November 22nd, 2012
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:
“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.
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mikeksf
November 22nd, 2012
Thanks for the contact info. I just sent this:
Mr. Ambassador,
With the impending passage of the anti homosexual legislation and the stealing of foreign aid money, why are you not demanding accountability from the Uganda authorities? Why is the US not joining the chorus against Ugandan corruption and for human rights?
Ben in Oakland
November 22nd, 2012
Sent just now to the embassy.
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Ben Janken. I am an American citizen, a taxpayer, and a productive, law abiding, contributing member of my community. I am also a gay man of 62, legally married to my long term partner in California.
The government of Uganda, since before the days of the notorious Idi Amin, has long been a bastion of fiscal corruption, official incompetence, and human rights abuses and destructive action towards its citizens. It is now poised to pass its so-called anti-homosexuality law, not only a declaration of holocaust against its gay and lesbian citizens, but a declaration of war directed at any citizen who disagrees.
Is that what America in 2012 stands for? We did that in the 1930’s, didn’t we? Germany had both a Jewish problem and a homosexual problem, and Had a very similar strategy to deal with it. We were silent until we ourselves were attacked. When the war ended, gay people were the only ones not liberated from the concentration camps.
Our own country recently handed a defeat to the religious extremists who would impose this kind of thinking on gay and lesbian Americans, and our friends, families, and churches that support us. These organizations have been documented as the creators and supporters of the far more extreme Ugandan efforts in this direction.
With our national debt exceeding 15 trillion dollars, and a clear statement from the American people that antigay hatred is yet another ancient prejudice that has no place in a modern country that claims the mantle of Protector of Human Rights…
…Why are we even considering giving one thin dime to corrupt politicians and even more corrupt governments that declare their morality wars on people who have done nothing to deserve it except to exist? Why are we even considering validating the documented anti-gay hatred that American religious bigots have exported to Africa?
We should be isolating the government of Uganda in exactly the same way that we have isolated the government of Iran, not rewarding them.
And certainly, we should not be turning a blind eye towards yet another holocaust
SharonB
November 22nd, 2012
Where is the on-line petition for our govt. to de-fund Uganda if they pass this abomination?
Robert
November 22nd, 2012
Perhaps we could get a Petition on the White House Web site??
Karel
November 22nd, 2012
I’m still willing to give the ambassador the benefit of the doubt, as I have no doubt that Ugandan resentment at foreigners weighing in on their internal affairs has played a role in pushing this bill as far as it’s gotten; this public pledge to maintain the status quo may simply be a means of providing Yoweri Museveni the political cover he needs to veto the bill should it pass (the last thing he needs is to look like a puppet of the United States). And, let’s face it, that’s our last best hope in this situation.
And to take an even more grim view of things, it may even be that the only thing with a hope of bringing about real change in Uganda, and Sub-Saharan Africa more generally, IS passage of this bill! The number one reason it’s gotten as far as it has is the general ignorance of the population concerning homosexuality. Most Ugandans are doubtlessly convinced that 1) they don’t know any LGBT people, and 2) this bill cannot possibly affect them, an idea that has been comprehensively debunked here on BTB by a straightforward reading of the act. ANYONE can be targeted for death under this bill, and I hate to say it, but the bill may need to actually pass before the implications of that really sink in. Sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better.
Richard Rush
November 22nd, 2012
Petition: http://www.allout.org/uganda-now
martha coyote
November 24th, 2012
“When the war ended, gay people were the only ones not liberated from the concentration camps.”
Cite?
We sorted them out? We kept the camps working to hold gay people?
We took them out of the camps and put them in jail? Our military jails? Because we couldn’t have put them in German jails.
Or put all other concentration camp victims in the hospital, and just threw the gays out?
I don’t believe it.
Eric in Oakland
November 24th, 2012
Regarding the fate of gay holocaust survivors after the war, the following links may be helpful:
http://www.hardenet.com/homocaust/liberationforothers.htm#cont
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust#Post-War
http://www.wipeouthomophobia.com/thegayholocaust.htm
Palmer
November 24th, 2012
martha coyote,
The kind of ignorance you’ve just displayed is appalling!
The Nazis were excellent record keepers. The documentation of the atrocities committed is well known except to the willfully blind.
My father was at the liberation of Dachau. He said that if the Allied troops had known what had been going on they wouldn’t have left a single building standing!
Paragraph 175 sent over 100,000 to the camps, where the VICTIMS were forced to wear a pink triangle, which is why it is now a symbol of gay pride and power! Did you think it came out of thin air?
The gay prisoners were kept in the camps until their sentences were reviewed and they were sent back to prison to finish their sentences.
