Anti-Gay Vigilante Campaign Begins in Uganda - Netherlands Ceases Aid

Not even a full day had passed since the heinous "Kill the Gays" anti-gay law was signed into law before a vigilante campaign was launched by a Uganda tabloid Red Pepper which has published the names, addresses and other identifying information of some 200 people that the paper says are gay.   Among those targeted are Sexual Minorities Uganda executive director Frank Mugisha, transgender rights activist Pepe Julian Onziema, and Freedom and Roam Uganda executive director Jacqueline Kasha.  But most of the others are ordinary private citizens who are salespeople, shopkeepers, and ordinary employees of businesses.  No evidence or proof of their alleged homosexuality is given.  Clearly, a rain of terror and smear campaign is underway and the goal is to destroy people's lives.  Such are the fruits of ignorance embracing religion. Candidly, Ugandans were better off under British colonial rule than they are under the current corrupt government.  Here are highlights from Box Turtle Bulletin:

Just one day after Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the tabloid Red Pepper has launched a massive vigilante campaign on the front page of its latest edition. Four photos appear on the front page, with additional photos on the inside pages along with names, addresses and other identifying information on 200 people that the paper says is gay. 

Two of the four front-page photos are of well-known LGBT rights activists. Sam Ganafa, executive director of Spectrum Uganda Initiatives and board chair for the Sexual Minorities Uganda coalition, had been arrested with four others by police last November and spent two weeks in jail and charged with “unnatural offenses,” which carried a potential lifetime imprisonment even without the Anti-Homosexuality act being in place. The five were finally released on bail, awaiting trial. Transgender rights activist Victor Musaka who won an important High Court case in 2008 which stemmed from his arrest and personal body examination by police seeking to determine his so-called “real” gender.

The other two photos are of popular cultural figures in Uganda, Fr. Anthony Musaala and a hip-hop performer who goes by the stage name of Keko. Fr. Anthony Musaala is a recording artist known as “the singing priest.” In 2009, in the anti-gay hysteria stirred up by the infamous conference conducted by Scott Lively and two other American Evangelicals, Musaala was named by the Ugandan organization that sponsored Lively’s talk, and later by a lacky of rival pastor Martin Ssempa. Musaala is a well-known figure and the Catholic church is seen as a rival to Uganda’s evangelical churches. 

Red Pepper has has a long history of stoking anti-gay vigilante campaigns. In April 2009, just one month after Scott Lively’s conference in Kampala, Red Pepper published a list of names, photos, occupations and other identifying information — their “killer dossier,” as they put it – of more than fifty Ugandans accused of homosexuality. Red Pepper followed in December with another so-called “exposé” of “city tycoons who bankroll Ugandan homos.”

Thankfully, at least one European nation has already stepped up and said that it will not help finance such ignorance, bigotry and anti-gay violence.  As The Bilerico Project reports,  The Netherlands has immediately ceased a portion of its aid.  Here are excerpts:

From Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, via Google translate (and slightly cleaned up):

Dutch assistance to the Ugandan government has been suspended after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ratified the Anti-Homosexuality Law, Minister Lilianne Ploumen (Foreign Trade) and Minister Frans Timmermans (Foreign Affairs) announced today.

[T]he law is not consistent with international human rights treaties which also Uganda has signed. Enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Law therefore has consequences for the Dutch relationship with the Ugandan government, says Timmermans.

The Dutch government provides about 23 million (€) to Uganda. A €7 million fund for the justice sector (including human rights training for police, education for prisoners and the establishment of internal inspection) has been stopped .

 I'm sorry, but the Netherlands needs to stop ALL aid of every kind.  The United States and other modern nations need to do so as well.  Uganda and other nations enacting extreme anti-gay laws need to become an international pariahs and be left to their own devices.  If the populace suffers, then so be it.  Let them revolt and overthrow these foul and corrupt governments.