Whither Uganda? Election 2011

Published in Uganda's Daily Monitor.

On February 6th, the day of my KPFA News report below, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported that US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, were in Uganda to speak to the three opposition presidential candidates, Kizza Besigye of Inter-Party Cooperation, Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress, and Norbert Mao of the Democratic Party, and that the meeting "formed the basis of their engagement with President Museveni."  The Monitor also reported that "Uganda is a key strategic partner to the US in its role in maintaining regional stability."

                       Audio link:  http://goo.gl/IhDnW.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest:  Uganda is approaching parliamentary and presidential elections on February 18th.   The current regime of Yoweri Museveni imprisoned one of the leading candidates, Dr. Kizza Besigye, when he ran against Museveni in 2005 and 2006, but all charges were dropped and Besigye is running again this year. Internationally known human rights advocate Olara Otunnu, former U.N. Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict Zones returned from exile to run for president, and Norbert Mao, a Ugandan lawyer known for his negotiations to bring peace to Uganda's wartorn north, is running against Museveni as well. KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Uganda, appears to be having a real presidential election, unlike Rwanda, where two of three viable presidential candidates had been arrested before the election year was over and both remain in maximum security prison. Uganda's leading presidential candidates are actively campaigning, as are parliamentary candidates, though election violence is feared and few expect the election to be free or fair. Dr. Kizza Besigye has said that he will conduct his own presidential exit polls, though Museveni has threatened to arrest him if he does.

The main campaign issues are poverty, government corruption, and segregated education, which leaves children of the majority peasant population being shuffled through poor public schools, without acquiring any skills, while children of the elite attend private school.

Olara Otunnu, leader of the Uganda People's
Congress party, arrives for his nomination as
presidential candidate in the capital Kampala.

Presidential candidate Olara Otunnu, who attended primary and secondary school in a mud hut in Uganda's indigenous Acholi region, went on to Uganda's Makerere University and from there to Oxford and Harvard Law School, but he says that his story is not possible in Uganda now

Olara Otunnu:  The education system, especially at the primary level and the elementary level, have completely collapsed.  The government has abandoned the public schools, the government schools.  And instead, with the corruption, the country has seen a mushrooming of top quality private schools for those who are very, very wealthy.  And then, this completely collapsed the system for the vast majority of children.   These schools are no longer able to lay the foundation for children who go on to secondary schools, who can become teachers, and doctors, and engineers, as it used to be in our school system.   

KPFA:  Melanie Nathan, Marin County Human Rights Commissioner, Editor/Contributor to LezGetReal, a Gay Girl's View of the World, and international LGBT activist says that damage to Uganda's public schools is a tragedy for Ugandans and for LGBT rights:

Melanie Nathan:  Destroying pubic education, as Museveni has in Uganda, is a great way to encourage the fearful religious fundamentalism manipulated by those trying to institute homicidal homophobia with this Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill.

N

Uganda's Democratic Party presidential
candidate Norbert Mao, listened
to this woman in Kazo, Kiruhuura district.

KPFA:  Many Congolese people, including Eric Kamba, of the Boston-based Congolese Development Center, would like to see Museveni voted out of office because of his army's war crimes in Congo, which have been documented in many UN reports. Kamba, a refugee from Congo's central Kasai Province, says that he would be assassinated if he went home because he has accused the Congolese President Joseph Kabila of corruption and collaboration with Museveni and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the invasion and occupation of Congo.

Eric Kamba:  As an African, I would like to see Yoweri Museveni voted out of office because he caused the collapse of the most fundamental social institutions and high levels of poverty and corruption in his own country. As a Congolese refugee, I want to see his regime end because he invaded and occupied Congo, and is still plundering its natural resources. In 2008, the International Refugee Commission, estimated that there have been 5.4 million deaths due to the conflict in Congo, and there have been many more since 2008 that no one has counted.

KPFA:  And what would you expect from Uganda's other presidential candidates?

