KPFA Radio News on Ingabire's American lawyer's arrest in Kigali

KPFA Radio News reported on the arrest of Rwandan Presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza's American lawyer on Sunday evening, 05.30.2010.   To play, click KPFA News: Rwanda arrests Peter Erlinder.

Black Star News on Uganda, May 2010

Thanks to Black Star News, re Uganda, Uganda's Anti Homosexuality Act, and U.S./Uganda in Northeastern Congo

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Thanks to Milton Allimadi and Black Star News for this:

John Prendergast heads Change.org's interventionist front organization the ENOUGH Project.

"Despite harsh condemnation from US legislators in response to Uganda's draft bill criminalizing homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in mid-March that will prop up Uganda's government by authorizing military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa."

Peace In Uganda Via U.S. Bullets And Bombs (the LRA Disarmament Act)
www.blackstarnews.com, http://goo.gl/Wgf2

ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo accused of bias in prosecuting Uganda crimes.

"On Ocampo: 'And he cannot answer satisfactorily why in the case of Uganda all the investigation; all those indicted; have been on the LRA and nothing has touched the Ugandan government.'"

Otunnu, Ugandan Politician, Derides ICC Prosecutor Ocampo's Slant On Uganda Crimes,http://goo.gl/8XoI

Rwanda arrests Ingabire's American lawyer Peter Erlinder in Kigali

Rwandan Police have arrested Peter Erlinder, the American lawyer who traveled to Rwanda's capitol, Kigali, on Monday, May 23rd, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Ingabire was released after being summoned to a Rwandan police station yesterday, much to the relief of her supporters, but this morning both she and the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported that Erlinder had been arrested and charged with "genocide ideology," a crime unique to Rwanda which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the U.S. State Department have denounced as a tool of political repression.


Read at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/user/515407/news.

Uganda's Bishop Christopher on Gay Suicide, Gay Genocide, and Article 13

On Monday, May 26th, Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, fondly known as "Bishop Christopher," spoke to a circle gathered round him at San Francisco's African American Cultural Center. He explained his counseling work with LGBT youth, his advocacy for LGBT rights, and his opposition to Uganda's infamous, proposed Anti Homosexuality Act, a.k.a., "Hang-the-Gays" bill, which has caused alarm at the Western Christian Right's globalization of the culture wars.

                                                                   Photos: Ann Garrison 

After the gathering at San Francisco's African American Cultural Center, Bishop Christopher shared a photo op with the group and Equality California's Andrea Shorter.

The next evening, on Tuesday, May 27th, Andrea introduced Bishop Christopher as a defender against gay genocide, to a crowd at the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Center, which gave him two standing ovations.

                                                                          Photo: Cary Bass

                                                                       Photo: Eric Politzer

                                          Photo: Micheas Herman

                                                                           Photo: Eric Politzer

Having  followed the story of LGBT repression in East Africa, with particular attention to the role of Reverend Rick Warren and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), for almost two years, I attended both nights.

The Bishop said that he began counseling LGBT youth when someone asked if he could help some LGBT kids who felt so ashamed of their sexual longings that they imagined God had abandoned them and they didn't deserve to exist.  Uganda is a very religious, very Christian country, he said, so it was devastating for them, as it would be to most Ugandans, to feel that God had abandoned them.  He talked about assuring these kids that God had not abandoned them, about sharing his more loving interpretation of the Bible, emphasizing the Gospel of the Apostle Paul, and encouraging them to love themselves.   


Some, he said, had been near suicide when he met them, but now they love themselves and are doing well. 


His stories resonated with reports of gay teen suicide statistics here, three or even four times higher than those of heterosexual teens, with the spectre of gay suicide in the 2008 film biography "Milk," and with Harvey Milk's 1978 "Hope" speech, in which he talked about gay kids on the verge of suicide and said "you've gotta give 'em hope." 

Bishop Christopher, Harvey, and Andrea. 

Article 13 of Uganda's Anti Homosexuality Act

The Bishop also spoke to Article 13, an excuse for wholesale human rights abuse in Uganda, and the one provision of Uganda's infamous proposal to penalize acts of "aggravated homosexuality" with death by hanging, Uganda's state execution method.  Thanks to international pressure, it now seems  likely that the Ugandan Parliament will throw out the gay death penalty and the rest of the Anti Homosexuality Act, except for Article 13.

