prior false statement by the Anti-Homosexuality Bill supporters who had tried to misrepresent the scope of the “aggravated homosexuality” clause. Again, a complete explanation of who can qualify for the death penalty can be found here. The fact that the clause is being misrepresented again suggests to me that those who are speaking about the committee’s draft report are being far from candid about what the draft recommendations contain. A huge, waiving red flag like that casts serous doubt in my mind that the death penalty has been removed.

And in case that red flag isn’t big enough, now we’re being told that the draft report from the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee is being held secret, and that we won’t know its contents until debate begins and the bill is voted on — which can take place in just a matter of a few hours.

This is one of the junk emails sent to all members of Parliament on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee warning them to go slow about the Anti-Gay Bill which Speaker Rebecca Kadaga had two weeks back asked them to finalize so that the House begins debating it. The emails, the majority of which indicate New York as the town from where they have been sent, try to explain to the M.P.’s that gays are normal people and thus their rights should not be trampled upon.

Despite this pressure however, the members sat in a crisis meeting for close to two hours going through the bill’s seventeen (sic) clauses and approved it for debate before the House beginning next week.

“We have come to the conclusion of this bill and it is ready to be ushered into Parliament this afternoon. Iedit) If it means stopping me from going to the United States for all my life, going to any country because of this bill, I shall stand by this bill and I’m for (M.P. David) Bahati (the bill’s sponsor) for what he has come up with to protect our minors the other generations all around us.”

“We received the instructions from the House to finalize it and we have finalized it.”

The members however lifted the death penalty sentence to anyone who engages in homosexuality acts with minors, putting the punishment at life imprisonment and those who carry out the act above the age of consent will have the lowest penalty as seven years imprisonment.

The draft report made by the committee however was confiscated from all members sitting on the committee so as it is not distributed before its debate.

“The rules do not allow me to divulge the contents of the committee meetings before the final report is submitted to Parliament. But we are looking at the bill. … (Edit)…

There are some, there is still some work. In some respects we needed more information. We needed some technical information in terms of the sentences that we’re proposing in the bill.”

Meanwhile, Parliament has refuted reports that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has been issued with a travel ban to the U.S.A. due to her tough stand against homosexuals. The validity of these reports however are being questioned as some M.P.’s confirmed off-record having seen the travel ban itself.

“I’d like to clarify that there is no formal communication that has come to Parliament about this issue as yet, and therefore we are dismissing that information in the context of this House because as far as we are concerned it isn’t official.

Parliament next week will begin discussing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a private member’s bill presented by Honorable David Bahati. If passed, homosexuality and same-sex marriages will be criminal in Uganda, a matter which however has raised controversy on the world scene with countries like the U.S.A. pledging to cut aid to Uganda.

Conflicting Reports Emerge About U.S. Sanctions Against Uganda

WBS Television in Uganda posted this YouTube report titled, “USA slaps travel ban on Speaker Kadaga over Anti-Gay Bill.” The report itself doesn’t address the travel ban, but a statement posted on the Parliament’s web site denies receiving any communication from the U.S. Mission in Kampala about any travel bans. Instead of describing specific sanctions, the WBS report merely speaks of unspecified sanctions “threatening the country and individuals.” M.P. Stephen Tashobya, who chairs the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee charged with holding hearings on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, says that some members of Parliament have received letters threatening sanctions.

As the demand for the anti-gay bill gains pace in the country, it appears the Western world is putting a fierce energy in ensuring that the anti-gay bill does not find its way into the law books of the country. U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly expressed his discomfort with the proposal to criminalize homosexuality and lesbianism, threatening the country and individuals behind the move with grave sanctions.

“…To have had, I think, from two members of Parliament that they have received a letter from an assistant from the President of the U.S. expressing concern about the passing of the bill.”

(Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee Chairman Stephen) Tashobya however says that as the committee starts to scrutinize the proposals, it will collect views of both local and international stakeholders.