Eric Kamba:  Dr Kizza Besigye has spoken out against Uganda's invasion of Congo for years and the other leading presidential candidates oppose it as well; any of them would be a big improvement for Uganda, Congo, and Africa.  Museveni has been clinging to power and terrorizing the whole Great Lakes Region for the past 25 years.

KPFA: For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

KPFA and AfrobeatRadio News: Melanie Nathan on Uganda's Slain LGBT Activist David Kato and International Human Rights Activism

Rally at Harvey Milk Plaza, San Francisco, to honor slain 

Ugandan LGBT rights activist David Kato, 02.03.2011.

International LGBT rights activist and LezGetReal Editor and Contributor Melanie Nathan speaking to KPFA and AfrobeatRadio.net:   

(URL: http://goo.gl/bEhC4.)
Extended interview with Melanie Nathan:

                         (URL: http://goo.gl/FmOuH.)

Was Obama an accomplice in David Kato's murder?

David Kato, LGBT activist, Advocacy Officer for
Sexual Minorities Uganda, slain by an assailant, who
broke into his home and hit him over the head
with a hammer until he was dead on 01.26.2011.

Would Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato be alive if Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, had not asked Reverend Rick Warren to say the opening prayers, or invocation, at his inauguration on January 20, 2009, then attempted to justify the invitation with reference to Reverend Rick Warren's humanitarian work in Africa?

Warren had been a longstanding ally of Uganda's infamously homophobic Pastor Martin Ssempa, although outrage over Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, a.k.a. "Hang-the-Gays Bill," has since compelled him to take his distance.

In Uganda, Warren had, in March 2008, encouraged a schism in the Anglican Communion over gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, and said "we shall not tolerate this aspect [homosexuality], not at all."

Warren had also, during his campaign for Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, equated homosexuality with incest, pedophilia and bestiality, in this interview on Beliefnet:



In 2008, after the outrage consequent to his invitation to Warren, Obama justified his invitation to Rick Warren as an instance of inclusion, including Reverend Rick Warren's voice as one of many in his inauguration:

Here is the White House statement of sorrow and affirmation of LGBT rights as fundamental human rights, in response to David Kato's murder in Uganda:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 27, 2011

Statement by the President on the Killing of David Kato

I am deeply saddened to learn of the murder of David Kato.  In Uganda, David showed tremendous courage in speaking out against hate.  He was a powerful advocate for fairness and freedom.  The United States mourns his murder, and we recommit ourselves to David’s work.

At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate.  In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered.  It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.

LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights.  My Administration will continue to strongly support human rights and assistance work on behalf of LGBT persons abroad.  We do this because we recognize the threat faced by leaders like David Kato, and we share their commitment to advancing freedom, fairness, and equality for all.

Of course we have to be glad that President Obama was moved, and/or obliged to make such a statement, but many questions remain unanswered, regarding Obama, Reverend Rick Warren, and the East African Presidents, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Burundian President Pierre Nkrunziza, all three of whom have promoted the criminalization of homosexuality, and provided troops in service to the American military agenda in Africa.

Unlike other forms of violence in Africa, David Kato's murder, and Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, makes 10-20% of the world, regardless of racial and national identities, feel targeted. 

KPFA News: Gay Rights, Moses Mworeko and Tommi Avicolli Mecca, on the 32nd Anniversary of the Assassination of Harvey Milk

(Audio URL: http://goo.gl/W2WnT.)


KPFA News Anchor Anthony Fest:

San Francisco LGBT rights activists met this week, with Ugandan Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, one of the most outspoken opponents of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, also known as the Hang-the-Gays bill.   The local gay activists discussed how to support Senyonjo and his work there, as well as how to arrange immigration and legal asylum for LGBT Ugandans who feel they're unsafe if they stay in their country.   KPFA's Ann Garrison spoke with Kushaba Moses Mworeko, a gay Ugandan who's applied for asylum in the U.S., and she filed this report.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Kushaba Moses Mworeko left Uganda seeking asylum and to attend an HIV/AIDS conference in Texas in October 2009. Washington D.C.'s lesbian and gay Metro Weekly Magazine then interviewed him here and put his picture on their cover with the headline, "The Promised Land," referring to his pursuit of legal asylum in the U.S.  Uganda's Red Pepper tabloid reprinted part of the interview with the headline "Gay Monster Raped Boys in School but Failed to Bonk Wife."  Moses says that his life, as a result, would be in even greater danger now, if he were to return to Uganda. 

