In Photo (right to left): Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Alice N’kom (Cameroon), Anastasia Danilova (Moldova), Sanja Juras (Croatia), Adrian Jjuuko (Uganda), Sass Sasot (Philippines), Polina Savchenko (Russia), Vladimir Simenko (Lithuania), Arvind Narrain (India), Zoryan Kis (Ukraine), Santiago Eder (Colombia), N’dumie Funda (South Africa), Pouline Kimani (Kenya), and Rev. MacDonald Sembereka (Malawi).
For this historic moment in the LGBT movement, the Council for Global Equality was privileged to bring 14 prominent LGBT activists from around the world to Geneva to be present for Secretary Clinton’s Human Rights Day speech. The Council applauds both Secretary Clinton for the pitch-perfect speech as well as President Obama for yesterday’s vital Presidential Memorandum addressing the human rights of LGBT people worldwide.
Reactions from LGBT human rights defenders from around the world who were on hand to witness the speech included these:
Arvind Narrain from the Lawyers Collective in India:
“The Secretary made a passionate case for LGBT rights as gay rights while being very culturally sensitive. The generosity of mentioning the gains in South Africa, Brazil, India, and Nepal conveyed a wider sense of ownership of these issues.”
Sass Rogando Sasot from Society of Transsexual Women of the Philiipines: “
The sincerity and courage of Secretary Clinton is an invitation for us to make the dignity of our common humanity the center and goal of our politics. Her speech is another step towards a world that’s more inclusive, fair, and compassionate.”
Polina Savchenko from the Russian LGBT Network:
“Secretary Clinton’s point about ‘honest discussion’ is particularly important for Russia because we suffer from extreme ignorance. Discussion is shut down in our country. Her message about decriminalization was also very important in our country right now.”
New policy implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development “strongly encourages” businesses contracting with the organization to have non-discrimination policies in place for their LGBT workers.
The new policy, spelled out in an executive message dated Oct. 11, encourages companies contracting with USAID to go beyond mandatory non-discrimination protections — including protections based on race, religion and gender — and put in place additional policies to prohibit job bias against LGBT employees and other workers.
According to the memo, the agency is making the change to “encourage all USAID contractors and recipients, including those performing solely overseas, to apply comprehensive nondiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, marital status, parental status, political affiliation, and any other conduct that does not affect performance.”
The memo notes that the change isn’t mandatory, so contractors aren’t bound to have the policies to continue working with USAID. Still, the policy is likely the first from any U.S. agency encouraging federal contractors to have non-discrimination policies for LGBT workers.
LGBT advocates said the memo is an important step in addressing workplace discrimination, but noted the change doesn’t have a lot of teeth.
Nan Hunter, a lesbian law professor at Georgetown University who first posted the new policy on her blog, called the change a “breakthrough,” but noted it can’t be enforced.
“Technically it isn’t enforceable in the sense that a contractor who fails to adopt these policies could be cited as out of compliance,” Hunter said. “However, it sends a strong signal that such policies are favored, and creates an incentive for any private company that contracts with USAID to conform its policies to this guidance.”
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said USAID “deserves credit” for observing that taxpayers “should not have to subsidize anti-LGBT discrimination and harassment,” but also noted the change isn’t binding.
“If a USAID contractor fires a qualified employee just because she is lesbian or because he is transgender, those employees will still not be allowed to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor seeking enforcement of the workplace protections encouraged under this new symbolic policy,” Almeida said.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said the new policy is a step in the right direction and could encourage other agencies to follow USAID’s lead.
“I’ve heard that new language in USAID contracts and grants will encourage the agency’s program implementers to follow USAID’s existing policies by extending nondiscrimination provisions to include sexual orientation and gender identity,” Bromley said. “I think USAID deserves a lot of credit for their leadership and hope others will follow.”
Asked to comment on the USAID policy, Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said, “We welcome it.”
LGBT advocates have been pushing President Obama to issue an executive order prohibiting all federal contractors — not just those doing business with USAID — to have non-discrimination policies in place based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Such a policy change would be binding and enforced by the Department of Labor. The Obama administration hasn’t said one way or the other if it will issue the order.
Almeida said the executive order is the best way for the Obama administration to ensure federal contractors have non-discrimination policies for LGBT workers in place and called on the president to issue the order before 2013.
“In order for LGBT workers to have the same workplace protections as all other Americans, President Obama needs to sign an ENDA executive order covering government contractors for all federal agencies,” Almeida said. “Freedom to Work respectfully urges the President to do so during his first term.”
~~~
According to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), the United States remains the largest donor of "official development assistance" at $23.53 billion in 2006. DAC/OECD reports that the next largest donor was the United Kingdom ($12.46b).
Relative to its economy, the U.S. is the second lowest provider, among the DAC countries, with a 0.17% of GNI in aid. Only Greece provides a lower percentage of GNI in the form of aid.
Gay African activists have reacted positively to President Obama's inclusion of LGBT human rights in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly - a first for an American President.