“First of all, any person anywhere in the world has the right to come in to give his views about this bill which is before Parliament.”

Same-sex practices are unpopular in the African context, but are considered a human right by activists in the West. The letter comes a few weeks after Speaker Rebecca Kadaga pledged to deliver the bill as a Christmas package to Ugandans.

Warren Throckmorton says that the State Department has denied that Obama has threatened sanctions.

US Ambassador to Uganda: No Aid Will Be Cut

The Uganda Parliament is poised to pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill sometime between now and Christmas. Meanwhile, five European countries — Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden —  have already announced they were freezing aid payments to Uganda due to massive corruption when it was discovered that millions of Euros in foreign aid has ended up in the personal bank accounts of several Ugandan top leaders including Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Their announcements came before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill went onto Parliament’s agenda, although Sweden and Britain have previously stated that they would either cut foreign aid if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law. The US last year issued a directive stating, “Agencies involved with foreign aid, assistance, and development shall enhance their ongoing efforts to ensure regular Federal Government engagement with governments, citizens, civil society, and the private sector in order to build respect for the human rights of LGBT persons.”

But with so many reasons for the U.S. to cut aid to Uganda — or at least to have a serous sit-down with Ugandan authorities, US Ambassador to Uganda Scott H. DeLisi has made the rounds in Kampala to say that there are no plans to spend your tax dollars more effectively elsewhere:

Ambassador Scott H. DeLisi

“The U.S has decided to continue giving aid to Uganda despite the ongoing numerous investigations into the misuse of foreign aid.” Ambassador Scott H. DeLisi said

Scott H DeLisi, the Ambassador of US to Uganda said they will work with several organisations that receive funds to ensure proper use and allocation of the funds.

He said that in a meeting with Uganda’s minister of internal affairs Hilary Onek on Nov 20, the ambassador said they agreed to work together with the ministry to monitor and fulfill the intended purposes of their funds.

Onek thanked the U.S government for its commitment to send funds to Uganda and equated the current state of corruption to measles which has produced a rush on the skin as a sign of healing.

To be clear: the five European countries took action before the Anti-Homosexuality Bill returned to the headlines, and we have no evidence that their actions are related to the renewed push to pass the bill into law. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill appeared on Parliament’s agenda only yesterday, the day after DeLisi made his statement. But now that the bill is on the table, it’s time for the U.S. to step up and insist that my tax dollars and yours — a half a billion dollars’ worth — will not be shipped to a country that is bound and determined to kill its LGBT people. I don’t know about you, but I have no intention of going over the fiscal cliff while Uganda embarks on another anti-gay with hunt with my money.

This is a human rights crisis of epic proportions that is unfolding before our eyes. It is our Nuremberg. And it’s time our State Department stepped up and sent the only message that matters to Uganda’s leaders: pass this bill and the flow of dollars ends.

You can find contact information for the U.S. Mission in Uganda here. They even have a Twitter feed here, although it doesn’t appear to respond to tweets.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Why Now?

Uganda Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and President Yoweri Museveni (Uganda Observer)

Since the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill was first introduced in Uganda’s Parliament in October 2009, it has been like a recurring bad dream. Like most recurring dreams, you don’t have this one every night; you only experience it when stressful events trigger its return. Over the past three years, we’ve seen the AHB dominate the headlines, then go dormant, and then come back whenever there are external or internal events which call for either a diversion or a handy weapon.

Did Britain threaten to cut off aid?  Let’s revive the bill. Did a  feisty opposition leader provoke a violent crackdown? Let’s bring back the bill. Did the American Secretary of State just declare that “gay rights are human rights“? Time to bring it back. Clinton’s speech before the United Nations in Geneva proved a handy pretext to re-introduce the bill into Parliament last February, but it has been languishing in committee since then.

So why the sudden impetus now? One Ugandan human rights leader sees one possibility:

But Kikonyogo Kivumbi, executive director of civil rights organisation Uhspa-Uganda, painted a different picture by describing the anti-gay legislation as a “political weapon” for the Ugandan dictatorship in its attempts to influence the UN.

