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GUARDIAN Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:10:59 GMT
• Museveni says bill is now a 'foreign policy issue'
• HIV positive people faced death penalty for gay sex
Uganda has indicated it will bow to international pressure and amend draconian anti-homosexual legislation that includes the death penalty for HIV-positive people convicted of having gay sex.
Breaking his silence on the controversial bill – which was put forward by a member of the ruling party – Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, said it had become a "foreign policy issue" and needed further consultation before being voted on in parliament.
The proposed law, which has been pushed by local evangelical preachers and vocally supported by senior government officials, also threatens life imprisonment for anyone convicted of gay sex.
While broadly supported domestically, the legislation has caused a storm of protest abroad and consternation from western donors who fund a large chunk of Uganda's budget.
Addressing a party conference, Museveni said numerous western leaders had spoken to him about the bill.
"When I was at the Commonwealth conference, what was [the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper] talking about? The gays. UK prime minister Gordon Brown ... what was he talking about? The gays," said Museveni.
The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had also called him to express strong concerns about the proposed law, he said. "It's a foreign policy issue, and we must handle it in a way that does not compromise our principles but also takes into account our foreign policy interests."
Museveni said the proposed law did not necessarily reflect party or government policy and his cabinet would discuss the bill with David Bahati, the MP who introduced it, before it was put to a vote.
Homosexuality is already outlawed in Uganda under colonial-era legislation. Such is the stigma attached to gay people that no public figure has ever come out. But in recent years some religious leaders have been warning that tougher measures are needed to prevent an increase in same-sex relationships.
Accusations that gay Europeans are offering money to "recruit" Ugandan schoolchildren – a claim repeated by Museveni during his party speech on Tuesday – also seem to have raised the level of homophobia in the country.
The final impetus for the proposed legislation came after a conference hosted last year by three controversial US evangelists who claimed that homosexuality was a curable habit and warned of the danger of the international gay "agenda". The evangelists have since, however, criticised the severity of the punishments in the proposed law.
Under Bahati's bill, "serial offenders" would join HIV-positive people and those who have sex with under-18s in facing the death penalty if convicted of gay sex. Life imprisonment would apply to those found guilty even of touching someone from the same sex "with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality".
Members of the public would have to report any homosexual activity to police within 24 hours or face up to three years in jail, a provision the bill's opponents say would lead to a witchhunt.
Ugandans living abroad who broke the law could be extradited and punished, under the draft bill.
Before the legislation was introduced to parliament in September, local gay support organisations, whose members already face harassment, threats and workplace intimidation, have been lobbying the government to amend the country's HIV awareness and prevention programmes, which currently exclude homosexuals. But instead of achieving their aims these gay groups would be banned under the new law.
James Nsaba Buturo, minister of state for ethics and integrity, who is a strong supporter of the bill, said before Museveni's speech that it was likely that the death penalty provisions would be dropped because of the international outcry.
But Frank Mugisha, chair of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a Kampala-based coalition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups, said that even if..
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GUARDIAN Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:48:54 GMT
• Kodjovi Obilale's condition has 'stabilised'
• Goalkeeper still sedated and needing a ventilator to breathe
South African doctors are planning to leave bullet fragments in the stomach of the Togo goalkeeper, Kodjovi "Dodji" Obilale, because they fear they could cause more damage if they tried to remove them.
Obilale, 25, was shot in the lower back on Friday when gunmen attacked the bus carrying Togo's national team to Angola for the Africa Cup of Nations. The bullet fragmented, and some pieces have become lodged in his stomach.
Removing them "sometimes causes more damage than leaving them behind", said the trauma specialist Ken Boffard, who is part of Obilale's medical team at Netcare Milpark hospital in Johannesburg.
Three people were killed and eight injured in the attack.
The Togo squad was arriving in Angola for the tournament when they were ambushed in an attack blamed on militants fighting for the independence of Cabinda, the region cut off from the rest of Angola by a strip of Congo.
Obilale was operated on after being flown from Cabinda to Johannesburg on Saturday, and he has been under sedation since, with a ventilator to help him breathe. Boffard said no more operations are planned.
"I am happy to report that his condition has stabilised. He is in good condition at the moment," Boffard said. "We expect him to stay on the ventilator for the next couple of days and we don't expect his condition to change very much with the next couple of days. Overall, we are happy with his progress."
