U.S. Kicks Gambia From Trade Agreement Over Anti-LGBT Crackdown

As noted many times on this blog, as the Christofascists have seen more and more defeats in America and Western Europe, they have been increasing their efforts to export anti-gay animus and bigotry to ignorant, uneducated corners of the world where the populous is literally to stupid and uneducated to realize that they are being sold a bogus bill of goods, often with the aid of corrupt and incompetent governments all too eager to distract local populations from the chronic miasma of government misrule.   A case in point is Gambia where a virtual jihad against gays is underway.  Thankfully, the U.S. government is using its trade powers to strike back at the anti-gay bigotry and has kicked Gambia from participation special trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000.  More actions like this need to be taken.  If nations want to act like reactionary extremists, then there needs to be a tangible cost attached to their bigotry.  Here are highlights from BuzzFeed:

The United States on Tuesday dropped the Gambia from a popular free trade agreement in response to a crackdown on LGBT rights and other human rights concerns. 

The decision to drop the small West African nation from special trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000 came late Tuesday afternoon, just after media in the Gambia announced that three men would be put on trial for homosexuality. These are the first to face trial since police began arresting people on allegations of homosexuality in November. At least 16 more are known to be in detention, and Gambian human rights activists do not know if they are even still alive.

“The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has been monitoring the human rights situation in The Gambia for the past few years, with deepening concerns about the lack of progress with respect to human rights, rule of law, political pluralism, and the right to due process,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House, in an email to BuzzFeed News. “In addition, in October, Gambian President Jammeh signed into law legislation that further restricts the rights of LGBT individuals, including life imprisonment for so-called ‘aggravated homosexuality.’ Reports have surfaced of arrests, detention, and torture of individuals because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

For the first time the gay community really is coming together to get equal consideration in U.S. foreign policy,” said Mark Bromley of the Council for Global Equality, which lobbies for LGBT rights in international affairs. Bromley said that only in recent years have LGBT groups been able to exert the kind of influence that certain religious or ethnic communities have exerted to focus the U.S.’s foreign policy when their counterparts in other countries are under threat.

The meeting that Gambian human rights activists held with White House officials earlier this month — which was facilitated in part by the Council for Global Equality — was the first time they say they had met with anyone above the level of a State Department desk officer to discuss Jammeh’s human rights record.

Expelling the Gambia from the special trade status was the first time that the U.S. had sent the kind of signal that Jammeh will take seriously in response to human rights abuses, Camara said.

“Jammeh [will] know that the US is really not joking not now,” Camara said. Until now, “he was really playing with them” and behaving as if there were no consequences for violating human rights protections. Among the dozens who have been killed or disappeared under his rule are two American citizens believed to have been abducted by Jammeh’s security forces in 2013.

As I said, it is far past time that corrupt tyrants like Jammeh be deprived of any and all deference as a head of state and that nations bear direct economic consequences for the human rights abuses of their leaders.   Indeed, if these leaders are going to act like animals, they needed to be treated like animals and their countrymen need to bear the consequences of embracing ignorance and bigotry.    

Oh, and the same goes for America which needs to put Bush, Cheney, et al, on trial for war crimes and punish them accordingly - why do the words "death penalty" spring to mind when i think of Cheney?  If America wants to punish those who are guilty of human rights abuses around the world, we need to start at home.