(MONITORY UG) Museveni blocks Anti-Homosexuality Bill
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By Yasiin Mugerwa
Posted Friday, January 17 2014 at 02:00
In Summary
President accuses Parliament of breaking the law by passing the Bill without quorum. Parliament- President Museveni has confronted Speaker Rebecca Kadaga for passing the controversial Anti-gays Bill without quorum and described homosexuals as “abnormal” beings who can be “rescued” through economic empowerment.
In an eight-page letter to Speaker and MPs dated December 28, 2013, the President said he was forced to contrite on the issue by “a small group of our MPs, led by Hon Kadaga” who forced through the Bill even after he had advised to shelve it until the government had studied it in depth.
“Some elements, however, insisted and even without quorum of Parliament, passed it,” the President said. “How can you pass law without the quorum of Parliament after it has been pointed out? What sort of Parliament is this? How can Parliament be the one to break the Constitution and the Law repeatedly?”
But Parliament spokesperson Helen Kawesa yesterday said if there was no quorum, “that can be established by the relevant bodies in Parliament,” adding that several Bills were passed between October and December last year, and with similar numbers in the House.
The President said a homosexual is somebody who is abnormal because the normal person was created to be attracted to the opposite sex in order to procreate and perpetuate the human race. He said, nature goes wrong in a minority of cases.
While in the Bill passed by Parliament there is no provision for killing homosexuals; the President said, “The question at the core of the debate of homosexuality is; what do we do with an abnormal person? Do we kill him/her? Do we imprison him/her? Or we do contain him/her?”
While the President said homosexuality is an abnormal condition that can be cured, he disagreed with the position of Western countries that homosexuality is an “alternative sexual orientation”. “You cannot call an abnormality an alternative orientation. It could be that the Western societies, on account of random breeding, have generated many abnormal people,” he said, adding that his acid test for rejecting Western position is that nature is purposeful.
The President said apart from the people who are abnormal, it seems there is a group of those that become homosexual for “mercenary reasons”—they get recruited on account of financial inducements. He said this is a group that can be rescued and that many of the youth fall in this category.
As for lesbians, the President said apart from those born abnormal and those ones that may become lesbian for mercenary reasons, there may be those that go into the practice because of “sexual starvation” when they fail to get married.
The President said the rescue for homosexuals is first and foremost, economic, focusing on rapidly industrialised Uganda, modernisation of agriculture etc. By delaying government projects needed to create jobs for the unemployed youth, the President said the MPs are exposing the unemployed youth or “impecunious students” to the risks of homosexuality and other temptations.
“Even with legislation, they will simply go underground and continue practicing homosexuality or lesbianism for mercenary reasons,” he said.
The President said he would support a life sentence for one who lures normal youth into “these disgusting behaviours” – especially homosexuality. He said the NRM Caucus will find a scientifically correct position on the proposed anti-gay legislation.
Background
In December 2013, Parliament passed the Bill which criminalises sexual intercourse between same-sex partners. The legislation provides for a sentence of life imprisonment for anyone convicted of homosexuality, which covers gays and lesbians.
ymugerwa@ug.nationmedia.com
Labels: DAVID BAHATI, HOMOSEXUALITY, THE FAMILY, YOWERI MUSEVENI
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(THOUGHTLEADER SA) No love at Rhodes University?
Posted by: Gcobani Qambela
Posted on: January 5, 2014
There’s a widely used quote by Martin Niemöller that I love: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
I was reminded of this quote as I read Larissa Klazinga’s article in the SA Jewish Report titled: “Rhodes University: Not a Home for All”. I am not interested in much of Klazinga’s article per se but more the extent to which her story offers an important teachable moment about white masculinist racism, whiteness and privilege and how it is as harmful to white women as it is to black people. Klazinga’s story is a clear example of how it’s only when whiteness rejects them, that many white women start speaking out about exclusionary processes and silencing done by white men at predominantly white spaces like Rhodes.
Klazinga in the seven page piece chronicles her two year journey as a self-identifying “Jewish lesbian” and the “anti-Zionism” she has encountered leading to her leaving Rhodes in 2013. A self-identified “Zionist”, Klazinga says she was not prepared for the “bigotry” and “the vitriol directed [at her] over the past two years” and is in shock.
While working at Rhodes for over a decade “conceptualising and organising a myriad of transformation initiatives [aimed at] highlighting gender-based violence, xenophobia, racism and other human rights abuses” she managed to displease Roger Adams (the Deputy Dean of Students) by her support of Israel. What interested me the most is Klazinga’s conclusion that Rhodes “has become a totalitarian institution” and that she was shocked that she was not “allowed to speak, even in private … At Rhodes. In 2012.”
This is something many black Rhodes alumna have been saying for years (myself included) for we know Rhodes is not a home to all. We also know the violent silencing that often occurs at predominantly white institutions of higher learning in SA, the “Ivory towers of white supremacy”.
The Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) at Rhodes faced disciplinary action, were convicted and had to do community service for inviting the ANC secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, in 2010. When they were going to bring Julius Malema, Rhodes called the police and surrounded the venue with heavy police presence (although he didn’t eventually come). In their statement at the time the PYA noted that while leaders from the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Congress of the People (Cope) could come and talk at Rhodes without hassle, there was always contention, fear and resistance with the ANC. They concluded that Rhodes University “is led by counter-transformation forces … because Rhodes University is still run by the same ‘old boys club’ that subscribes to the racist philosophies of Cecil John Rhodes …”
This was in 2010, and one of the reasons I am interested in understanding why Klazinga who held such an important office at Rhodes only realised in 2014/2013 how autocratic the university is when so many black students have been saying this for years. Part of the answer to this lies in that many white women only speak out about oppressive white (male) systems and institutions, not when they still enjoy white privilege, but after that system rejects and turns on them.