Boffard said it was too soon to say whether Obilale, who plays for the French fourth-tier club Pontivy, would recover enough to play again, but that doctors were optimistic. He said Obilale was able to move his legs when he was admitted on Saturday.
"He is built like a goalkeeper," Boffard said. "That is very much in his favour. So his condition was reasonable when he got down here."
Efraim Kramer, a Fifa medical officer who has been monitoring Obilale's case, said Obilale's future in football "will have to do with what's in his head or what's in his heart".
Kramer said he was giving the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, and other officials updates on Obilale every few hours.
"An incident like this is a tragic incident and they see it in that light," Kramer said. "And they are obviously concerned about the people that succumbed and their families as well as the patient lying here in intensive care and their families."
Togo
Africa Cup of Nations
Angola
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GUARDIAN Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:58:00 GMT
Uganda news round-up: Opposition parties promise surprise demonstrations after march called off; district administrators 'worst for corruption'; mandatory vocational training in church schools; new brand of female condom launched
Ugandan police have been criticised for heavy-handed tactics in blocking a protest by an opposition coalition this week.
The planned march, organised by the Inter-Party Cooperation, an alliance of the four main political parties, was due to take place on Monday to protest the closure of the CBS radio station and the re-appointment of allegedly discredited top officials at the Electoral Commission. However, a deployment of officers to key locations along the route on Sunday meant the protesters were unable to march and the protest was called off.
The police chief, Kale Kayihura, told reporters that he ordered the deployment of officers on Sunday because he had not been given the required seven days notice that the march was taking place. The opposition claim he had been well informed.
An article posted on the Daily Monitor website today questioned what impact Kayihura's actions could have on future opposition rallies in the run up to 2011 elections. The IPC has promised to organise "surprise" protests in the coming months.
In September, Kampala was rocked by two days of riots when the government banned Ronald Muwenda Mutebi, the king of the Baganda people – Uganda's largest ethnic group – from visiting the capital. More than 20 people were killed in clashes between protesters and police that brought to the capital to a standstill. Hundreds more protesters were believed to have been arrested. The media were censured over coverage of the protests and the CBS radio station was closed by the government for allegedly inciting violence. According to the Monitor, the Uganda president, Yoweri Museveni, said CBS would not re-open until he felt reassured the station would not engage in "subversive broadcasting, sectarianism, and inciting violence".Internal fighting could cost government votes
Government in-fighting could cost the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) votes in next year's elections, a senior official warned this week.
Ofwono Opondo, the deputy spokesman for the NRM, which is holding its national executive committee meeting next week, said the party expected "a major political shift on the ground in our favour" when the country goes to the polls in 2011, but admitted that "our major weakness is internal rivalry. We are likely to have many disputes especially as we head towards 2011, and the challenge is how we shall address them before our delegates' conference".
Disputes seem to centre around internal election rules and personality clashes.
Opondo said the party had gained support in the north of the country and the Teso region, in which Katine sub-county, where the Guardian is tracking development work by the NGO Amref, is found.
Opondo went on to criticise the Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC) alliance of four opposition parties (the Forum for Democratic Change, the Uganda People's Congress, Justice Forum – JEEMA – and the Conservative party), calling it "very disorganised and weak". However, he added that the alliance was being taken "seriously" by the NRM.
Last month, the IPC agreed to field one candidate for the presidential election next year in the hope of ousting President Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. FDC leader Kizza Besigye is being tipped by the NRM as the frontrunner for candidacy.
The IPC, set up in August 2008, is being funded by the Swedish government NGO the Christian Democratic International Centre and is attracting interest from the EU and other European bodies keen to see electoral reform in Uganda.
The Democratic party has so far refused to join the IPC alliance. One member, Evaristo Nyanzi, a minister in Museveni's first government who was later jailed for trying to overthrow the president, has backed his party's decision. In an interview with..
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GUARDIAN Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:43:32 GMT
National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda distributes information on HIV/Aids prevention to end 'myth' that people with disabilities are not sexually active and are free from infection
People with disabilities in Katine sub-county have been given information materials on HIV/Aids prevention and treatment.
The materials, which are available as audio recordings in local languages and in braille, are being distributed under a pilot scheme in Soroti district, in which Katine is located, by the National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda (NUDIPU), an umbrella organisation of NGOs focusing on work with Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
The African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref), which is implementing a development project in Katine, funded by the Guardian and Barclays, has no specific programmes targeting PWDs.