Moses Mworeko:

Yeah, yes, my life would be in danger because of the extensive media coverage that I have had here and in Uganda, and the provocative coverage from the Red Pepper and other homophobic, witch hunting tabloids in Uganda that keep asking the government of Uganda to hang us.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

And are all Ugandans who are out of the closet in as much danger as you are?

Moses Mworeko:

Yes, of course they are, especially those who have been outed in the hate newspapers like the Red Pepper, Uganda's Rolling Stone, and the Onion, which published pictures and addresses of those they called Uganda's Top Homos, including even Bishop Senyonjo, even though he is a heterosexual advocate for LGBT rights.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Why do you think Ugandan MP David Bahati and other supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which seemed to have been set aside, are pushing it towards a vote in Parliament again now?

Moses Mworeko:

I think the major reason is that the elections are coming up at the beginning of next year, so people want to force the presidential candidates to take a stand one way or the other.   For instance, these past weeks, during the AIDS celebrations, the sheikhs kept on asking the presidential candidates to take a stand and show whether they are with them or not.  So I think that's why it's coming up very soon. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

What would you most like the international community to understand about homophobia in Uganda and what would you like them to do?

Moses Mworeko:

I would like the international community to understand that LGBT Ugandans are in danger, and especially when the tabloids publish their pictures and addresses.  Of course those who are working lose their jobs and cannot be able to find work.  They may even be targets for mob justice, since outing them essentially means social suicide, because you won't have friends, you won't go to church, you won't have any relatives, so that is a big problem.  The schoolgoing children are expelled from school and cannot go back to school, and that means they will end up on the streets, they will be homeless, and start abusing drugs, and end up having HIV and AIDS.   So people are now in fear and despair.   And I hope the international community will continue supporting Ugandans' local human right organizations like Sexual Minorities Uganda, Gay Uganda, and Integrity Uganda that defend LGBT rights.

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Moses, thank you for coming into the KPFA Studios today.   

Moses Mworeko:

You're welcome.  Thank you for having me. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

For Pacifica, KFPA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

32nd HARVEY MILK ASSASSINATION ANNIVERSARY:

KPFA News Anchor Anthony Fest:

Thirty two years ago, San Francisco Supervisor Dianne Feinstein delivered news that stunned the Bay Area and the nation.  

(Then President of the Board of Supervisors) Dianne Feinstein:

As President of the Board of Supervisors, it's my duty to make this announcement.  Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.   

Crowd:

(Gasps . . . OH!!!  JESUS CHRIST!!!  . . . .shudders, cries. . .  Police shout QUIET! QUIET!  QUIET!!!)

(Then President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors) Dianne Feinstein:

The . . .  (more shudders and cries) . . . the suspect is Supervisor Dan White.

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

Tomorrow will be the 32nd anniversary of the deaths of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.  The two men gunned down on November 27th, 1978, had followed very different paths to City Hall.  Moscone was a native San Franciscan who'd been a City Supervisor and State Senator before winning the 1975 mayor's race.  Harvey Milk had moved to San Francisco from New Jersey in search of a more gay friendly place to live.  He opened a camera store on Castro Street, but soon began spending much of his time on political organizing, including a successful campaign to have members of the Board of Supervisors elected by district, rather than citywide.  Milk then won a Supervisor's seat himself in 1977, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials anywhere in the U.S.  He also touted coalition building as a key to success in local politics. 