However, Uganda's Anglican Church has already defrocked Bishop Senyonjo and canceled his pension, and, if Article 13 alone becomes law, he could face arrest and imprisonment upon his return from his American tour.

Article 13 reads: 


13. Promotion of homosexuality.

(1) A person who----

(a) participates in production, procuring, marketing broadcasting disseminating, publishing 
pornographic materials for purposes of promoting homosexuality;


(b) funds or sponsors homosexuality or other related activities;

(c) offers premises and other related fixed or movable assets for purposes ofhomosexuality or promoting homosexuality,



(d) uses electronic devices which include internet, films, mobile phones or purposes of homosexuality or promoting homosexuality, and;


(e) acts as an accomplice or attempts to promote or in any way abets homosexuality and related practices; commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of five thousand currency points or imprisonment of a minimum of five years and a maximum of seven years or both fine and imprisonment.



(2) Where the offender is a corporate body or a business or an association or a non-governmental organization (NGO), on conviction its certificate of registration shall be cancelled and the director or proprietor or promoter shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years.
Article 13 would thus criminalize not only the LGBT rights defense work of the Bishop's NGO, Integrity Uganda, but also that of human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which created this podcast on the Anti Homosexuality Act:
The Bishop predicted that even if the rest of the bill is discarded, Article 13 will create a spy state, cause an exodus, gay and straight, from Uganda, and make way for wholesale human rights abuse.  Human rights defenders would have to leave the country or face prison.  


Human Rights Watch and the Bishop both confirmed what the Bishop's young friend, gay activist Frank Mugisha and Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe  wrote in Bahati's Bill a Convenient Distraction/Pambazuka News, 2009:

"The bill is clearly a diversion from the serious issues facing Uganda’s policy-makers today in the lead-up to the 2011 elections especially around livelihoods; poverty and the lack of jobs; electoral reforms; lasting solutions to the northern Uganda peace process; political conflict; ethnic tensions and the unresolved land question; high rates of violence against children and against women (perpetrated largely by heterosexual men); and the ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS.  It also poses a serious threat to press and academic freedom, human rights activism overall . . . "

Frank Mugisha, Ugandan gay activist with Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

Frank is actually quite outspoken, despite Uganda's existing laws against homosexuality, which stipulate a penalty of 14 years to life in prison.  When I asked why he's still out walking around, he said that, according to current law, he can talk all he wants, so long as he's not caught in the act.   But if Article 13  passes, he could be sentenced to seven years just for talking to KPFA on his mobile phone, and Bishop Senyonjo could get seven years for "acting as an accomplice" to an act.  

Will Obama, Clinton, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the rest of the international community object to the passage of Article 13, which would make way not only for severe LGBT persecution but also for wholesale human rights abuse?  

They haven't yet, so someone may need to bring it to their attention.  




Uganda and the U.S.



In March, Ugandan American Milton Allimadi, Editor of the Black Star News, wrote, in Peace in Uganda Via U.S. Bullets and Bombs: 

"Despite harsh condemnation from US legislators in response to Uganda's draft bill criminalizing homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in mid-March that will prop up Uganda's government by authorizing military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa."   

The LRA Disarmament Act not only authorizes but also funds military action, and rebuilding in wartorn northern Uganda, though the Acholi people there begged Obama not to fund any further military action against the LRA, which they said would only lead to more violence.  


The U.S. is a longstanding financial and military supporter of both Uganda and neighboring Rwanda; both Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame make their soldiers available to the Pentagon as proxy warriors in Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, D.R. Congo, and wherever else the U.S. feels the need to project military force in Africa.  The U.S. State Department, like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Wikipedia report that the Museveni regime's human rights record is atrocious, including torture, child labor, and 13 security agencies, some accountable to Museveni alone, which are responsible for disappearances, abductions, "extrajudicial killings," and press harassment and arrest.   




Museveni warns against sodomy

On June 3rd, the Ugandan website The New Vision online published a report titled "Museveni warns against sodomy," quoting President Yoweri Museveni:

“The African Church is the only one that is still standing against homosexuality. The Europeans are finished. If we follow them, we shall end up in Sodom and Gomorrha.”

Museveni and his wife Janet wave to Christians at Uganda's Catholic shrine, with Kampala Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga to his left and Bishop Matthias Sekamanya to his right at the Church of Uganda shrine in Namugongo near Uganda's capitol Kampala. 

