Back to the Dark Ages

The American Family Research Council deserves its hate-group designation.

Many who have followed the human rights crisis for LGBT people in Uganda know that, in 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament to supplement laws that already banned homosexuality. The bill, quickly dubbed the “Kill the Gays” bill because of its provision of a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” also includes severe penalties for other actions and non-actions, including the “failure to disclose the offense” by anyone who might be aware of another person’s same-sex sexuality. Although the bill has not been yet passed, it has attracted harsh international condemnation, and many attacks on LGBT people and activists have been attributed to the public debates surrounding it.

Last month Uganda’s pious President Museveni delivered a speech in which he dedicated his country to God and renounced “the Satanic influence” of “the last 50 years of history.” Museveni called upon the deity to forgive the nation. Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has taken up the challenge of national repentance by promising passage of the “Kill the Gays” legislation as a “Christmas gift” to the people of Uganda.

 Christian conservative leaders in the U.S. are thrilled with what FRC has called an “inspirational moment for the [Ugandan] nation.” FRC President Tony Perkins tweeted a big, warm hug to President Museveni for “leading his nation in repentance” and thus helping to create a “nation prospered by God.” The FRC lavishes praise on Museveni and his government for proclaiming the kind of “faithfulness...that will raise Uganda’s status as a new power in Africa.” Museveni, dictator of Uganda, and aspiring president-for-life, obviously is a favorite of U.S.-based Christian Right leaders. Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church and the author of the bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life , who, in 2008, conferred on Uganda the label of  “purpose-driven nation.” In 2009, after first refusing to condemn the proposed anti-gay legislation, Warren capitulated, after initially saying that he didn’t want to interfere in Ugandan politics.

Apologists for the Christian Right often scold political opponents for misunderstanding the goals of Christian conservatives and especially for misrepresenting the movement as having theocratic ambitions in the U.S. However, messages such as the one sent by FRC, lauding Museveni as he dedicates his nation to their idea of God, illuminate Christian conservative leaders’ intense yearning for theocracy in America and, failing that, in states where American Christian conservatives wield some influence. It seems to clarify where America’s foremost Christian public policy and lobbying organization stands: firmly on the side of punishing lesbians, gay men, men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, even at the cost of their very lives.

This is certainly bad news for the people of Uganda. The Family Research Council are heaping approval on Museveni’s bid to defy “the West” on “traditional values,” eliminate “sexual immorality,” and rule Uganda according to biblical law.

Source

Flights of Fancy

The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, is to buy a new Gulfstream presidential jet for £24 million after convincing MPs that his £16 million plane bought seven years ago is out of date.

The plans have caused outrage in Uganda, where one in three people live on less than a dollar a day .

Newspapers are reminding readers of Museveni's famous speech when he came to power in 1986, in which he mocked the expensive tastes of African leaders. "The honourable excellency who is going to the United Nations in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90% walking barefoot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle," he said at the time. A matter of do what i say , not what i do .

His government has spent already lavishly this year, forking out £79 million on hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and a reported £27 million for a presidential palace refurbishment. In an editorial, the Weekly Observer questioned the president's priorities, noting that "parts of the country are ravaged by floods, Ebola, cholera, malaria, and even plague!"

The Capitalist's Sugar-Daddy

As stated in an earlier posting those in the bio-fuel industry are busy throughout Africa land -grabbing .

The Independent reports from Uganda that Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan President, is attempting to push through legislation that would strip the 75,000-acre Mabira Forest Reserve, on the north shore of Lake Victoria, home to 300 bird species as well as rare primates, and which plays a vital role in the country's eco-system, storing carbon and regulating rainfall , of its protected status. In 2001, a deal signed with the World Bank saw the government receiving £180 million to construct a hydroelectric dam on the Nile in return for guaranteeing the forest's protection but no longer protected if certain Ugandan politicians have their way .

