Comment
USA is the most evil nation on the face of the earth. This master piece of satan thrives on double standards. It is not interested in democracy , human rights and social justice. Any seeming interest in these virtues is just a smoke screen. All USA is interested in is American interests. USA is forcing Uganda to uphold so called gay rights but the USA has not ratified the Convention on the Right of the Child(CRC) . They have cut aid to Uganda over the Anti-gay legislation but will not cut aid to Saudi-Arabia which subjects gays to Sharia Law. USA has greatly violated human rights with impunity in Iraq and Afghanistan among other nations. USA has implemented the satanic neo-liberal ecomonic system that has increased poverty and misery world wide. According to USA, gay sex is a right and anal sex is a right but there is nothing like the right to health, right to food, the right to freedom from poverty and the right to a decent standard of living . Can you Imagine!!!
MUST READ:
No Visas to Uganda Gay Haters –US Envoy . But many Visas will be given to Saudi-Arabians gay haters who advocate for the subjection of gays to Sharia Law
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2014/03/no-visas-for-ugandas-gay-haters-us.html
Amazing hypocrisy of Babylon USA: We are cutting HIV funds for the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda but we are boosting our support Uganda to hunt Joseph Kony because our interests in the Great lakes region are at Stake
USA says, Enactment of Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill is a violation of human rights : Oh! Really , when has the USA been genuinely interested in Human Rights
Since when did the HIV creators become passionate about HIV spread: US Embassy in Kampala says Circumcision does reduce HIV spread
US cannot continue funding treatment and care yet more and more Ugandans are getting infected: Oh! really
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-cannot-continue-funding-treatment.html
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-cannot-continue-funding-treatment.html
Uganda is already feeling the pinch of western donor cuts: What was Ofwono Opondo up to when he made a zombiefied remark that “Uganda has always lived without donor money and we shall live”.
Pretending to care when the truth is that they do not really care: 11,604 Ugandan patients living with HIV/AIDS stranded as USAID funded project ends
Sodomy blackmail: Uganda accuses World Bank of 'blackmail'
U.S. cuts aid to Uganda, cancels military exercise over anti-gay law
WASHINGTON
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni signs an anti-homosexual bill into law at the state house in Entebbe, 36 km (22 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala February 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/James Akena
(Reuters) - The United States on Thursday cut aid to Uganda, imposed visa restrictions and canceled a regional military exercise in response to a Ugandan law that imposes harsh penalties on homosexuality.
The White House said in a statement the measures were intended to "reinforce our support for human rights of all Ugandans regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity."
Homosexuality is taboo in most African countries and illegal in 37, including in Uganda where it has been a crime since British rule.
Uganda's new law, signed by President Yoweri Museveni in February, imposes jail terms of up to life for "aggravated homosexuality" which includes homosexual sex with a minor or while HIV-positive.
Widely condemned by donor countries, the law also criminalizes lesbianism for the first time and makes it a crime to help individuals engage in homosexual acts.
Western donors, including the United States, had halted or re-directed about $118 million in aid to the east African nation's economy before Thursday's announcement.
The White House said on Thursday the United States would impose visa restrictions on Ugandans it believes have been involved in human rights violations, including gay rights.
The United States will halt $2.4 million in funding for a Ugandan community policing program in light of a police raid on a U.S.-funded health program at Makerere University and reports of people detained and abused while in police custody.
In addition, Washington will shift some funding for salaries and travel expenses of Ugandan health ministry employees to non-governmental agencies involved in health programs.
It will also reallocate $3 million in funding for a planned national public health institute in Uganda to another African country, which it did not name. A National Institutes of Health genomics meeting would be moved from Uganda to South Africa, the White House said.
It also canceled plans for a U.S.-sponsored military exercise in Uganda that was meant to include other East African countries. A date had not yet been set for the exercise.
Uganda is a key Western ally in the fight against Islamic extremism in Somalia, where Ugandan troops for the backbone of the African Union force battling al Qaeda-aligned militants.
U.S. special forces have also been involved in the hunt for Joseph Kony, the elusive rebel commander seeking to topple the Ugandan government. Kony is believed to be hiding in the jungles of central Africa.
In Kampala, a government official asked about the U.S. measures said that Uganda would not alter its decision to toughen laws against homosexuals.
"Uganda is a sovereign country and can never bow to anybody or be blackmailed by anybody on a decision it took in its interests, even if it involves threats to cut off all financial assistance," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said.
U.S. President Barack Obama previously told Museveni the law would complicate relations between the two countries. Since then Washington has been reviewing its funding to Uganda, while privately pressing Museveni's government to repeal the law.
(Additional reporting by Elias Biryabarema in Kampala; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Cynthia Osterman)
Uganda dismisses US sanctions for anti-gay law
Publish Date: Jun 20, 2014
Government spokesman Ofwono Opondo
KAMPALA - Uganda's government Friday said US sanctions slapped on the country for tough anti-gay law would have little impact and rejected rights groups' reports that the legislation had led to a rise in assaults."Ugandans know they are moving away from donor dependency," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo told AFP Friday.
"We cannot compel the Americans to give us their money. Ugandans must be ready and we are rightly doing so, paying our bills. We need to be frugal."