Ugandan First Lady Janet Museveni, First Lady Michele Obama, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and President Barack Obama.

Bishop Christopher, on both evenings, thanked President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for speaking out against the Anti Homosexuality Act, even as he warned that Article 13 still stands a good chance of becoming Ugandan law.    

                                                                                  Photo:  Eric Politzer

Election Rwanda 2010: Ingabire supporters fear her second arrest

Read at Digital Journal, http://goo.gl/fmAW

Harvey Milk Day or Milktoast Milk Day?

Graphic, Queerty

I was glad to see California celebrate the first Harvey Milk State holiday on Saturday, May 22, but, by the end of the day, I felt like I'd been through the first Milktoast Milk Day--not a day honoring the revolutionary Harvey, who as he himself said, was far more than a gay politician:

"I understand very well that my election was not alone a question of my gayness but a question of what I represent. In a very real sense, Harvey Milk represented the spirit of the neighborhoods of San Francisco. For the past few years, my fight to make the voice of the neighborhoods of this city be heard was not unlike the fight to make the voice of the cities themselves be heard." --Harvey Milk, San Diego, The Hope Speech, 1978

Pirate Cat Radio's League of Pissed Off Voters' broadcast, often my favorite radio hour of the week,  appropriately featured District #8 candidate Rafael Mandelman, who, of the candidates running for Harvey Milk's seat, would no doubt be Harvey Milk's choice over Scott Wiener, and Dan Nicoletta, one time employee of Harvey's at Castro Camera and acclaimed photographer of Harvey, with fond memories, but they didn't share any of Harvey's own words.

Then KPFA's Saturday Evening News segment featured Mark Leno, an Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club Dem, not a Harvey Milk Democratic Club Dem:  

               Click to play KPFA Radio News on the first State Harvey Milk Day Holiday

Leno has, endorsed the Alice Club's candidate, Scott Wiener, rather than the Milk Club's candidate Rafael Mandelman.

KPFA News reporter Cameron Jones isn't gay, and doesn't live in San Francisco, so he probably doesn't know the difference between Alice Democrats and Milk Democrats, or realize that Leno is an Alicecrat.   And, since the legislation making May 22nd Milk Day was Leno's legislation, Leno's account of how he got Governor Schwarzenegger to sign the bill, after the movie "Milk" became a box office hit, was indeed news.   

However, despite being an openly gay politician benefiting from the ground Harvey Milk laid, Leno is hardly a bearer of Harvey's legacy, having joined his D8 candidate, Wiener, and Senator Dianne Feinstein and State Assemblywoman Fiona Ma in opposing a D.C.C.C. resolution calling on Nancy Pelosi to co-sponsor  H.R. 2404 requiring the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a report outlining the government’s military exit strategy of US forces participating in Operation Enduring Freedom, a.k.a., the War in Afghanistan.   Harvey Milk marched against the Vietnam War, and said, at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade:

"What standards? The standards of the rapists? The wife beaters? The child abusers? The people who ordered the bomb to be built? The people who ordered it to be dropped?  The people who pulled the trigger?  The people who gave us Vietnam?  The people who built the gas chambers?  The people who built the concentration camps, right here in California and then herded all the Japanese-Americans into them during World War II.   The Jew baiters?  The nigger knockers?  The corporate thieves?  The Nixons?  The Hitlers?  

What standards do you want us to set?  Clean up your violence before you criticize lesbians and gay men for their sexuality.  It is madness to glorify killing and violence on one hand and condemn the sexual act . . . " 

Leno has also been a devoted advocate for the South Florida-based Lennar Corporation, an industrial homebuilder and predatory lender whose reckless building and lending has in recent years both built and destroyed communities whole all over California and thus played a major role in ravaging both City and State budgets.

Harvey Milk instead stood for neighborhoods and community:

"The American Dream starts with neighborhoods. To sit on the front stoops--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color. . ." --Harvey Milk, City of Neighborhoods Speech, 1978

More vintage Milk:

"I don't think the American Dream necessarily includes two cars in every garage and a disposal in every kitchen. What it does need is an educational system with incentives. To spend twelve years at school---almost a fifth of your life---without a job at the other end is meaningless." --Harvey Milk, City of Neighborhoods speech, 1978