“Uganda is using the bill to threaten and blackmail the West,” he told IBTimes UK. “They know that respect of human rights is a sensible subject in the West and they are using it to blackmail the international community.”

The activist added that the Ugandan government is furious at a UN report which claimed it was abetting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report found that ministers in Kampala are supporting the M23 rebels “in the form of direct troop reinforcements in DRC territory, weapons deliveries, technical assistance, joint planning, political advice and facilitation of external relations”.

Kivumbi said. “When the report came out, the regime was furious and threatened to pull out of Somalia [where around 5,000 Ugandan troops are currently supporting the African Union’s peace-keeping mission and curbing the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab].

“They are threatening the sovereignty of a state, Congo, using the Somalia deal which they consider a soft spot for the West.”

This news mostly escaped western notice, but the UN report was a huge deal in Uganda when it came out. President Yoweri Museveni was clearly stung by the report, and he has threatened to pull Ugandan troops out of its peacekeeping mission in Somalia, where they have played a central role in pushing armed clans out of Mogadishu. Ugandan authorities are also making a show of closing its border with Congo even as Congolese rebels have captured the strategic Eastern city of Goma.

L-R: Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, First Lady and M.P. Janet Museveni

That row over the Congo is only one of a long list of conflicts confronting the Ugandan government. Over the past few months, Britain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden announced that they were cutting direct aid to the Ugandan government after learning that much of it went into the personal bank account of Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi. Well gee, how did it get there?, he asked with feigned ignorance as he promptly found seventeen scapegoats to fire. Those scapegoats are now firing back. A similar scandal is reaching First Lady and Parliament Member Janet Museveni. And in yet another scandal, dozens of leaders have been caught in a US$650 million pension scam in which they registered thousands of so-called “ghost pensioners” to skim payments off of the nation pension plan’s meager resources. In reaction to all that, the World Bank has now warned that it would review its aid to Uganda, and last weekend, Britain announced that it not just halted its direct aid, but had frozen all bilateral aid, including aid to NGO’s and Ugandan financial institutions as well. That’s a huge hit. Total bilateral aid for the year was set for £98.9 million (US$157 million).

(By the way, the nation’s clerics, sensing an opportunity, have called on foreign governments to bypass the kleptocracy and give the foreign aid directly to them. But obviously, Britain isn’t buying.)

Meanwhile, Uganda’s primary referral hospital, Mulago Hospital, was forced to close its intensive care unit due to lack of funds while the country continues to struggle with nodding disease (the government’s response included feeding its victims rotten food) and a fresh Ebola outbreak. But when anti-corruption activists tried to hold a meeting to demand accountability in government, police intervened and put a stop to it. And, by the way, foreigners are getting brand new identity cards soon. The only reason Ugandans aren’t getting new national identity cards is because that project, too, has been botched by corruption.

Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga

So with all that going on, why not throw the masses some tripe and bring up the Anti-Homosexuality Bill? The timing is obviously ripe for it. All that was needed was a pretext. And that came earlier this month when Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga went to Canada for an Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and was present when Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird blasted Uganda’s human rights record. Baird particularly singled out the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill and the murder of Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato in January, 2011. Kadaga replied with an angry retort, complete with the usual appeals to Uganda’s sovereignty and denunciations of Western colonialism. When she returned home to Entebbe, she was greeted with a hero’s welcome. She then announced to the cheering crowds that Uganda, by God, would show the world it can’t be pushed around anymore.

Speaker Kadaga has emerged as a pivotal figure lately in Ugandan politics. Amid widespread discontent over Museveni’s determination to remain in office through media manipulation and constant crackdowns on the opposition, Kadaga’s fearless brashness plays like a breath of fresh air. Her longstanding position in the ruling National Resistance Movement doesn’t appear to hurt either, as that makes her both a practical and a plausable successor to Museveni should he accept calls to restore term limits when his current term ends in 2016, after which he will have been in power for more than thirty years.