The Mehta sugar corporation wants the reserve carved up so they can expand sugar cane plantations for biofuel production. The conversion of an increasing proportion of the world's food crops into bio-fuel is pushing up agricultural commodity prices and spurring new sugar cane plantations throughout Africa. And big profits for some . The Mehta family, among the richest in the country, have close ties to the Museveni government . In a report submitted last year to the environment ministry by the Mehta group, it was claimed that the area it wants is heavily degraded and of little environmental value. This was disputed by the National Forest Authority but the government responded by sacking the entire NFA board.

Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of rainforest scientists and NGOs, said the Uganda give-away could be part of a worrying new trend.

The RSPB said: "Slicing up Mabira would be an environmental disaster and makes no economic sense at all."

Care International warned the deforestation risked starting drought and flood cycles and a reduction in the health and volume of Lake Victoria.

Nature Uganda said "If a quarter of Mabira is chopped down, the effect on the forest will be far reaching, reducing the range of species, causing encroachment, erosion and siltation. There will be less water in our rivers, less rain, less carbon stored and fewer tourists."

Opposition MP Beatrice Anywar have pointed out that the plan makes no economic sense. Sugar yields in Uganda are among the lowest in Africa, while the destruction will hurt the tourism industry, which is among the country's biggest foreign currency earners, and destroy the best source of food and income for the people of the Buganda Kingdom, which surrounds the reserve.

Economists and Environmentalists are concerned the consequences of a headlong rush into so-called "green fuels" could be to increase greenhouse gases and push up food prices, effectively starving the world's poor.

What are these elections about?

The Ugandan general election of 2006 took place on February 23 ,2006. This was the first multi-party election since Yoweri Museveni , the current president , took over power in 1986. Official figures released showed Museveni had won 59% of the vote, giving him a third term as President, while main rival Kizza Besigye took 37%.

Opposition supporters staged some protests but were dispersed by riot police with tear gas . The Supreme Court of Uganda rejected Besigye's request to dismiss the poll by a vote of four to three, though a majority agreed that there had been electoral irregularities .

The following article was a leaflet produced for that election by a group of socialists in Uganda .

On 23 February we are being given a rare chance to have a political say. But none of the candidates presenting themselves have any solution to the problems facing the great majority of people in Uganda: The high level of unemployment. The health service, transport system and education that have crumbled down. The widespread poverty, even though Uganda is a fertile land with plenty of food resources.

Meanwhile a civil war has been going on in the North leaving about half a million people dead and 3 million living in refugee camps. Resources have been wasted on military adventures in the Congo. Nepotism and corruption and the embezzlement of State funds are rife.

Some people say that this is all the fault of Museveni and his twenty-year old regime. Vote him and his cronies out, they say, and put us in his place and things will be alright. But they wouldn’t. All that would happen is that there would be a change of those in charge of the State and a different set of politicians to plunder resources and practise nepotism, bribery and corruption.

Kicking Museveni out and putting Besigye in would make no difference. That’s because the problems we face are not caused by the political regime or by which band of politicians runs the State. They are caused by the economic system where the food, clothes, housing and all the other things we need are not produced to meet our needs but to make a profit. It’s the capitalist profit system that has to go before we can solve these problems.

But the profit system is global and no country, certainly not a small one like Uganda with little industry, can escape its consequences. People everywhere depend for their existence on the resources of the world, natural and manufactured, but today in all countries these are owned and controlled by a small minority who will only allow them to be used if there is a profit in it for them. In every country society is divided into a rich minority and the rest of us who have to suffer from the profit system that only benefits them.

This minority doesn’t hesitate to use armed force to acquire the resources it needs, oil in the Middle East, a whole range of minerals in the Congo. And it is always ordinary people who are victims of its wars, as we in this region of the world know only too well.

The basic economic law of the profit system is "no profit, no production". That’s why in Uganda - but it’s the same in other countries too - there is high unemployment and widespread poverty. That’s why, in a world of potential plenty, we have to put up with a health service, transport system, and education that have crumbled down.

The only solution is for the resources and wealth of the world to be owned and controlled by all the people of the world so that they can be used to benefit everyone - world-wide socialism.

So don’t vote for any of the candidates in these elections. But, if you agree with what you’ve read in this leaflet, write "I WANT WORLD SOCIALISM" across your voting paper.