In the steps unveiled Thursday, specific Ugandan officials involved in "human rights abuses" -- including against the gay community -- will be barred entry to the US, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.
Signed by President Yoweri Museveni in February, the law calls for "repeat homosexuals" to be jailed for life, outlaws the promotion of homosexuality and obliges Ugandans to denounce gays to the authorities.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has likened the Ugandan law to anti-Semitic legislation in Nazi Germany.
Sanctions include cancelling a military air exercise, imposing visa bans and freezing some aid.
Rights groups say the law has triggered a sharp increase in arrests and assaults of country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International said in a joint report last month the LGBT community had faced a "surge in human rights violations", with people being arrested, evicted or losing their jobs, and at least one transgender person has been murdered since the law was passed.
But the government dismissed the reports, claiming not to have received a "single report about a gay person being intimidated or harassed."
"About the sanctions of Ugandan officials who allegedly intimidate lesbians and gay people, let them (Americans) not be cowards and come out and share the information of those involved, and the law take its course," Opondo said.
"We are surprised that a foreign government is the one reporting these alleged abuses, yet we have not received these complaints."
Opondo said Uganda would cope, adding "we have been able to fund our budget up to 82 percent."
"We don't think it is critical for Ugandans to travel to America or any other country," he said.
"With modern cyber-technology we can comfortably conduct business from the comfort of our offices."
Wednesday, 25 June 2014 01:55
Hillary Clinton
In her new book, the potential US president tells of being ridiculed by Museveni on the gay issue and why she omitted Uganda from her Africa trip itinerary
Although the United States has just imposed sanctions over the anti-homosexuality law, it has emerged that the Obama administration has been working to isolate Uganda for three years.
This is one of the revelations made by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former US secretary of state, in her new book Hard Choices. Clinton also writes about how President Museveni ridiculed her complaints about Uganda’s controversial legislation.
The book, which largely chronicles Clinton’s term as secretary of state from 2008 to 2012, shines a light on Uganda’s record on gay rights. Clinton says Uganda caught her eye when local MPs embarked on the process of enacting the Anti-Homosexuality Act, and following the killing of a gay rights activist David Kato in 2011.
“David was killed in what police said was a robbery but it was more likely an execution. Like many people in Uganda and around the world, I was appalled that the police and government had done little to protect David after public calls for his murder. But this was about more than police incompetence,” Clinton writes, adding that this happened at a time when the Ugandan Parliament was considering a bill to make being gay a crime punishable by death.
Museveni ridicule
Clinton reveals that when she talked to President Museveni about the crackdown on gays in Uganda, “he [Museveni] ridiculed my concerns.”
To Clinton, David’s death wasn’t an isolated incident. “It was the result of a nationwide campaign to suppress LGBT [Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual and Transgender] people by any means necessary, and the government was part of it,” she writes.
She concedes that Uganda was not the only country with gay rights abuse issues. She says the same was happening in Nigeria, Kenya and Russia among others. So, in this regard the United States needed to take a stand on the matter and as secretary of state, she decided that the US needed to review its foreign policy and relationship with openly anti-gay countries.
Clinton says that before she could announce to the World the US position on gay rights and debunk the myths about homosexuality, she learnt that, the White House had “finally” approved the desired policy change.
“From now on, the United States would take into account the LGBT human rights record of a country when appropriating foreign aid. This kind of policy has a real chance of influencing the actions of other governments,” she writes.
Last week, the US announced that it had cut aid to Uganda, imposed visa restrictions, and canceled a regional military exercise because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Isolation of Uganda
Whereas last week’s announcement appears to be the official starting point for the American isolation of Uganda, it is now clear the process started long before. Clinton takes the reader back to 2011, when she made a moving speech on gay rights. Before she and her team started writing the speech, they had to figure out where she would deliver it from “since on a topic this sensitive the location and occasion would matter more than usual.”
It was early 2011 and she had a trip scheduled to just about every region of the world. The African trips were set for August and she briefly considered going to Uganda and giving the speech in David Kato’s memory, but that was ruled out pretty quickly, according to the book.
“I wanted to avoid at all costs suggesting that anti-gay violence is just an African problem rather than a global problem, or giving local bigots an excuse to complain about US bullying. I wanted the only story to be the message of the speech itself,” she writes.
Eventually, Clinton made the speech in Geneva at the headquarters of the UN Human Rights Council during the first week of December (2011) to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Clinton says that when it came to writing the speech, she had Uganda in mind. An early draft of the speech aimed to name and shame Uganda, among others, as a country that had taken steps in the wrong direction.
However, she made a decision to the contrary. “That was a mistake. Any list would be incomplete; plus I knew that any country singled out for criticism would feel obliged to respond, most likely defensively and angrily…I wanted this speech to make leaders think, not to lash out,” she writes, adding that she instead looked for examples of non-western countries that had made progress on LGBT rights as a way to debunk the myth that supporting LGBT people was a western, colonialist practice.
Museveni responds to Obama on anti-gay bill
President Museveni's speech at Anti-gay Bill signing
President Museveni signs Anti-gay Bill into law
Museveni 'to sign anti-gay bill into law'