Obama said:
"No country should deny people their rights, the freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere."
According to Mark Bromley of The Council for Global Equality, a coalition of organisations working to promote human rights and LGBT equality in the United States and overseas, the inclusion of LGBT human rights is very significant as it reflects the Obama administration’s foreign policy priorities and "there is always intense competition to get issues included in the speech. It’s definitely considered prized placement."
Bromley noted that President George Bush had refused to join a UN statement calling on countries to decriminalise homosexual relations.
"President Obama, in contrast, stood before that same institution to pledge U.S. support for LGBT rights globally," he said.
The United States has, under Obama, led efforts for LGBT at The United Nations and in other international bodies. Obama personally spoke out against Uganda's 'Kill gays' Anti-Homosexuality bill - comments which drew significant attention in Africa. The Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, His Grace Henry Luke Orombi, said:
“It is distressing that Barack Obama a fellow African would promote racial civil rights as morally equivalent to immoral civil behaviour. We are Africans and know the difference between moral behaviour and responsibility as opposed to civil rights being compared to homosexuality. Will Barack Obama represent our interests in this matter?”
In January Obama said he was "deeply saddened" by the murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato.
He said that the United States "stands proudly with those nations that are standing up to intolerance, discrimination, and homophobia."
"LGBT persons are entitled to equal treatment, equal protection, and the dignity that comes with being full members of our diverse societies. As the United Nations begins to codify and enshrine the promise of equality for LGBT persons, the world becomes a safer, more respectful, and more humane place for all people."
Ugandan lesbian activist Jacqueline Kasha Nabagesera yesterday told the Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution, held to coincide with the UN General Assembly, that "not every war is fought with guns" and that "statements and resolutions from the US help. We need American support against the LGBT hate bill in Uganda." (Video of her speech below, she says Ugandan diplomats told her she should be arrested for treason).
African gay leaders we spoke to saw Obama's latest comments as extremely important for their struggle in a continent where the LGBT movement is growing but faces stiff and organised resistance.
Ali Sudan, President of the underground LGBT group Freedom Sudan, said that the comments "gave me hope".
"LGBT individuals suffer or are killed everyday by the hand of their countrymen especially here in Africa and the Middle East," he said. "We need to stand together and keep fighting to gain our rightful rights as humans. I hope his message will inspire many other people to stand with us in this fight."
Stéphane Koche of Cameroon's Association Camerounaise pour la défense de l'homosexualité (ADEFHO) described Obama's UN comments as "very inspiring for the world, including Africans."
"It means a lot. It highlights common values, common hopes, common aspirations and it's very simple to understand."
Braam Hanekom, coordinator of South Africa's PASSOP (People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty), also found the comments "inspiring". He said:
"Despite the immense political challenges we believe he is facing, President Obama was unafraid to address the rights of the LGBTI community. He used a powerful platform and addressed many of our leaders."
"His inclusion should be seen as a clear message and we hope that pressure will be increased on all countries that have failed to protect and/or who have even actively demonized the LGBTI community."
"We should warn him that many of our African leaders are, what I call "chameleons", they tend to "care" for the LGBTI community where it is popular and it benefits them, while in their countries and communities (even in AU meetings), they tend to be homophobic (where and when it benefits them politically). We hope that he will show them that the USA will not support leaders who have failed to recognize the rights of the LGBTI community."
"The USA should also start challenging those who fail to make their position clear, as well as hold accountable those who "claim" to respect LGBTI rights. It is also important to state clearly that many Africans are part of our local LGBTI communities and thus there is no substance to nonsensical claims from certain "right-wing populist" leaders that "it is Un-African", instead it is "Un-African" to disown our brothers and sisters for who they love or what they believe."
David Kuria, a Kenyan gay leader and politician, "read the statement with delight."
"When a President such as Obama with African roots talks in favour of gay rights, at the very least it shows that not everyone is homophobic and that in fact African leaders are in a class of thinning minority."
Kuria said that there are now some African politicians who are prepared to stand up for LGBT "albeit not too loudly." He suggested that they may be "emboldened to be more vocal" if US embassies follow up the comments with "tangible action".
"We are trying as activists," Kuria said, "to build a narrative that shows LGBTI rights as the next cycle of or frontier of Human Rights development in Africa. First we had decolonization, then women's rights and now the last frontier is LGBTI rights."
"The same arguments, including religious, against LGBTI rights had been used against women's rights so it's not a hard narrative to generate. President Obama's words falls quite in place in this story because his predecessors had prophetically spoken in similar terms of the previous cycle of rights."
Some commentators were more critical. Writing on death + taxes, US gay activist Andrew Belonsky said:
"The real test, however, will be whether the Obama Administration actually works said rights into their policy, especially in Arab nations undergoing Democratic transformations."
"The States have failed to normalize homosexuality in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. If Obama wants to be seen as a man of his word, he and the State Department will make clear that new governments like those in Egypt and Tunisia in need of American support and money have no choice but to accept and celebrate their LGBT citizens. If they don’t, they will be failing the democratic dreams that fueled their uprisings in the first place."
