{"id":40404,"date":"2014-03-03T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=40404"},"modified":"2015-05-05T22:11:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T21:11:02","slug":"ugandas-anti-gay-bill-puts-u-s-aid-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/03\/ugandas-anti-gay-bill-puts-u-s-aid-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda\u2019s Anti-Gay Bill Puts U.S. Aid at Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A scene from the award-winning documentary “Call Me Kuchu”, which follows the fight of courageous LGBT rights activist David Kato and his friends against the rampant homophobia in Uganda. Credit: Katherine Fairfax Wright<\/p><\/div>\n

26 Feb 2014 – <\/i>Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni\u2019s authorisation of the Parliament\u2019s so-called \u201ckill the gays\u201d bill has led Washington officials to announce a review of U.S. aid to the African country.<\/p>\n

While the new law no longer provides the death penalty for LGBT people, as it did when parliament first introduced it, it escalates existing penalties on homosexuality, allowing the state to imprison people for life if they engage in \u201caggravated homosexuality,\u201d defined as repeated instances of gay sex between consenting adults or acts involving minors, disabled, or HIV-positive people.<\/p>\n

The European Union, the United Nations and the Catholic Church have all strongly condemned the new law, which escalates existing penalties for homosexuality.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that this law has been enacted, we are beginning an internal review of our relationship with the Government of Uganda to ensure that all dimensions of our engagement, including assistance programmes, uphold our anti-discrimination policies and principles and reflect our values,\u201d U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Monday.<\/p>\n

Some European countries, including Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, have already halted financial aid to Uganda in protest, while others, like Austria and Sweden, are similarly reviewing their aid commitments. Prominent U.S. policymakers are calling on the United States to temporarily cut off the 456.3 million dollars in aid to Uganda that Congress has appropriated for the coming fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to closely review all U.S. assistance to Uganda, including through the World Bank and other multilateral organisations,\u201d U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said Tuesday. \u201cI cannot support providing further funding to the Government of Uganda until the United States has undergone a review of our relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ugandan health and sanitation programmes in particular rely on foreign aid support, especially when it comes to combating HIV\/AIDS. Uganda has an HIV prevalence rate of 7.2 percent, a rate that is roughly doubled for men who have sex with men.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also deeply concerned about the law\u2019s potential to set back public health efforts in Uganda,\u201d Kerry said, \u201cincluding those to address HIV\/AIDS, which must be conducted in a non-discriminatory manner in order to be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the new Ugandan law prosecutes organisations aiding LGBT individuals, a high-risk group for HIV transmission, Uganda\u2019s actions could have an adverse affect on Ugandan organisations that partner with and receive funding from PEPFAR, the United States\u2019 flagship anti-AIDS programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a purely operation standpoint \u2026 we know that the law itself has specific ramifications for PEPFAR assistance,\u201d Timi Gerson, the director of advocacy for American Jewish World Service (AJWS), a development organisation with operations in Uganda, told IPS. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to look at how this law is going to impact its ability to run those programmes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerson is hesitant about freezing all aid to Uganda, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cAJWS doesn\u2019t support the cutting of fundamental aid to those countries. We don\u2019t support stopping aid to ordinary Ugandans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t talk about cutting aid, I would talk about shifting aid. I think the real question is how you would do that on the ground in light of the situation, so that has to be first and foremost in the [U.S.] review.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. evangelical influence<\/b><\/p>\n

Some pro-LGBT advocates are more ambivalent about U.S. aid funding in Uganda, however. They point to an unacceptable trend of U.S. funding being administered by socially conservative Christian groups that have long espoused an anti-LGBT agenda, creating an environment where anti-LGBT legislation enjoys widespread support.<\/p>\n

U.S. funding often ends up in the hands of conservative religious groups via a complex system of grants, sub-grants and further sub-grants awarded by sub-grantees.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The conservatives] are doing a lot of excellent work when it comes to services like orphanages and very good, well-funded schools,\u201d Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates, a social justice advocacy group, told IPS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conservative schools have very good libraries, unlike other schools, but have books that present a conservative angle regarding Ugandan politics. That is an advantage for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaoma noted that organisations headed by people like Martin Ssempa, a vehemently anti-LGBT Ugandan pastor, have received 60,000 dollars in sub-grants from organisations receiving U.S. PEPFAR funds. (Ssempa also opposes the use of condoms.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear these calls to suspend aid and I am conflicted about that,\u201d said Kaoma. \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s the best way to go, as suspending aid only hurts the poor and not the rich. Museveni won\u2019t lose a single thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he advocates sanctions on Ugandan individuals responsible for the law \u2013 and on U.S. evangelicals who he says have fuelled Uganda\u2019s anti-LGBT movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative is selective sanctioning targeting the people who are responsible, all the anti-gay speakers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they can be sanctioned, there can be a law that says no money can move from any U.S. organisation to an [anti-LGBT] group in Uganda \u2013 then they will start feeling the pinch. If they cut aid, it could just increase hatred against LGBT people as retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaoma said that he is particularly eager to prevent certain individuals from entering Uganda. He lists prominent U.S. evangelicals such as Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge, Don Schmierer and Lou Engle as having directly influenced Uganda\u2019s anti-LGBT law.<\/p>\n

In March 2009, Lively held a conference for Ugandan political, clerical and civic elites, where he spoke to them about the \u201cgay agenda\u201d. Lively claimed that gays were responsible for the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, and asserted that they were now targeting Uganda by trying to \u201cconvert\u201d Ugandan children.<\/p>\n

Kaoma attended and filmed the 2009 conference, featuring Lively, Brundidge and Schmierer. A week later, Ugandan parliamentarians circulated the first draft of recently enacted law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original bill reads like Scott Lively speaking again,\u201d Kaoma said.<\/p>\n

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based watchdog, is currently representing Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Ugandan LGBT advocacy group, as it sues Lively in a U.S. court for his alleged influence on the legislation.<\/p>\n

Lively has conducted similar anti-LGBT activism throughout Africa as well as in Ukraine and Russia.<\/p>\n

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