". . . I'm tired of the conspiracy of silence. I'm tired of listening to the Anita Bryants twist the language and the meaning of the Bible to fit their own distorted outlook, but I'm even more tired of the silence from the religious leaders of this nation who know that she is playing fast and loose with the true meaning of the Bible. I'm tired of their silence more than of her Biblical gymnastics." --Harvey Milk, That's What America Is Speech, Gay Freedom Day Parade, 1978

"The Blacks did not win their rights by sitting quietly in the back of the bus. They got off! Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. . . We are coming out! We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions! We are coming out to tell the truth about gays!" --Harvey Milk, Gay Freedom Day Parade, June 25, 1978

All quotations can be found in the Appendices of Randy Schilt's biography of Harvey Milk, The Mayor of Castro Street, online in the Google Books version, and a record of Harvey in his voice ad his own words and voice, in the "Hope Speech," on the Youtube, which Milk Club President and District #8 candidate Rafael Mandelman posted to his Facebook page this weekend:

Hulu has made the full length doc, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, available online. Great film, though still not quite equal to the best of Harvey in his own words:

Election violence in Rwanda and Burundi, refugees in Uganda

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, presidential candidate of the FDU-Inkingi Party, spoke out regarding Rwandan refugees in Uganda, as she prepared to go on trial this week in Kigali.

On Saturday, 05.22.2010, I published this brief news report on election violence in Rwanda and Burundi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame's attempt to force repatriate 1 million Rwandan refugees from Uganda:   Election violence in Rwanda and Burundi, refugees in Uganda.   I then used most of it in a KPFA Radio News report which I later hot linked into the Digital Journal report at the end.  


The radio report includes a brief interview with Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, of the FDU-Inkingi Party, whose trial for "associating with terrorists" and "genocide ideology" will begin this week in Kigali, Rwanda.  


While speaking to Mrs. Ingabire yesterday, I immediately noticed that her fluency in English has greatly increased in just the past few months, since I've been calling her for KPFA, such that she is now quite readily understood by an American audience.   I have, during that time, come to realize that Mrs. Ingabire also speaks not only Kinyarwanda and French but also Dutch.  


I'm sure that she has worked on her English, despite everything else she has been going through, including arrest, so as to speak to the people of the US and UK, who have so much power in her country and in the surrounding Great Lakes region of Africa.   I hope they'll listen, because the stakes in Rwanda's 2010 presidential election, not only for Rwanda, but also for the entire region, are enormously high.  

Criminal defense lawyers dispute Rwanda's genocide history

Martin Ngoga, Rwanda's Chief Prosecutor, who threatened Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza with arrest if she keeps talking to the press, and accused the international criminal lawyers at the Second International Criminal Defense Conference in Bruxelles of genocide denial.  

May 21, 2010, Bruxelles  - The ad hoc organizing committee of the Second International Criminal Defense Conference being held in Bruxelles on May 21-23, thanked Rwanda Chief Prosecutor Ngoga, and Kigali’s New Times, for publicizing their efforts.


This week, as the conference dates approached, The New Times published several articles condemning it and quoting Rwanda's Chief Prosecutor Ngoga saying that, "For a few years now, some defense lawyers at the ICTR have badly deviated from their professional duties and turned into activists and advocates of genocide denial."


Last week Ngoga warned Ingabire that she might be jailed once again if she continues speaking to the press.  


Full story at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/292310.

Grenade blasts in Kigali, deepening political crisis in Rwanda

KPFA Radio News report, 05.16.2010, including interview with Charles Kabonero, former Editor of the Kinyarwanda language newspaper Umuseso; click to play http://goo.gl/dxzK

Law Professor Peter Erlinder on Preventing the Falsification of History

William and Mitchell College of Law Professor Peter Erlinder is also Lead Defense Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda, Director of the Humanitarian Law Institute in Minneapolis, Plaintiff's Counsel in Habyarimana vs. Kagame, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Defense Counsel in Kagame vs. Ingabire, in Kigali, Rwanda.

Preventing the Falsification of History from TPIR heritage on Vimeo.

Kagame threatens challenger with prison for speaking to press

May 14, 2010---The Rwanda New Times reported that Rwandan Prosecutor General Ngoga threatened to jail Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for speaking with press. Ingabire has not been allowed to register to formally run against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Read at Digital Journal, 
http://goo.gl/ejRL.
 

Rwanda accuses Rusesabagina of terrorism

Paul Rusesabagina, real life hero of Hotel Rwanda and author of "An Ordinary Man," accused of terrorism, with presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, by Rwanda.