Harvey Milk:

There's tremendous harmony developing.  It's not perfect, by any means.  At a citywide level, I think it's vital that the minorities, the traditional ethnic minorities, and the gays, and the feminists link together.  Possibly the rank and file union, not the union leaders, the rank and file, link together to form a very solid, strong coalition, so that we can influence the total direction of the city.   

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

As a City Supervisor, Milk worked on a variety of issues, from rent control to voting security, but he was best known as a passionate advocate of equal rights for gays and lesbians.  He played a leading role in the defeat of Proposition 6, a state ballot measure that would have forbidden openly gay people from teaching in California schools.  

Here is Milk at a debate on Prop 6:

Harvey Milk:

I was born of heterosexual parents.  I was taught by heterosexual teachers, in a fiercely heterosexual society, with television ads and newspaper ads.  Fiercely heterosexual, a society that puts down homosexuality.  

Then why am I a homosexual, If I'm affected by role models?   I should have been a heterosexual.   And no offense meant, but if teachers are gonna affect you as role models, there'd be a lotta nuns running around the streets today.  

KPFA/Anthony Fest:

Meanwhile conservative Supervisor Dan White, Milk's political opposite on the Board, was becoming disgruntled with elective office.  White abruptly announced his resignation, but soon afterward changed his mind, and asked Mayor Moscone for a reappointment to the now vacant seat.   When White learned that Moscone intended to appoint someone else, he made his way to City Hall with a pistol.  He entered the building through a window to avoid the metal detectors at the doorways, then entered Moscone's office.  Following an argument, he killed Moscone, then walked down the hall and killed Milk.  

Though Milk’s life and political career were cut short, members of the LGBT community say he was a pioneer whose influence endures decades later. Tommi Avicolli Mecca, a longtime writer on gay issues, assesses Milk’s legacy:

Tommi Aviola Mecca:

I think what he represents is a progressive queer voice, and I think that's an important distinction to make because I think we progressive queers don't get credited any more with the work we did in the 70s.  He was a maverick in every sense of the word because, y'know, he went against the Democratic establishment.  Y'know, and Harvey's whole thing was well, no, but queers should represent queer people, and that, at that time, was a radical idea.  

KPFA Anthony Fest:

On the day Milk was killed, members of the San Francisco gay community gathered for a candlelight march from Castro Street to City Hall. Those memorials have continued ever since, on the anniversary of Milk’s death. Tomorrow’s event will begin at 6:00 pm at the corner of Castro and Market Streets.

Candlelight march on San Francisco’s Market Street following November 27 1978 assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Congo's Sex Practices Against Nature Bill will criminalize homo sex and animal sex

Now Congo has an anti-gay bill on the table, proposed less than 30 days after release of the UN Mapping Report on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Congo, 1993-2003.  These crimes are ongoing because of what is commonly termed "impunity," i.e., because the perpetrators have never been prosecuted or "brought to book."

Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, a.k.a., Hang-the-Gays Bill, was also promised a second read in Uganda's Parliament within less than 30 days of the release of the Mapping Report, which implicates Uganda's army and, most of all, Rwanda's.

This may be the most ridiculous distraction from the report yet, even more ridiculous even than Rwanda's charges against Peter Erlinder, Paul Rusesabagina, and Victoire Ingabire, who now sits in Kigali's infamous 1930 Prison, in pink prison garb, with her head shaved, as Peter Erlinder did last spring, within a week of traveling there to defend her.

Congo's army is also implicated in the Mapping Report; Congo too feels called to distract, but homosex and zoophilia lumped into one law, with the same penalty?   Congo doesn't have more serious things to deal with than this, with no court system capable of responding to the Mapping Report, and a president, Joseph Kabila, and army, also implicated in the report?