Even after homosexuality was made legal in both East and West Germany the survivors were denied compensation and government benefits.
These are FACTS, this is documented HISTORY. That you are unaware of these horrifying details speak to a lack of knowledge that needs remedy. Online resources are just a beginning. Get yourself to a library as soon as you can and read a few books, please!
Ben in Oakland
November 24th, 2012
You might want to use the power of the Google to search for “nazi persecution of homosexuals in the holocaust.” You can also visit the holocaust museum’s website for a Lot of information. There is also an excellent book on the subject, “the Men with the Pink Triangles.”
All of these are good suggestions, unless of course, the place you’re coming from is, shall we say, LIVELY?
Konchok Rangdrol
November 25th, 2012
Wow, I am appalled. I first wrote about this in 2009 [http://rangdrol.typepad.com/blog/2010/07/american-and-ugandan-evangelicals-create-anti-gay-bill-calling-for-executionimprisonment-of-gays-2.html] and then again in 2011, thinking that it had been revoked and would not be seen again. Even Obama commented, calling it “odious”.
The cultprits are Martin Ssempa, who is Ugandan and who went to the PBU in PA, USA. The PBU is a Christian Evangelical university. They even gave him an honorary Ph.D years ago, for his work on behalf of HIV/AIDS individuals in Uganda, however, they have since renounced him and his work.
David Bahate, a Ugandan MP was culprit number 2, however, I don’t know who is in charge at this time?
The sad fact is that many right wing Christian Evangelical groups are supporting Martin Ssempa and other right-wing idealogues in impoverished African countries, and they do it with one thing the main stream churches did not provide the smaller churches: instant cash!
While the larger churches were responsible in working with Ugandan churches before they just handed money over to them, the smaller, more fundamentalist right-wing evangelical churches in the US saw this loop hole as their entry into Africa and started just giving these small denominations cash first, without all the paperwork the mainstream US churches were used to demanding.
While I am not a Christian, I think that it would make sense for those larger churches to step in and denounce the work of individuals like Ssempa, and that this would get people to start thinking about acceptance, other Christian ideals.
I think Ssempa went through some horrific emotional changes when he lost a brother and sister to HIV/AIDS blaming their “promiscuous” behaviour. It seems that he really didn’t learn much at the biblical college, but it is apparent, after I went onto their website and read their “…..” that the school may have actually helped engender the hatred that he obviously has for gay people. It just seems like the classic transference of hatred, he blames gay people, etc.,
I wonder what he would do if he knew that scientists identified the first HIV/AIDS strains in monkey in the COngo, more than a decade ago? It seems that the consumption of monkey flesh is a possible link to HIV/AIDS. I read that in Nature, I think, but don’t have the reference anymore.
I read about the guerilla warfare techniques that Ssempa and Bahate were using. It was disgusting. First, they invited Christians from all denominations and Muslems, also. They then proceeded to show films of men involved in scat scenes. Now first of all, that is technically a paraphilia, and is not part of the gay “Culture”. I personally only met, online, one individual who expressed this interest he had.
And though I am a simple guy, I have been around the world, and I have been openly gay/bisexual since I was 17 years old and I am now 54.
I want you to imagine the ideas that those people had when they saw this film, of some scat loving chump(s) and this is what they think gay people are, and do!
And, you have to understand the location, the culture, the ignorance. If there had been anyone in that room with any sense at all, they would have laughed and left the room.
Perhaps what this community needs is some education? I contacted a women’s group, years ago, but never heard back from them. They are probably all terrified of being imprisoned, etc. so it is up to the world community to help.
First, the response of Ambassador Scott H. DeLis is grossly misguided. We should stop giving them money because they are threatening to execute people for being gay! And, in the past, they were going to imprison those who befriended gays!
I have to ask: Would anyone with a great email list consider creating a short letter, email, etc., that would be sent to the President, and the Ambassador? This could be done on http://www.change.org?
I am a monk and I have a very short list of emails, and unfortunately my few friends are not advocates, so I don’t think I could do it.
But, I think we have to do something! And now! We need someone to write a letter, and I don’t mind doing that, but anyone can, but the most important part is that we have to get someone who has a large social media presence, many friends, contacts in the GLBT community, etc.
I recently created a petition letter on change.org asking for Dr. Phil to apologize to members of the Cherokee Nation for comments that he and his guests made. It was the first time I did that and because my email list was too short, (and petition letter too long) I only got a few people to sign it!
Please feel free to write to me directly to my email. I live in Montreal, Quebec and my real name is CJ Plourde but I use my Buddhist monk name, Konchok Rangdrol.
Regards
Rangdrol
So, anyone, please write to me at Konchokrangdrol[a]gmail.com
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