BY NATASHA BARSOTTI — “Uganda is using the [anti-gay] bill to threaten and blackmail the West,” the director of a civil rights organization has told IBTimes UK.
“They know that respect of human rights is a sensible subject in the West and they are using it to blackmail the international community,” says Kikonyogo Kivumbi, executive director of UHSPA-Uganda.
Kivumbi is linking renewed calls for the bill’s resurrection to the
Ugandan government’s anger over a United Nations report that “claimed
it was abetting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” the report
says. He says the government is using the anti-gay measure as political
leverage to influence the UN.
Kivumbi’s comments follow the continuing crusade by parliamentary speaker Rebecca Kadaga to hasten a vote on the country’s anti-homosexuality bill. Kadaga clashed with Canada’s foreign affairs minister, John Baird, over the so-called “Kill the gays” bill during a recent conference in Quebec City.
The Nov 12 IBTimes report states that Kadaga, who reportedly has ties to the evangelical Christian organization Family Life Network that is pushing for the bill’s adoption, says Ugandans are “demanding” the bill’s passage, with anti-gay activists saying its enactment would be a “Christmas gift”
to the country.
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