Congo's bill, the Sexual Practices Against Nature Bill will, if passed, criminalize homosex and animal sex, a.k.a., zoophilia, or, bestiality.  Like Uganda's bill, it also criminalizes the promotion of homosex and defense of LGBT rights,  though penalties will not include hanging, as in Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act.  Congolese will face only three to five years, for having sex with the same sex, or with animals, if this passes, and, at least D.R. Congo, site of the most lethal conflict since WWII, including mass rape, civilian massacres, genocide, and relentless resource plunder, will finally get serious Western press:

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mHeu4Tr1Ps

Groups mobilise against DRC’s anti gay bill 

In CONGO, THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights organisations and activists have expressed concerns over the the Sexual Practices Against Nature Bill presented before the national parliament of the Democratic Republic of aiming to criminalise homosexuality and zoophilia as sexual practices against nature.

Jean Bedel Kaniki, President of Groupe Hirondelles Bukavu, an LGBTI organisation in the DRC confirmed that on the 22 October “the bill was judged admissible by the majority of the parliament and was sent to the socio-cultural committee that will discuss its permissibility in terms of the provisions and principles of the constitution before its promulgation.”

Section 2 of the proposed Bill singles out zoophilia (sex with animals) and homosexuality as sexual practices against nature.

It also criminalises any activities that directly or indirectly aim to promoting the rights LGBTI persons, therefore, in accordance with section 174h3 of the Bill, “all publications, posters, pamphlets, (or) films highlighting or likely to arouse or encourage sexual practices against nature are forbidden within the territory of the DRC (Section 174h3)” and “all associations that promote or defend sexual relations against nature are forbidden within the territory of the DRC.”

Those who go against the stipulations of this Bill will be punished by 3 to 5 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 Congolese francs (Section 174h1). Kaniki explained that the Bill is most likely to be passed next year.

“I do not think that the bill will be passed before the next parliamentary session in March next year; in the next few weeks the budget will be the most pressing issue debated”, he said.

However, Kaniki warned that “we should not wait until March 2011 because they can always surprise us, the same way they did when the Bill was presented to parliament. It came as a surprise for us.”

Organisations have already set up a joint working group in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC.

“We are trying to mobilize the diplomats and also to have people in parliament who can intervene in our favour to the president of the parliament.”

Kaniki also said organisations have the support of LGBTI organisations such as Horizon Community Association (HOCA) from Rwanda, Mouvement Pour Les Libertis Individuells (MOLI) and Humure from Burundi, as well as other LGBTI organisations from Kenya, Uganda and South Africa that have more experience.

In an open letter sent to human rights organisations and activists, the organisations denounced the proposed Bill as a gross human rights violation that goes against all international treaties ratified by the DRC.

Patriarchal Homophobes: British Anglican Bishops defect to the Vatican

The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the English Anglican Church, and the global Anglican Communion seems more upset about the ordination of openly lesbian Bishop Mary Glasspool, (pictured, right), in the Episcopalian Diocese of Los Angeles than about the return of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, which he spoke out against in December 2009, but has remained silent about since the bill came back into play.  Why?  Most likely because he's losing too many church members over the rift within the Anglican Communion that began with the ordination of gay Bishop Gene Robinson, in the Episcopalian Diocese of New Hampshire, in 2003.

Here's the latest move by homophobic, patriarchal Anglican Bishops, five of them this time, from England and Wales, who've decided to switch their allegiance from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Pope over gay marriage and gay or female clergy.   If they're not breaking away from the Anglican Communion to join the Anglican Realignment, like many African Anglican Bishops, they're rejoining the Vatican.

This news of the British Anglican defection appeared in The Independent, published in Uganda, where heterosexual Bishop Christopher Senyonjo has already been defrocked for his advocacy of LGBT rights, where many Anglican Bishops have defected to the Anglican Realignment, .and where the Anti-Homosexuality Act, will soon get a second reading in the Ugandan Parliament:

Anglican bishops defect to the Vatican

TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2010 12:22 BY THE INDEPENDENT TEAM

Five Church of England bishops have announced they are converting to Catholicism over the row about female clergy and gay bishops.