According to Suleiman Kafero, the NUDIPU's programme assistant on disability and HIV/Aids, most materials being distributed by other development organisations did not cater for disabled people, despite this group being particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and infection.
The NUDIPU has begun distributing information materials in the districts of Soroti, Gulu and Masaka, funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). In Soroti, materials are being given out in the sub-counties of Katine, Kadungulu, the Eastern division and Soroti Municipality.
Although there are no figures on HIV/Aids prevalence rates among PWDs in Uganda, the NUDIPU said anecdotal evidence suggests that this group are increasingly likely to be sexually exploited, particularly women, making them a high risk group for infection. PWDs also experience stigma and marginalisation when it comes to accessing medical services and education about the virus.
Such is the concern about the magnitude of the problem among this group, the Uganda Aids Commission (UAC) has injected in UShs 400m (more than $208,000) to scale up the NUDIPU programme to three more sub-counties in Soroti - Tubur, the Northern division and Kateta.Equal rights
The NUDIPU was formed 22 years ago and represents people with physically, sensory and mental disabilities.
Its aim is to promote equal opportunities and the active participation of PWDs in mainstream society. It campaigns for inclusive legislation at local and national level.
The organisation formed its HIV/Aids committee to push for disability issues to be included in national HIV/Aids programmes. As a result, a Uganda disability fraternity five-year HIV/Aids strategic plan was launched in 2007, with the aim of ensuring universal access to comprehensive and quality services for PWDs in Uganda.
"Our main aim is to avert the myth that people with disabilities are not sexually active, and are, therefore, HIV/Aids free," said Kafero. "Ignorance on factual information has been, and is, a problem affecting PWDs and this is what we are fighting."
Speaking to the Guardian last month after meeting Katine PWDs at the sub-county headquarters, Kafero said NUDIPU recognises the fact that poverty among people with disabilities is one of the major reasons the virus spreads because it makes them highly vulnerable to performing sex for money.
Since the programme started in Soroti, Kafero said 82 PWDs have disclosed that they are HIV-positive. He believes the number could be much higher. After educating PWDs about HIV prevention and care, the NUDIPU will help set up support groups in the area.National concern
About 130,000 new HIV infections are recorded every year in Uganda, a trend that has caused concern among public health experts.
In November last year it emerged that the UAC was to change its national HIV/Aids campaign to make it more hard-hitting to combat rising infection rates. The commission is considering returning to fear-driven campaigns.
Last month, researchers announced that clinical trials of a microbicide vaginal gel that was hoped would offer women protection against the virus had.....
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GUARDIAN Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:05:17 GMT
Alice Oriokot dreams of becoming a nurse. And the Guardian's Christmas 2009 appeal aims to offer her and others a chance to make their hopes a reality
During the two years Alice Oriokot was meant to be studying for her A-levels, she was banished from her boarding school on 10 separate occasions because her father could not pay the fees.
Naturally, the experience was humiliating. Every child is given a three-week grace period at the beginning of the term, when they can attend classes even when their fees have not been paid. After this, the school administrator will begin to chase them, demanding the money, and, if it is not forthcoming, he will send them home.
"It is terrible when you are sent home. You are traumatised," says Josephine Abalo, manager of the Ugandan charity the Mvule Trust, which the Guardian is supporting in its Christmas appeal. "The teacher's salary often depends on the fees that you pay. They say: 'Why are you here? Get out of class!'"
But far worse than the humiliation was the disastrous impact the exclusions had on Alice's academic chances. Every time she found herself on the bus, making the long journey home, she knew the prospect of passing her A-levels in physics, chemistry, biology and agriculture was getting slimmer and slimmer.
Each time she would have to wait two to three weeks at home, in the district of Kaberamaido in Teso, until her father – a low-paid primary school teacher, struggling to bring up 12 children – received his salary. She would copy her friends' notes and try to persuade the teachers to help but soon she began to find it hard to follow the lessons.
From early childhood, Alice has been hoping to train as a nurse and this should have been an eminently achievable ambition. Not only are there plenty of jobs available because hospitals are short-staffed, but she was academically gifted enough to make her way into college. She passed her O-levels with eight credits, a score that none of her seven older brothers and sisters had matched, and even now she laughs with delight at the memory of outranking the boys.
She gained the grades despite the fact that she was sheltering with her parents in a temporary camp for families displaced by the violent insurgency that swept through this part of Uganda six years ago, living in a hut where no one was permitted to light paraffin lamps at night, for fear of attracting the attention of enemy rebels.
