Clinton reveals Museveni ridicule
The Observer - 20 minutes ago
WEDNESDAY, 25 JUNE 2014 01:55 WRITTEN BY SULAIMAN KAKAIRE   
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.
And as such, she praised Mongolia, Nepal, South Africa, India,
Argentina and Colombia and quoted the former president of Botswana.
http://www.google.ca/gwt/x?gl=CA&hl=en-CA&u=http://www.observer.ug/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D32438:clinton-reveals-museveni-ridicule%26catid%3D78:topstories%26Itemid%3D116&source=s&q=Clinton+reveals+Museveni+ridicule
--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110493390983174363421/posts
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9B4024D0AE764F3D
http://www.youtube.com/user/sibomanaxyz999
***Online Time:15H30-20H30, heure de Montréal.***Fuseau horaire domestique:
heure normale de la côte Est des Etats-Unis et Canada (GMT-05:00)***
Posted by: Jean Bosco Sibomana <sibomanaxyz999@gmail.com>
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (1) |
.To post a message: RwandaLibre@yahoogroups.com; .To join: RwandaLibre-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; .To unsubscribe from this group,send an email to:
RwandaLibre-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
_____________________________________________________
More news: http://www.amakurunamateka.com ; http://www.ikangurambaga.com ; http://rwandalibre.blogspot.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-SVP, considérer environnement avant toute impression de cet e-mail ou les pièces jointes.
======
-Please consider the environment before printing this email or any attachments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments
Post a Comment