President Obama issued a proclamation on Thursday that could prohibit those engaging in LGBT persecution overseas from entering the United States.
The proclamation bars entry of immigrant and non-immigrant aliens who organize or participate in war crimes or serious violations of human rights — which could include those seeking to pass legislation in Uganda that would institute the death penalty for homosexual acts.
“The United States’ enduring commitment to respect for human rights and humanitarian law requires that its Government be able to ensure that the United States does not become a safe haven for serious violators of human rights and humanitarian law and those who engage in other related abuses,” Obama states.
Specific language in the proclamation explicitly states that those who persecute people based on their “sexual orientation and gender identity” are among the categories of those who won’t be able to enter the United States. Additionally, the proclamation prevents not only those who perpetuated human rights abuses overseas from entering the United States, but also those who have “attempted or conspired to do so.”
“The proclamation also bans admission to the United States for those who are complicit in organizing these abuses — not just those who carry them out,” a White House fact sheet states. “As such, it allows the United States to act before planned abuses and atrocities metastasize into actual ones.”
The proclamation gives the secretary of state, or the secretary’s designee, the authority to identify people who won’t be able to enter the United States based on this new guidance. However, other language in the proclamation states that such an individual could enter the country if the secretary of state determines that the “entry of such person would be in the interests of the United States.”
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said the order gives the Obama administration “an important tool to use in dissuading extremist actions that are prejudicial to basic human rights, and in encouraging the development of inclusive laws and societies.”
“The Council praises this move, which could in principle be used to justify the exclusion of hate-promoting politicians like Ugandan parliamentarian David Bahati, who introduced a ‘kill the gays bill’ in a previous legislative session in Uganda and may do so again,” Bromley said. “That bill, of course, would have carried dire consequences for LGBT individuals in Uganda.”
Bahati was previously invited to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2010, but was later disinvited by organizers and didn’t make an appearance after he introduced his draconian anti-gay bill.
UPDATE, 25 July: Undule Mwakasungula and Gift Trapence are amongst other civil society leaders reported to be in hiding or to have fled Malawi. President Mutharika: "I will smoke you out."
Last week the British government announced that it was withdrawing budget support from the Malawian government. The move followed a diplomatic spat but the UK Foreign Office (FCO) blamed Malawi's increasing authoritarianism for their decision.
Germany, Denmark and other countries have cut their aid to Malawi citing a poor governance record.
Malawi has form on blaming LGBT for aid withdrawals, and some governments and bodies have cited concerns on LGBT rights in their consideration of aid to the country - but they have never been more than a footnote to the same sorts of issues cited by the FCO.
Now Malawi's government and media has labeled an opposition protest a "gay rights rally". It banned today's protest against the state of the economy, which resulted in riots and at least one death. Yesterday, ruling party supporters, who have been encouraged to violence by President Bingu wa Mutharika, threatened anyone who would dare join the protests and attacked two independent radio stations.
Of the two civil society leaders who have been most outspoken in support of LGBT human rights who took part in the protests, Undule Mwakasungula Human Rights Consultative Commitee (HRCC) chairperson was beaten and and executive director of Centre for Development of People (CEDEP) Gift Trapence arrested then released.
Mark Bromley of the Council for Global Equality said:
“Once again we see that an increasingly authoritarian government is trying to deflect attention away from legitimate public grievances and economic hardships by blaming the protests on gay rights supporters. The protests today were not about gay rights, they were about good governance and human rights for all citizens.”
It was the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) that labeled today's anti-government protests as "gay" A presidential spokesperson Hetherwick Ntaba said that organisers of the demonstrations have been receiving “huge” sums of money from gay rights bodies outside the country. The MBC bulletins have been saying organisers of the demonstrations want to use photographs of demonstrators to show to donors that Malawians support gay rights and same-sex marriages. An opposition MP joined in the gay bashing by saying that although it was using gays as a scapegoat to deflect attention from mismanagement, the ruling party was 'infested' by gay people.
In April the MBC broadcast an editorial comment, read by the station’s news analyst Mzati Mkolokosa, saying that the MBC called on Malawians to 'fight against such activists' saying they are 'not patriotic'.
“They don’t know how much our forefathers suffered to get ourselves decolonized. We are not yet free up to date, yet someone wants to sell us back to the colonialists. Perhaps they haven’t studied global politics and need to be decolonized themselves. But let’s fight against them before they succeed in handing us over to the colonialists,” MBC said.
Trapence says that more than 20 organisations from all 3 regions organised the July 20 demonstrations. The organisations said at a press conference that allegations from government that the nationwide demonstrations are actually for gay rights to impress western donors were "cheap propaganda".
“President Mutharika will retire in three years and is working hard to protect his image by creating a fertile ground for his brother Peter Mutharika to stand in the next elections,” says Simekinala Kaluzi of Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) Malawi.
