By Stephen Lock
It’s been known for years that the AIDS epidemic hit sub-Saharan Africa hard, and issues of poverty, lack of education, taboos, and governmental inaction and corruption exacerbated the pandemic.
The latest volley coming out of Uganda is a proposal by the Ugandan Parliament to enact the AIDS Prevention and Control Bill (2008), which seeks to implement non-voluntary disclosure of HIV status to third parties and criminalize various behaviours related to the transmission of HIV. Namely, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 wherein, according to Clause II of the Bill, a person who is convicted of engaging in homosexual sex is liable to life imprisonment.
Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but the new bill would create the crime of “aggravated homosexuality”, where the death penalty can be imposed if the offender is also HIV-positive, has sex with anyone under 18 years of age, or with someone who is disabled.
Both Great Britain and Canada have made it clear to President Yoweri Museveni the proposed legislation, which has not been endorsed by the Ugandan government but has been allowed to proceed through Parliament, is unacceptable.
There is also high concern the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been praised by senior government officials such as health minister Stephen Mallinga, Senior Presidential Adviser on HIV/AIDS Jesse Kagimba, and Uganda’s ethics minister, James Nsaba Buturo.
Buturo has been quoted as saying he believes the death sentence clause would probably be reviewed, but also maintained the law was “necessary to counter foreign influence.”
Buturo also believes homosexuality “is not natural in Uganda” thereby suggesting, as is common in Africa and other Third World regions, that homosexuality is a vestige of the corruption visited upon them by colonialism.
While it can be argued that the concept of “gay” (and, by extension, “lesbian”) is a Western social construct, we know that same-sex sexual behaviour between men and between women existed in all pre-colonial cultures.
The Bill proposes a three-year prison sentence for anyone who is aware of evidence of homosexuality and fails to report it to the police within 24 hours. Furthermore, it would impose a sentence of up to seven years for anyone who defends the rights of gays and lesbians.
The Bill also states that anyone who “aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage of acts of homosexuality [sic]” faces seven years in prison if convicted. Landlords who rent rooms or homes to homosexuals also could get seven years, and anyone with “religious, political, economic or social authority” who fails to report anyone violating the act faces three years.
The measure was, according to blogger Ashby Jones, proposed in Uganda following a visit by leaders of US conservative Christian ‘ex-gay’ ministries. However, a US-based group called Faith in Public Life has denounced the proposed Ugandan bill, stating:
“American Christian pastors, theologians and organizational leaders from across the theological and ideological spectrum with diverse views about homosexuality have united to condemn a bill currently under consideration in the Parliament of Uganda that would make homosexual behavior punishable by life imprisonment or even death. Given US Christian groups’ extensive history of involvement in Uganda, these numerous Catholic, Evangelical and Mainline Protestant leaders – including several members of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships – felt especially compelled to speak out against the ’Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009’ as an affront to Christian values and call on all American Christian leaders to join them.”
The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, along with Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, directly confronted President Museveni on the Bill during the Commonwealth Summit held last month in Trinidad and Tobago. Uganda is a member of the Commonwealth, along with Canada, India, Australia, and other former British colonies.
The proposed law, however, was barely even acknowledged at the conference, despite calls placed before the conference for Uganda’s suspension from the Commonwealth.
Harper pointed out that Commonwealth leaders generally do not discuss specific laws of member states during such conferences. However, he made a point of pulling Museveni aside and indicated to him “Canada’s deep concern [and] strong opposition” to the anti-homosexuality Bill. He also apparently informed the President that Canada “deplores these kinds of measures.”
“We find them inconsistent with, frankly, I think any reasonable understanding of human rights,” Harper was quoted as saying.
Stephen Lewis, the former UN Envoy on AIDS in Africa was more direct. In an address presented during the Commonwealth People’s Forum, he said that the Bill made a “mockery of Commonwealth principles,” adding, “nothing is as stark, punitive and redolent of hate as the Bill in Uganda.”
International opposition continues to mount. However, most of the criticisms are couched in diplomatic terms and do not address the clearly horrific concept of instituting the death penalty for those who engage in homosexual practices and/or targets those who are HIV+ for execution.
Most of the written protests talk about how such a bill would discourage those who are already HIV+ or at risk for becoming infected from seeking services and drive them underground. Gee, you think?
The current UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, Elizabeth Mataka, has added her voice to the growing criticism. “I emphasize the importance of creating a social environment conducive for HIV prevention and to refrain from laws that criminalize the transmission of HIV and stigmatize certain groups in the population,” she told journalists in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on December 2nd. “These laws can only fuel the epidemic further and undermine an effective response to HIV.”
Undermine an effective response? What is that? It’s not “undermining an effective response”, it’s actively seeking to imprison and kill individuals, specifically homosexual individuals, with HIV and AIDS by government decree. It’s barbaric and it’s outrageous.
A group of former African presidents and other influential personalities calling itself Champions for an HIV-Free Generation issued a letter signed by its chairperson, the former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, urging Museveni to stop both the AIDS Prevention and Control Bill (2008) and the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009) from becoming law.
“I write to you to express our views regarding two Bills being considered in your country, which could impact negatively on HIV prevention efforts and services directed at the most vulnerable populations,” the letter said.
Impact negatively on HIV prevention efforts and services? I should say so! Being executed tends to have that effect.
Compounding this milquetoast response is Eric Goosby, head of the US-based President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
In a recent interview with Newsweek, he is quoted as saying that he is “...very concerned about any decision that any country would make to target a group that’s in the population, and that’s always been in the population, by excluding them from a service or passes legislation that criminalizes their behaviour [emphasis mine]. Every time you do that, you push the behaviour underground. It never works. Rather than minimizing the spread of the virus, it actually amplifies it.”
This isn’t about funding cuts or even censoring HIV/AIDS literature. The Ugandan legislation has nothing to do with excluding anybody from “services” - it’s genocide, and as such, deserves to be condemned in the strongest language possible. Should the bill come to pass, Uganda should be booted from the Commonwealth, diplomatic ties should be severed and more enlightened nations should immediately recall their ambassadors, consuls and High Commissioners.
Economic sanctions could be instituted except sanctions rarely impact the government. Your average Ugandan already lives in dire poverty despite billions being poured into the country by the Western democracies – these are the people such sanctions would affect.
For the world to stand by and allow this barbarism to exist is unacceptable, and weak. Nicely-worded letters of protest have no effect on the monsters who believe imprisoning and executing homosexuals, and those suffering from AIDS, is an effective strategy.