Her teachers told her parents that she was talented, and her fellow pupils elected her head girl. For a while her prospects looked promising.
However, poverty intervened. Her final A-level grades were very poor – she failed biology and got only passes for the rest. Her father had hoped she would get a government scholarship to study further, but it was obvious that her results were not good enough. There was no chance to retake the exams, because by that point there were more, younger siblings to educate and her parents said her opportunity was gone.
"I was very disappointed when I saw the results. I knew my future was not going to be OK. I cried," she says, sitting the late afternoon by her mud-walled home, in a distant, rural region of Uganda. The family's hens are pecking at the purplish sorghum crop, laid out to dry on the swept mud yard. Alice's mother is listening, dressed in a washed-thin Unicef T-shirt (many people here wear T-shirts donated by aid agencies, a legacy of the fighting and natural disasters that have plagued the region). She remembers how she quarrelled with her daughter when the results came through, before reflecting that it would have been hard for her to excel, given how frequently she was made to leave class.
Alice, 20, is a good example of the kind of student the Mvule Trust hopes to help with its programme of scholarships: someone who is bright, motivated and ambitious, but who has been unable to fulfill their potential because they are too poor.
She searches in her house (three paces wide) to find her school...
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GUARDIAN Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:50:56 GMT
Twelve members of national side go missing and presumed to be hiding in bid escape authoritarian regime in Asmara
A dozen members of Eritrea's national football squad have disappeared in Kenya after the team was knocked out of a regional tournament.
They are presumed to have joined the tens of thousands of Eritreans who flee their country each year to escape an increasingly paranoid and repressive regime. The disaffection is particularly strong among young people who face decades of open-ended national service once they leave school.
The players absconded after losing their quarter-final match 4-0 to Tanzania in the annual CECAFA tournament for east and central African nations.
Nicholas Musonye, the general secretary of CECAFA, said that a guide assigned to the team reported that 12 members of the 25-strong team had vanished.
"The tour guide waited for them in vain at the airport on Saturday when the team was [due to travel] back home," he told Reuters.
"We think they are hiding somewhere with the intention of going somewhere, or just intending to remain here. We have alerted the authorities to help track them down."
There has been no word from the Eritrean government, which routinely denies that people are fleeing the country. But Musonye said that Tesfaye Gebreyessus, the president of Eritrea's football association, had confirmed the players did not return to Asmara with rest of the delegation.
It is not the first time the country's sporting stars have sought asylum abroad, despite a reported government policy that requires all athletes to post a bond of several thousand US dollars each time they travel overseas.
In 2006, four members of the Red Sea football club disappeared in Nairobi after playing an African Champions League qualifier.
Last year, six runners representing the formidable Eritrean national athletics team were granted political asylum by the Home Office when they slipped away from government minders after competing in the World Cross Country Championships, in Edinburgh.
The sports stars' flight echoes a wider trend that has turned Eritrea, with a population of just 5 million, into the second biggest source of asylum seekers in the world. Since exit visas are extremely difficult to obtain, many young many and women risk their lives by trying to escape on foot through harsh terrain to Sudan and Ethiopia.
President Isaias Afewerki's insular government, which has abolished the free press, political opposition and religious freedom, often punishes the escapees' families with large fines or jail terms.
Eritrea
Xan Rice
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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 BBC Censors Nelson Mandela's Mugabe comments
YOUTUBE
Got the REAL footage of Mandela's criticism of Mugabe. Interesting what they left out
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NEWS SUMMARY
Royal tomb fire stokes tensions between government and king
Protesters killed at Uganda tombs
Uganda royal tombs gutted by fire
Kenya theft linked to riot probe
Katine girls receive bursaries to study at secondary school
Twelve dead in Angolan floods
Zuma bid to ease Zimbabwe tension
Zambia 'red card' priest defiant
Rwanda's democratic credentials under fire
Funding 'a barrier' to good education for Katine children with special needs
37 years of solitary confinement: the Angola three
Prince fined over Kenya assault
500,000 Ugandans to be relocated due to mudslide threat
Rwanda leader 'must be exhumed'
Kenya bans ministers from taking foreign trips
Uganda to 'move half a million'
Bitterness and unease in Zimbabwe
Kenya flood: Eye witness
Evacuation after Uganda mudslide
Letter: Zimbabwe repression
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