“He will not tolerate any critical voices and wants the media and civil society to only say good things about him and his Government," Kaluzi added. "Since his re-election in 2009 we have seen a serious shrinking of space for freedom of expression and association.”
President Mutharika does have some Western support. The American Christian conservative group Family Research Council (FRC) has asked supporters to pray for Malawi's laws criminalizing gay sex, RightWingWatch.com reported.
When the Ugandan government announced that the anti-homosexuality bill was on hold, those pushing it immediately blamed international pressure on President Yoweri Museveni. Pastor Martin Ssempa said that the bill was "being deliberately killed largely by the undemocratic threats of western nations".
He has a point. A campaign delivered half a million signatures to Museveni, various governments lobbied, the Germans said they'd cut aid, and now the US Congress has amended financial legislation (with bipartisan support) that would cut aid to countries deemed to be persecuting gay people. Introducing the legislation, congressman Barney Frank highlighted Uganda and noted that "the US has a fairly influential voice in the development area".
Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, has now said in a letter to Frank that his Treasury department "will continue to instruct the US executive directors at each of the MDBs [multilateral development banks] to seek to channel MDB resources away from those countries whose governments engage in a pattern of gross violations of human rights".
Pressure is also mounting from Europe. The European parliament passed a resolution in December "reminding" Africa that "the EU is responsible for more than half of development aid and remains Africa's most important trading partner" and that "in all actions conducted under the terms of various partnerships" that sexual orientation is a protected category of non-discrimination.
How financial pressure will play out remains to be seen. This month massive US funding for improving Malawi's power supply network went through despite that country criminalising lesbians.
Someone blinked regarding Malawi but there is undoubtedly more pressure on governments who repress gay people than ever before. Germany didn't blink and did cut Malawi aid.
Like Uganda, moves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to criminalise gay people have also stalled – again diplomats have raised their concerns. But now there's a backlash.
In Uganda, Ssempa presented a two-million-signature petition to parliament on 7 April demanding that the anti-gay bill be passed (and damn the consequences). In Cameroon there is a huge fuss over European Union funding for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) advocacy group.
In launching the report April 8 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drew particular attention to the report’s identification of abuses against LGBT people internationally:
“Because I believe, and our government believes, that gay rights are human rights, we remain extremely concerned about state-sanctioned homophobia,” Clinton said.
She hoped that the reports which cover every country bar the US itself would "give comfort to the activists, will shine a spotlight on the abuses, and convince those in government that there are other and better ways.” They may also be used to bar aid to certain countries if the US Congress passes recently introduced legislation.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, told the Washington Blade that Clinton has made LGBT rights one of the State Department's top priorities. Expanded coverage of LGBT rights was begun last year but the 2010 reports show patchy coverage across Africa and the Middle East.
State Department interest in LGBT asylum
The UK report cited last year's Stonewall report 'No Going Back' and pulled out for mention its identification of the "fast tracking" of LGBT asylum claims, repeating Stonewall's finding that LGBT have complex cases and in "denying them quickly, UKBA staff did not give applicants time to talk openly about their sexual orientation."
Home Office Minister Damien Green told the House of Commons in February that the government did not accept that sexual orientation asylum claims are complex and therefore would not exclude them from 'fast track', as it does other types of cases.
“I push for this because of who I am. This hits me harder,” my friend from the US Embassy in Baghdad said about why the gay killings have so moved him, why he reached out to me when they peaked last year.
We were surrounded by men in shorts and Capris, tight tank tops on toned bodies, rainbow flags adorning every doorway. Clearly, we were not in Baghdad. It was Chelsea in the midst of New York’s 2009 Gay Pride Week. He was home on vacation, helping me strategize for my upcoming six-week trip.
Gay Americans obsess about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — and rightly so — but legions of gay civilians are in the war zones: in the State Department, the United Nations, non-profits from many nations, and even among the gun-toting contractors. Many of them work with gay and lesbian soldiers who are not officially out.
Gays and lesbians — especially thoes who are single and have no children — are the perfect war-zone demographic. The change we can enact behind closed doors on international LGBT issues has long been overlooked, but it’s part of the premise behind former State Department employee Mark Bromley’s group, the Council for Global Equality.
I'd like to think the White House was responsible for this, but I suspect it was Hillary's doing. You can find the entire report here. Here's a press release about it:
The Council for Global Equality applauds this year's State Department human rights report to Congress for underscoring the clear and growing crisis in human rights abuse directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people worldwide, and urges the use of diplomacy to counter this trend.
In introducing the report, Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, singled out the case of Uganda, where introduction of a draconian anti-gay bill has resulted in serious abuse directed against Uganda's LGBT community. The report further documents LGBT-related incidents in almost every country in the world, including a range of cases involving arbitrary arrest and detention, police abuse, rape, and murder. For instance, the report notes serious assaults against LGBT individuals in Jamaica, "including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of such persons." In Iraq, the report notes that "numerous press reports indicate that some victims were assaulted and murdered by having their anuses glued shut or their genitals cut off and stuffed down their throats until they suffocated." The report highlights numerous instances in which police and other authorities have failed to investigate or prosecute such incidents.