Kadaga’s political instincts are sharp, and she knows a popular, career-enhancing platform when she sees one. She has been a supporter of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill from the very beginning, and before that, for increased penalties for homosexuality.  In April 2009, while Deputy Speaker, she presided over Parliament as M.P. David Bahati sought approval to submit an Anti-Homosexuality Bill as a private member’s bill. The bill failed to come to a vote before the Eight Parliament expired in May 2011.But after the Ninth Parliament elected her as Speaker, Kadaga promptly to engineered the bill’s reintroduction in February 2012. She is now pushing for its passage before Parliament breaks for Christmas on December 15. She says it will be a “Christmas gift” to the Ugandan people, and given the widespread homophobia in Ugandan society, the bill’s passage would only enhance Kadaga’s reputation further. And by the way, the bill’s passage under her leadership might, conveniently, help to quash rumors which surround the fact that, at age 56, Kadaga remains unmarried and without children in a country that takes these things very seriously.

So where is Museveni in all this? It’s usually right about now when a government spokesperson comes forward to tell us that the President or his cabinet has “rejected” the bill. But nobody from Museveni’s cabinet is throwing cold water on it this time. And it may well be that with all of the challenges that Museveni is facing, the bill’s passage, or even its mere threat, may serve Museveni’s interests as much as they serves Kadaga’s. If this bill is passed, she will get the credit — a good thing in domestic politics in the short term — because it will have her fingerprints all over it. But those fingerprints won’t dust off so easily in the long term when the country deals with the fallout with further reductions of foreign aid. That could be particularly damaging in the eyes of those who had supported her as a potential successor to Museveni, and that could play to Museveni’s long-term benefit.

None of this says that the bill’s passage is imminent, and none of its says that it’s not. That’s the tricky thing about trying to read the tea leaves in Uganda. The only thing that is certain is that it all comes down to whose interests are served best and how they are best served. If Kadaga passes the bill now, she will be a hero, for at least few months anyway. If its delayed again, then it’s still out there, ready to be acted on, until the Ninth Parliament expires in 2016. Either way, the larger message has gone out: leave us alone or the gays gets it.

Anti-Homosexuality Bill Appears On Uganda Parliament’s Agenda

The Anti-Homosexuailty Bill has appeared on the Orders Paper for the Ugandan Parliament. Today’s Orders Paper (DOC: 39KB/4 pages) shows a rather full agenda, with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill appearing under “Notice of Business to Follow”:

NOTICE OF BUSINESS TO FOLLOW

1. MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT TO URGE GOVERNMENT TO BAIL OUT SEMBULE STEEL MILLS LTD FROM THE INTENDED SALE OF ITS PROPERTIES
2. PRESENTATION, CONSIDERATION AND ADOPTION OF THE REPORT ON THE ADHOC COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING THE ENERGY SECTOR
3. THE ANTI-HOMOSEXUALITY BILL, 2012
4. THE PUBLIC ORDER MANAGEMENT BILL, 2012
5. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE STATUS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES
6. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON THE AFRICAN SPACE RESEARCH PROGRAM (ASRP)
7. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE REQUEST BY GOVERNMENT TO BORROW SDR 87.1 MILLION (USD 135.0M) FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (IDA) OF THE WORLD BANK GROUP FOR FINANCING OF THE WATER MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT (WMDP)
8. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY
9. PETITION AGAINST THE OFFICIAL RECEIVER OF UGANDA ELECTRICITY BOARD (UEB) AND UEB (IN LIQUIDATION) FOR NON-PAYMENT OF GRATUITY

[Emphasis added]

This Order Paper doesn’t indicate when Parliament might take up the bill. It could linger for several weeks as “business to follow,” or it could be pulled forward for immediate action at any time. The current session runs until December 15th before breaking for Christmas. Unlike last May when Parliament was racing against the clock to beat its expiration, the Ninth Parliament remains seated until 2016.