Bishop of Ebbsfleet Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Richborough Keith Newton, Bishop of Fulham John Broadhurst and retired bishops Edwin Barnes and David Silk will “enter into full communion with the Catholic Church”.

Newton cited the issue of blessing gay marriage and said there had been a “more lax attitude towards moral issues”.

The Catholic Church believes homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered”.

The move was announced by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. The Catholic Church recently made it easier for dissident Anglicans to join.

Last November, the Vatican extended an offer to Anglicans to allow them to convert to Catholicism while keeping Anglican traditions.

The five are considered junior bishops. At the time, it was suggested that there would be a large influx of Anglicans into the Catholic Church, but only 500 of UK’s 800,000 regular church-goers have suggested they will convert.

KPFA News: Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, a.k.a., Hang-the-Gays Bill returns

Ugandan lesbian Val Kalende is internationally known for her courage in agreeing to the publication of her photograph, with an interview, in the Ugandan press. 

KPFA News Transcript:

THE RETURN OF UGANDA'S "HANG-THE-GAYS" BILL

KPFA Weekend News Host Glenn Reeder:

Uganda's proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act is otherwise known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill because it would add the death penalty to prison sentences of 14 years to life that already exist in Ugandan law criminalizing homosexual acts.   The bill engaged more Western press than any news story from Africa in 2009 and 2010, despite Obama's visit to Ghana, civil war in Somalia, a coup d'état in Niger, the UN report on genocide in Congo, and, intensifying competition between China and the West, led by the U.S., for Africa's oil and other natural resources.   

The bill finally seemed to have been defeated without a vote, by international outcry, but now it's back in play.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both spoke out against the bill, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution condemning it, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said he'd never gotten so many calls about anything, from leaders around the world.   The bill finally seemed to have been set aside, but now it's author, Ugandan MP David Bahati, who has close ties to the elite, theocratic U.S. Christian Right group known as "The Family,"  says that Uganda's Parliament will reconsider it, and that he's confident it will pass.  

Milton Allimadi, Ugandan-American editor and publisher of the New York City-based Black Star News, says that the bill's resurgence serves to distract from Uganda's real political crisis as much as to persecute its LGBT community:

Milton Allimadi:

I think there are a number of reasons why we're seeing the resurgence of the bill.  Number One, I don't think it's a coincidence that it comes a few weeks after the UN so-called Mapping Report, which clearly documented Uganda's role, the army of Yoweri Museveni's role, in the genocide against Hutus, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Number One.  

Number Two, Uganda faces a presidential election in February next year.  It's clearly meant to divert the issues, divert the topics, and at some point, Yoweri Museveni will step in, once again, and come out as the saviour at the end of the day.  It's very cynical; it's the kind of policy he's done in the past; and he's doing it again.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Val Kalende is a Ugandan lesbian internationally known for her courage in agreeing to the publication of her photograph with an interview in the Ugandan press.   She is also a Christian Pentecostal, now pursuing a doctorate in theology at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but hoping to return to Uganda.   Like Allimadi, she says that the bill is a distraction and urges Uganda's LGBT community to address the bigger picture and the liberation of all Ugandans:

Val Kalende:

It is important for the LGBT rights activists to focus on the bigger picture.  People who have read this bill now understand that the bill goes beyond just criminalizing homosexuality.   So as a movement, I think this is time to start thinking of the real implications of this, in regard to the rights of children, the rights of women, and the rights of all oppressed groups in Uganda.  All forms of repression are linked to each other, and, as a movement, we cannot continue to act like it's just about our issues.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:

Kalende, who has said that she hopes to shake the hand of San Francisco's LGBT rights pioneer and martyr Harvey Milk in the hereafter, has contacted Rafael Mandelman, former President of San Francisco's Harvey Milk Democratic Club, regarding a new international response.  Mandelman, who invokes Milk's commitment to a broadbased justice coalition, agrees that the LGBT community should speak not only for LGBT rights but for the whole range of human rights, here and in Uganda.

For Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I'm Ann Garrison.