Council Chair Mark Bromley, while recognizing that the State Department report examines a broad range of human rights concerns impacting various minority communities, nonetheless emphasized that "the level of reporting on LGBT abuses this year is remarkably detailed and truly commendable, and unfortunately this new level of detail shows just how dangerous it is for LGBT individuals to go about their daily lives as ordinary citizens in so many parts of the world." For the first time ever, most of the reports have a dedicated section examining "societal abuses, discrimination, and acts of violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity." Bromley insisted that "the report makes clear that LGBT rights are firmly rooted in basic human rights protections and that those protections are under severe attack in the world today."
Secretary Clinton delivers remarks to the press on the Release of the 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, at the Department of State.
Assistant Secretary Posner speaks to the press on the Release of the 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, at the Department of State.
Human Rights Day protest against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill - Ugandan Embassy, London, 10 December 2009. L-R: Michael Senyonjo, Richard S, Topher Campbell, Peter Tatchell, Godwyns Onwuchekwa, Rev Rowland Jide Macaulay. Credit Brett Lock of OutRage!
U.S. officials have received assurances from the Ugandan president that he would work to block a harshly anti-gay bill from becoming law in his country and would veto the legislation should it come to his desk, according to the State Department.
Jon Tollefson, a State Department spokesperson, told DC Agenda that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has pledged on several occasions to the top U.S. diplomat engaged in Africa that he would stop progress on the anti-gay bill.
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson received this assurance from Museveni on Oct. 24 during an in-person meeting with the president in Uganda and again during a phone conversation with Museveni on Dec. 4, Tollefson said.
Homosexual acts are already illegal in Uganda, but the anti-gay legislation — a bill sponsored by a member of the president’s party — would, among other things, institute the death penalty for repeat offenders of the homosexual acts ban and those who have homosexual sex while HIV positive.
Additionally, the bill would criminalize the formation of LGBT organizations and the publication or broadcast of pro-gay materials in Uganda.
The legislation is moving forward in the Ugandan parliament, and this week lawmakers were slated to have a second reading of the bill, according to the Times of London. Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said the bill is expected to come up again in January for a final reading.
Tollefson said during the Oct. 24 meeting that Carson met with Museveni and other high-ranking Ugandan officials to express concern about the legislation and conveyed that its passage would be “a big step backwards in human rights” that “could really have the potential to harm the reputation of Uganda.”
“And the president understood the concerns and said that he would do what he could to make sure the bill was not passed,” Tollefson said. “He would not sign the bill. … He made a commitment to the secretary that he would work to make sure it wasn’t signed into law.”
Tollefson said when the bill started moving forward and gaining international attention, Carson on Dec. 4 contacted Museveni by phone to reiterate U.S. concerns, and the president again expressed his commitment to stop the bill from becoming law.
“So that being said, the assistant secretary is expecting the president to live up to that commitment and … he expects President Museveni to live up to his reputation as a leader in the HIV/AIDS struggle in Africa,” Tollefson said. “It’s a significant human rights issue. I know it also gets in the way of treatment and prevention and education on the HIV/AIDS front.”
Asked whether it’s the understanding of U.S. officials that Museveni would veto the legislation should it come to his desk, Tollefson replied, “Right, that’s a commitment that he’s made. He made that personally to the assistant secretary on that first meeting that he had on Oct. 24 and again on a call on Dec. 4, and so we’re going to continue to expect that.”
Tollefson said the United States wants Museveni to go beyond his private commitment to blocking the bill from becoming law and to make a public statement against the legislation.
“He has not done that, and we’ve asked him to come out and say how — be a leader in this, just as he’s a leader in HIV/AIDS,” Tollefson said.
On Friday at the State Department, Carson briefed non-governmental organizations on the commitment Museveni made to the United States and explained the work U.S. officials have done to prevent the measure from becoming law.
Tollefson said about 20 NGOs were represented at the briefing, including groups focused on African development, LGBT issues and confronting the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Among the groups that were invited to the briefing, which was closed to the public, were the Human Rights Campaign, the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch.
Bromley was among those in attendance at the briefing. He confirmed for DC Agenda that he was told Carson had received assurances from the Ugandan president that he would work to stop the bill from becoming law.
But Bromley said he isn’t sure whether the president would terminate the bill by vetoing it or via some other method.
“I’m not incredibly sure that veto is the right word because I’m still trying to clarify whether the president actually has the authority to veto under the parliamentary system, but basically he assured Assistant Secretary Carson in October and then again in December that he would keep the bill from going forward,” Bromley said.
Noting that the bill came from a member of the president’s party and his party “dominates the politics” in Uganda, Bromley said pressure from the president would “certainly slow the bill.”
“But Secretary Carson made it clear that on two occasions, President Museveni has said he would stop the bill from going forward and he said that he’s continuing to write to him and sending messages that the U.S. expects him to honor his word,” Bromley said.