Rwandan has accused real-life Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina of violent conspiracy, along with arrested and indicted Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. 

Story at Digital Journal, http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/291869.

Paul Rusesabagina is a terrorist? Or, has Rwandan President Paul Kagame's PR team fumbled?

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is often said to have an extraordinary international PR team, as his Global Citizen Award from Bill Clinton, his International Medal of P.E.A.C.E. from evangelical Pastor Rick Warren, and his honorary degrees and eco awards seem to suggest.


However, the Kagame PR team seems to have fumbled this week, when the state run Rwanda New Times reported that Paul Rusesabagina has been accused, with presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, of violent conspiracy with the FDLR militias in eastern Congo: 



Lt. Col Tharcisse Nditurende and Lt. Col Noel Habiyambere, who were senior commanders of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), admitted having worked with Ingabire and Paul Rusesabagina to form rebel groups to launch offensives in the country.
--Rwanda: Ingabire Co-Accused Arraigned in Court, Rwanda New Times/AllAfrica.com, 04.30.2010


Rusesabagina, a political exile, may be the best known man of peace to emerge from the horrific 1994 violence that the world came to know as the Rwanda Genocide, despite Kagame's accusations that he, again like Ingabire, is guilty of "Double Genocide Theory," saying that Hutus as well as Tutsis were victims of ethnic violence and crimes against humanity in 1994, amidst the horror that came to be known as the Rwanda Genocide.  Rusesabagina's story of sheltering over 1200 refugees from the violence in the four-star Kigali hotel where he was the assistant manager became the film Hotel Rwanda and his autobiography, "An Ordinary Man."   


CNN recently spoke to Rusesabagina about his advocacy for peace and social justice in Rwanda, D.R. Congo, and Burundi, and Rwandan prison labor in eastern Congolese mines:

Rick Warren presented his second International Medal of P.E.A.C.E. to Rwandan President Paul Kagame on September 26, 2009, at Saddleback Church in Southern California. 

By Ann Garrison

May 5, 2010

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, presidential candidate of the Rwandan FDU-Inkingi Party, is going on trial in Rwanda.  Ingabire is charged with “genocide ideology,” a statutory speech crime unique to Rwanda, and of an “association crime,” associating with terrorists.

Eight days after Ingabire’s arrest on April 21 in Rwanda’s capital,  Kigali, a team of U.S. lawyers filed acivil lawsuit against Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Oklahoma City alleging Kagame ordered the political assassinations that triggered the Rwanda Genocide, costing one million Rwandan lives, and that he engaged in racketeering to control the vast natural resources of eastern Congo across Rwanda’s western border at a cost of six-million Congolese lives.

The international legal strategies and geostrategic implications of these parallel, competing courtroom dramas, are huge and historic.  Like any trials of such import, they will become trials in the court of pubic opinion.

And, California’s most famous Proposition 8 anti-gay marriage campaigner, Reverend Rick Warren, will stand trial in that court as well.  Warren has staked his reputation as an international humanitarian on his alliance with Kagame, and on his Rwandan and Ugandan HIV/AIDS ministries, which are infamous for hijacking PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in service to his abstinence-only-until-heterosexual-married -monogamy-for-life agenda.

Full story at Fog City Journal, http://goo.gl/L4Yh.

WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo, 04.29.2010

WBAI Radio interview with Professor Peter Erlinder egarding the lawsuit Habyarimana vs. Kagame, filed in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma federal court on 04.29.2010:


Click to play:


WBAI Radio-N.Y.C.: Peter Erlinder on WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo

Lawsuit alleges Rwandan President's guilt in D.R. Congo

Rwandan exile and demonstrator Claude Gatebuke spoke to the Associated Press outside the Oklahoma Christian University hall where Paul Kagame was giving the commencement address, on the same day a team of process servers and lawyers attempted to serve him with the lawsuit filed in an Oklahoma City federal court on April 30, 2010 . 

On April 30, in Edmond, Oklahoma, a team of lawyers and process servers attempted to personally serve Rwandan President Paul Kagame with an eight count lawsuit, which incudes racketeering to acquire and control the resources of eastern D.R. Congo.

Kagame delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, while demonstrators held up signs outside the hall. Inside, Kagame's aides refused to accept the documents presented by lawyers and process servers. University officials then ordered the lawyers and process servers to leave, and Kagame himself left early, surrounded by bodyguards

Full text at Digital Journal.