Rubio Fundraiser Former Agent of Dictator Who Endorses Gay Beheadings

While members of the Republican Party presidential clown car try to conduct a juggling act of convincing Christofascists that they are sufficiently extreme to get the vote of the "godly folks" yet "mainstream" enough to attract sane voters, Marco Rubio has again let one of his balls hit the floor and revealed just how extreme he and his supporters are in fact.   A recent fundraiser was hosted by  Jennifer Lukawski, who recently served as the registered foreign agent for a western African regime known for its human rights abuses, including repeated threats to behead gay people.  What is frightening is that people like Lukawski are the norm in today's GOP.  Think Progress looks at this latest stumble by Rubio.  Here are highlights:

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who announced last month that he will seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, will hold a campaign fundraiser on Wednesday with an array of Washington lobbyists. One of the lobbyists co-hosting the event (and helping to raise money for Rubio) is BGR Group principal Jennifer Lukawski. She recently served as the registered foreign agent for a western African regime known for its human rights abuses, including repeated threats to behead gay people.

In April 2013, BGR Government Affairs LLC and the then-Secretary General of The Gambia signed a contract. In exchange for $45,000 a month (plus expenses), BGR agreed to “advocate and help build support for increased political and economic assistance from government and non-governmental organizations. . . .

The government for whom Lukawski and BGR sought U.S. foreign aid was and is headed by His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh. Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 military coup was condemned on Saturday by U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice for his recent warning to LGBT people, “If you do it [in the Gambia] I will slit your throat — if you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it.” 

In 2008, he warned gay and lesbian Gambians to leave the country before he could enforce policies “stricter than those in Iran,” and vowed to “cut off the head” of any who did not. In a 2013 speech to the United Nations — during BGR and Lukawski’s work for his government — he warned that those who “promote homosexuality want to put an end to human existence,” calling all “forms and manifestations” of homosexuality “very evil, anti-human, as well as anti-Allah.” 

Jammeh’s human rights violations extend beyond his treatment of LGBT people. In her statement, Rice also noted an “alarming deterioration of the broader human rights situation in The Gambia,” and expressed deep concern about “credible reports of torture, suspicious disappearances – including of two American citizens – and arbitrary detention at the government’s hands.” Amnesty International has documented an array of violations under Jammeh and a March 2009 New York Times article noted “documented disappearances, torture and imprisonment of dozens of journalists and political opponents.”

Lukawksi did not immediately respond to a ThinkProgress inquiry about Jammeh and her work on his behalf. But her official biography notes that she previously worked for the anti-LGBT Heritage Foundation and as a top aide for former Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA), a rabidly anti-LGBT flamethrower who once outed a fellow Republican Congressman on the House floor, accusing him of having a “revolving door on his closet.”

In a speech last week outlining his self-described “Rubio Doctrine,” Rubio claimed President Obama has “embraced regimes that systematically oppose every principle our nation has long championed.” But his campaign did not immediately respond to a ThinkProgress inquiry asking whether someone who was on Jammeh’s payroll is an appropriate person to have fundraising on his behalf.

Jammeh, of course, fits right with the Christofascists of the GOP base and his use of disappearances, torture and imprisonment parallel the policies of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

 

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.

Gambian President Plans to Kill Off All Homosexuals

One reader chided me for my harsh comments yesterday on Christianist high school principal, Eddie Walker, but the mindset that all must conform to one religious belief system is one of the gravest threats to the world today, whether such believers are Muslim fundamentalists or their Christianist counterparts. Just how extreme these views can be is illustrated by recent pronouncements by Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh (pictured at left), who wants to introduce legislation that would make Iran's anti-gay laws look mild. Note the references to "his country." What about all of the citizen? Here are highlights from Afrik.com :

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Gambian President Yahya Jammeh says he will “cut off the head” of any homosexual caught in his country. Jammeh also ordered any hotel or motel housing homosexuals to close down, adding that owners of such facilities would also be in trouble. He said the Gambia was a country of believers, indicating that no sinful and immoral act as homosexual would be tolerated in the country.

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He warned all homosexuals in the country to leave, noting that a legislation “stricter than those in Iran ” concerning the vice would be introduced soon. President Jammeh said he was bent on making the Gambia one of the best countries to live in.

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It would seem to me that an important first step in making Gambia "one of the best countries to live in" would to be the removal of of Jammeh from office.