Tollefson also detailed work the State Department has done to help block the legislation from going forward and said Carson has made clear to Museveni that — in addition to rejecting the measure — the United States expects full decriminalization of homosexuality in Uganda.
“He made very clear that we will not accept simply the removal of the death penalty or some of the harsher aspects of the law,” Tollefson said. “We expect full decriminalization of sexual acts between adults. There’s no hedging on that.”
Noting that supporters of the legislation in Uganda have been saying religious leaders are in favor of the bill, Tollefson said the State Department has delivered to the country statements from U.S. religious leaders denouncing the legislation. A statement from Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in California, was among the statements from religious leaders sent to Uganda in opposition to the bill. Warren recently spoke out against the bill.
Tollefson said the State Department also believes the legislation could have a detrimental effect on the region around Uganda and noted that movement on anti-gay legislation in Uganda and other countries will be recorded in the State Department’s annual human rights report.
“It won’t just be focused on Uganda, we’re not going to make a lot of effort to remove this from Uganda while remaining silent on neighboring countries that have similar legislation even if they’re already on the books,” he said.
Asked whether restricting funds under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief could be a way to deter Uganda from passing the bill, Tollefson said that question came up during the Friday briefing, but U.S. officials are reluctant to pursue that option.
PEPFAR, a multi-billion dollar initiative started by President George W. Bush, provides treatment for those living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
“Public funds to start retroviral treatment is not a one-day commitment, it’s a lifetime commitment, and we haven’t had that discussion and we don’t want to have that discussion,” Tollefson said. “And, of course, no one would want to see that happen, so it’s not something that we want to consider.”
Bromley said he’s impressed with the State Department’s level of commitment to stopping the anti-gay legislation from being passed.
“I’m very pleased that the State Department has been so forceful and is now publicly challenging President Museveni to honor his word and commitment,” Bromley said. “I’m pleased that they are responding as assertively as they are and that they are now doing so in a public fashion.”
On the eve of World AIDS Day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Monday 30 November made the strongest statement yet by an administration official that the United States will not tolerate efforts to criminalize homosexuality among countries that receive U.S. funding to combat HIV/AIDS.
“Obviously, our efforts are hampered whenever discrimination or marginalization of certain populations results in less effective outreach and treatment. So we will work not only to ensure access for all who need it but also to combat discrimination more broadly,” she said during a press conference in which officials also announced that the XIX International AIDS Conference, set for 2012, will be held in United States — the first time the conference has been held here since 1990. “We have to stand against any efforts to marginalize and criminalize and penalize members of the LGBT community worldwide.”
Specifically at issue is pending legislation in Uganda that would extend the punishment for engaging in gay sex to life imprisonment and introduce the death penalty for those who do so repeatedly or while HIV-positive — acts termed "aggravated homosexuality” within the bill.
Mark Bromley, chair of the Council for Global Equality, said he was pleased to see Secretary Clinton take a firm stand against antigay bigotry.
“The United States must make it absolutely clear to Uganda that the passage of the bill, which includes a death penalty provision and criminalizes those who fail to report suspected homosexuals to the authorities, would substantially impact our bilateral relationship and our health investments in that country,” he said.
The United States recently pledged to provide Uganda with nearly $250 million in development assistance, mainly to promote health, agriculture, and business initiatives. The grant was announced when the assistant secretary of State for African affairs, Johnnie Carson, met with Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni in late October.
Clinton’s comments came on the heels of an interview with Ambassador Eric Goosby, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, that concerned many HIV/AIDS activists.
“My role is to be supportive and helpful to the patients who need these services. It is not to tell a country how to put forward their legislation,” Goosby said of Uganda last week during a Newsweek interview.
Many HIV/AIDS activists felt that Goosby’s comments signaled a certain tone-deafness by the Obama administration to the Ugandan issue. But one person who consults regularly with the Department of State said the agency has been heavily engaged with Ugandan officials regarding the fate of the legislation.
“They have been working for several weeks behind the scenes at a senior level within the department to determine what the actual facts are and what the likelihood is of this bill becoming law,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The source said the diplomatic goal was to strike a forceful tone that stopped short of shaming President Museveni, who has yet to take an official stand on the legislation, which was introduced by a lawmaker in his own party, member of parliament David Bahati.
“They are trying to proceed in a way that gives them some private leverage but also acknowledges that Secretary Clinton has an obligation to speak out on human rights issues in her capacity as our top international diplomat,” said the source. “It's been a delicate effort with inconclusive results.”
Elly Tebasoboke Katabira, a native Ugandan and president-elect of the International AIDS Society, said that if President Museveni denounces the measure, it could ultimately kill the legislation.
“Remember, it was written by a person from his own party,” explained Katabira, “so that person would be very reluctant to push something that was not acceptable to the president.”
Katabira added that Clinton’s comments condemning homophobia were “extremely important” since attitudes in so many sub-Sahara African countries mirror those in Uganda.
