President
Barack Obama, who in a conference few days ago condemned Uganda’s anti-gay law,
which he says is “a step backwards for all Ugandans”. Uganda President Yoweri
Museveni has released a reactionary statement on Obama’s position and his hopes
that the law won't affect relationship with both countries.
Read his
statement below:
I have seen
the statement H.E President Obama of the USA made in reaction to my statement
that I was going to sign the anti-homosexual Bill, which I made at Kyankwanzi.
Before I
react to H.E. Obama’s statement, let me, again, put on record my views on the
issue of homo-sexuals (ebitiingwa, bisiyaga in some of our dialects).
Right from
the beginning of this debate, my views were as follows:
1. I agreed
with the MPs and almost all Ugandans that promotion of homosexuality in Uganda
must be criminalized or rather should continue to be criminalized because the
British had already done that;Continue..
2. those who
agreed to become homosexuals for mercenary reasons (prostitutes) should be
harshly punished as should those who paid them to be homosexual prostitutes;
and
3.
exhibitionism of homosexual behavior must be punished because, in this part of
the World, it is forbidden to publicly exhibit any sexual conduct (kissing,
etc) even for heterosexuals; if I kissed my wife of 41 years in public, I would
lose elections in Uganda.
The only
point I disagreed on with some of the Members of Parliament (MPs) and other
Ugandans was on the persons I thought were born homosexual. According to the
casual observations, there are rare deviations in nature from the normal. You
witness cases like albinos (nyamagoye), barren women or men (enguumba), epa
(breastless women) etc. I, therefore, thought that similarly there were people
that were born with the disorientation of being attracted to the same sex. That
is why I thought that that it was wrong to punish somebody on account of being
born abnormal. That is why I refused to sign the Bill and, instead, referred it
to our Party (the NRM) to debate it again. In the meantime, I sought for
scientific opinions on this matter.
I am
grateful to Ms. Kerry Kennedy of the USA who sent me opinions by scientists
from the USA saying that there could be some indications that homosexuality
could be congenital. In our conference, I put these opinions to our scientists
from the Department of Genetics, the School of Medicine and the Ministry of
Health. Their unanimous conclusion was that homosexuality, contrary to my
earlier thinking, was behavioural and not genetic. It was learnt and could be unlearnt.
I told them to put their signatures to that conclusion which they did. That is
why I declared my intention to sign the Bill, which I will do. I have now
received their signed document, which says there is no single gene that has
been traced to cause homosexuality. What I want them to clarify is whether a
combination of genes can cause anybody to be homosexual. Then my task will be
finished and I will sign the Bill.
After my
statement to that effect which was quoted widely around the World, I got reactions
from some friends from outside Africa. Statements like: “it is a matter of
choice” or “whom they love” which President Obama repeated in his statement
would be most furiously rejected by almost the entirety of our people. It
cannot be a matter of choice for a man to behave like a woman or vice-versa.
The argument I had pushed was that there could be people who are born like that
or “who they are”, according to President Obama’s statement.
I,
therefore, encourage the US government to help us by working with our
Scientists to study whether, indeed, there are people who are born homosexual.
When that is proved, we can review this legislation. I would be among those who
will spearhead that effort. That is why I had refused to sign the Bill until my
premise was knocked down by the position of our Scientists.
I would like
to discourage the USA government from taking the line that passing this law
will “complicate our valued relationship” with the USA as President Obama said.
Countries and Societies should relate with each other on the basis of mutual
respect and independence in decision making.
“Valued
relationship” cannot be sustainably maintained by one Society being subservient
to another society. There are a myriad acts the societies in the West do that
we frown on or even detest. We, however, never comment on those acts or make
them preconditions for working with the West. Africans do not seek to impose
their views on anybody. We do not want anybody to impose their views on us.
This very debate was provoked by Western groups who come to our schools and try
to recruit children into homosexuality. It is better to limit the damage rather
than exacerbate it.
I thank
everybody.
0 Comments