“I wish what Secretary Clinton said could be made available to many leaders in our region, because then they would know that they don't have the support of other countries including the U.S.,” he said after the press conference.
Late last month, the State Department released its annual report to Congress examining human rights trends around the world. The U.S. government doesn't critique our own country's human rights record, but we do assess the human rights landscape in every other country. Once again, the State Department's documentation portrays an ongoing international crisis of abuse against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities in every region of the world. After years of waiting, we hope the Obama Administration, under Secretary Hillary Clinton's leadership at the State Department, will respond to this pattern of human rights abuse as a serious global concern.
President Obama stated during the Presidential campaign that "treatment of gays, lesbians and transgender persons is part of this broader human-rights discussion," and that it needs to be "part and parcel of any conversations we have about human rights." My organization, the Council for Global Equality, earnestly hopes that Secretary Clinton will follow this lead and respond to the daunting challenges confronting LGBT human rights leaders by offering them very practical support from our U.S. embassies as they stand up to defend their rights, and in so doing defend the universality of all human rights. Fortunately, in Brussels last Friday, Secretary Clinton assured an audience at the European Parliament that "human rights is and always will be one of the pillars of our foreign policy. In particular, persecution and discrimination against gays and lesbians is something we take very seriously." It's time to turn those words into actions.
The State Department's human rights report this year is the most comprehensive to date on sexual orientation and gender identity issues, referencing LGBT concerns in approximately 190 countries. LGBT-related incidents cited include arbitrary arrest and detention, police abuse, rape and murder. Many of the most egregious abuses have been committed in countries considered to be friends and allies of the United States, including those that receive sizeable U.S. development or security assistance. In many cases, there is evidence of police or other government involvement in the crimes, or in their cover-up. But this is nothing new. The State Department has been reporting on similar human rights abuses affecting LGBT communities for 19 years. An appropriate U.S. response to these abuses is long overdue.
In theory, the State Department's annual human rights report should guides our diplomatic interactions and official U.S. foreign assistance priorities by highlighting countries where a U.S.-driven human rights dialogue or U.S. support for local human rights organizations should receive priority attention. Unfortunately, the State Department has largely disregarded its own findings in recent years, and the reports too often fall on deaf ears. This year, in response to the State Department's findings, the Council for Global Equality has released a list focusing on the "Top Ten Opportunities for the U.S. to Respond" to LGBT-related human rights incidents that are highlighted in the report.
The Council's "top ten" list provides examples of how the U.S. could use its political, diplomatic and financial influence to make a critical contribution to human rights by reacting assertively to LGBT abuses cited by the State Department in ten focus countries. They are not necessarily the countries with the worst human rights records. Rather, they are countries where U.S. engagement could help turn the corner on an alarming pattern of human rights abuse. The list includes Egypt, Gambia, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Uganda.
Drawing on our "top ten" list, Egypt provides a difficult but important case study on the opportunities - and the limitations - that exist for an effective U.S. response. In Egypt last year, individuals suspected of being HIV-positive were arrested, abused, chained to hospital beds, subjected to forced HIV testing and then to brutal "anal exams" to support criminal prosecutions for debauchery, a criminal charge that state prosecutors have regularly used to jail suspected homosexuals. Despite a very troubling human rights record involving these and a range of other issues, Egypt was our third largest recipient of foreign aid from USAID and the State Department last year. I would not suggest cutting off U.S. assistance in a country like Egypt, but I am convinced that our funding should give us more leverage to speak out forcefully against the HIV arrests documented in the report. And within such a large foreign aid pot, we must continue to search for creative ways to channel support to organizations that are promoting sexual and reproductive rights in Egypt. That does not mean offering immediate support to some underground gay rights group in Egypt, a move that would be both impossible and irresponsible under the current climate of repression, but it does mean that the U.S. Embassy should work harder to balance our substantial political and financial commitment to the Middle East peace process with an equally principled commitment to tolerance and support for those Egyptians whose rights have been violated because of their HIV status, or because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
In Jamaica, where anti-LGBT hate music has become disturbingly popular, the State Department report this year cites grave violations directed against the country's LGBT community, "including arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals." The report notes that the "[p]olice often did not investigate such incidents," and that two members of a Jamaican LGBT rights group had their home fire bombed, with one of them suffering burns to over 60 percent of his body. The U.S. government's diplomatic response to these abuses must be strong and unconditional, and it should also be tied to our financial commitments in the country. Jamaica is a country where carefully-targeted U.S. support to gay rights or human rights groups could be effective in improving both the legal and community responses to LGBT violence. In addition, we should use the foreign assistance funding that we have allocated over the past several years to professionalize the Jamaican police force to help respond to these attacks. Indeed, the current foreign affairs budget for 2009 that is being debated in the U.S. Congress this week includes funding that is intended to support community policing in Jamaica. Given ongoing reports of the complicit involvement of the police in LGBT attacks, or at least their lack of prosecutorial interest in LGBT cases, the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica should do more to ensure that our police support is used to bring the perpetrators of the attacks cited in this year's report to justice, and that it includes a strong training component aimed at promoting tolerance within the force itself. Above all, we must ensure that support for community policing does not unwittingly encourage vigilante persecution, and that the police do not turn the other way when mobs attack those who transgress sexual or gender stereotypes.
A summary of all LGBT-related human rights abuses from this year's State Department report, together with ideas for appropriate U.S.-led responses in each of the ten focus countries, can be found at www.globalequality.org. We don't have all of the answers, but the list is intended to encourage some heightened level of response to the abuses cited in the ten countries, and to spark more creative thinking about the appropriate use of U.S. diplomatic and financial resources to address patterns of abuse and to protect LGBT individuals, particularly in countries where the U.S. government otherwise maintains a close bilateral relationship.
The official State Department release of the annual human rights report last week also frames a larger and ongoing debate over how the United States can best reclaim its credibility and leadership on human rights in this new Administration. Indeed, the release comes just as the human rights advocacy community in the United States is taking stock of Secretary Clinton's outspoken decision last month to downplay human rights during her first visit to China as Secretary of State. Her position on China made sense from a purely practical standpoint. Our human rights dialogue with China is overly scripted, agonizingly stilted and undeniably tedious. But in setting it aside to proclaim a new era of practical cooperation, Secretary Clinton's approach was alarming. It was certainly a departure from the Hillary Clinton who stood up so memorably for human rights at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
Although some of Secretary Clinton's human rights talking points may have ended up on the cutting room floor in Beijing, many foreign policy commentators have defended her approach. They argue that as we define the contours of a new foreign policy agenda in a politically and economically distressed era, and at a time when the U.S. has lost much of its credibility on human rights and democracy promotion, our actions, not words, are all that truly matter. Our protests over grave human rights conditions in Tibet have done little. We need to look for new diplomatic steps that go beyond rhetoric to give our human rights concerns impact. In Tibet, we are still searching for those action-oriented responses. But the human rights pragmatists insist that the world has long ceased believing our human rights platitudes, and that few are even listening to them. To reclaim our human rights leadership in this jaded and economically troubled time, we need to think of new, action-oriented approaches. We also need newfound candor about our own human rights record.
I, for one, hope the Secretary of State is a human rights pragmatist, and that she will take bold steps to promote an action-oriented human rights agenda as an element of that pragmatism. If so, her actions need to live up to her introduction in this year's human rights report. "The promotion of human rights is an essential piece of our foreign policy," she wrote in the introduction. "Not only will we seek to live up to our ideals on American soil, we will pursue greater respect for human rights as we engage other nations and people around the world. Some of our work will be conducted in government meetings and official dialogues, which is important to advancing this cause. But we will not rely on a single approach to overcome tyranny and subjugation that weaken the human spirit, limit human possibility, and undermine human progress."
The Council for Global Equality interprets that "work" as part of a "protection agenda" that seeks to redress serious and ongoing human rights violations through diplomatic representations, partnerships with other countries, renewed engagements with human rights institutions and human rights funding commitments. Committing to a "protection agenda" will help move us beyond our previous "reporting agenda," where for many years we have simply focused on documenting abuses after they occur, and then perhaps denouncing them in certain contexts, although rarely in the case of LGBT human rights violations.
By actively supporting a protection agenda that responds to LGBT human rights concerns internationally, the U.S. government also has the opportunity to send an important-and to many other nations a startling-message about America's renewed commitment to human rights and global diversity in a more general sense. The United States was virtually the only country in the Western Group at the United Nations last December that refused to sign a very simple statement recognizing basic human rights in the context of sexual orientation and gender identity. Many European and Latin American allies were not at all surprised by such intolerance from the Bush Administration. Given such a stark leadership failure in the previous Administration, it is time to show the world that our official foreign policy outlook has indeed changed, that the Obama Administration understands LGBT rights as human rights concerns, and that it values diversity in all of its many forms, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. There have already been some hopeful signs that such a shift is taking place, thanks to constructive positions on LGBT-related human rights debates that the new Obama Administration has taken at the United Nations in New York and Geneva over the past two months.
While calling on the Obama Administration to stand up for LGBT rights on the international stage, and to respond to the well documented pattern of LGBT human rights abuse in this year's annual human rights report from the State Department, the Council for Global Equality added an "honorable mention" to its "top ten" list, which is perhaps really a dishonorable mention. Recognizing that U.S. credibility on the international stage will depend largely on our own progress and commitment to LGBT rights here at home, our "top ten" list also calls on the United States to do more to honor the principles of equality, justice and human rights at home. The Council calls for Congress to pass legislation banning hate crimes and employment discrimination, to offer fair benefits to the families of gay and lesbian federal employees, to support same-sex immigration rights, repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, and include LGBT organizations among the civil society groups that America sustains abroad. It is a "call for consistency and fairness in our foreign policy, and for renewed American integrity and leadership in the fight for human rights."
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