In her pioneering Stanford Law Review article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color”, Professor Kimberle Crenshaw writes about the importance of intersectionality especially the intersection between gender and race. While Klazinga claims to have been doing intersectional work at Rhodes, her article exposes her white privileged gaze and how oblivious she is to the authoritarian treatment many black students are continuously subjected to, how they are silenced and often excluded from the university for their political views and associations.
The big lesson here is the importance of intersectionality and that whites should not wait to speak when out against injustice and white authoritarianism when their privilege is threatened. Klazinga herself says she never thought her Zionism would be the reason she left Rhodes, and this is because she saw her struggle narrow and isolated for instance from the struggles of the (mostly black) PYA members.
But Klazinga is marinated in white privilege and will do just fine as a white woman with incredible social capital (including an attorney), a generous settlement with Rhodes and higher education, which is more than I can say for the many young black women and men I saw continuously silenced and excluded from the university in debt, without degrees and quite frankly depressed. No one spoke out for them.
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, PROGRESSIVE YOUTH ALLIANCE, RACISM, RHODES UNIVERSITY SA
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(SF BAY REVIEW) Uganda still won’t hang the gays, but it’s about to drill for billions of barrels of oil
January 2, 2013
by Ann Garrison
KPFA Evening News, broadcast Dec. 29, 2012
KPFA Evening News Anchor Cameron Jones: Uganda’s Parliament failed to pass the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill, otherwise known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill, in December. However, Uganda’s Parliament did pass the Petroleum Exploration, Development and Production Bill, regarding the exploitation of vast oil reserves in Lake Albert, on Uganda’s western border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Ugandan activist Jackie Asiimwe-Mwesige about both bills.
KPFA/Ann Garrison: Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, otherwise known as the Hang-the-Gays Bill, was first introduced in 2009. Jackie Asiimwe-Mwesige said that Uganda’s speaker of Parliament had tried to pass it as a “Christmas gift to Ugandans” because she returned to a hero’s welcome after standing up to an unprovoked attack about gay rights by the Canadian Foreign Minister at an interparliamentary meeting in Canada.
Jackie Asiimwe-Mwesige: Well, it came up this time as a result of our speaker, the Honorable Rebecca Kadaga, attending a meeting in Canada, and the Canadian Foreign Minister said something about homosexuality and she stood up to say that the meeting was about something totally different. She wondered how a foreign minister was then in a meeting lecturing Uganda about the homosexuality bill and she said, you know, she was standing up for the sovereignty of Uganda, for the rights of Ugandans, to sort out their own legislative issues, their own morality issues, and that the West didn’t have a right to lecture them on homosexuality.
Ugandan activists meet Makerere University, Kampala 121612
Activists meet at Law Faculty Car Park, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, Dec. 16, 2012. Their T-shirts say, "Do NOT steal our oil also."
So that’s where it came from. And so when she came back – and of course you know that the media in Uganda reported that exchange in Canada – and when she came back, she came back to a hero’s welcome. And I think that’s the whole difficulty, the fact that the limelight has been on that issue, and yet I think Ugandans feel it’s not the most pressing issue, that in fact maybe Western countries could have stood with us on the various other challenges that we have and been more bold, to raise issues around our democratic deficit, rather than just mostly focusing on the Anti-Gay Bill.
KPFA: The oil bill, one of three under consideration, was, she said, long overdue.
Jackie Asiimwe-Mwesige: The oil bill is on the table now – in fact should have been on the table long ago. In November of 2011, the Parliament had a heated debate on oil. At the time there was a struggle between the Parliament and the executive, the government, around government secrecy, around who it was entering the deal with on behalf of Uganda on the oil. And they said, as members of Parliament, as representatives of Ugandans, they had the right to know what contracts, what deals our government was entering.
Ugandan fishermen Lake Albert by Xan Rice
Ugandan fishermen work near an oil rig on Lake Albert, which forms part of the Ugandan Congolese border. Local fishing culture has already been damaged by oil exploration and lives have been lost to military operations to secure the billions of barrels of oil beneath the lake. –
Photo: Xan Rice
And so it was a call to order for our government to say, “Look, you should tell us; be open about who you’re entering deals with. But also, can we have the right legal, legislative framework to manage the oil resource? And one of their demands to government was that government prepare and present to Parliament oil bills for debate and passing, oil bills which would help to set the framework for managing the resource, for taking care of environmental issues, for setting up the appropriate structures to manage the oil resource.
And government dilly dallied, ‘cause this was over a year ago, dilly dallied but finally brought the bill to Parliament late in July.
KPFA: Asiimwe-Mwesige said, however, that the corruption of President Yoweri Museveni’s NRM government is now the biggest problem in Uganda, so she’s not optimistic that Uganda’s oil wealth will improve the living standard of Ugandans without a widespread people’s movement, which has not yet come to fruition. She and fellow Ugandan activists have begun to appear outside Parliament wearing T-shirts saying, “DON’T STEAL OUR OIL TOO.”
For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I’m Ann Garrison.
San Francisco writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, Colored Opinions, Black Star News and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at ann@afrobeatradio.com. If you want to see Ann Garrison’s independent reporting continue, please contribute on her website at anngarrison.com.
Labels: ANN GARRISON, HOMOSEXUALITY, PROPAGANDA, UGANDA
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(MnG SA) Andile Mngxitama: Decolonising the African Queer Movement
11 Aug 2013 13:45 Andile Mngxitama: COMMENT
Because the LGBTI movement lacks a radical anti-colonial framework, its concerns have often been hijacked by the West, writes Andile Mngxitama.
'A unifying discourse of sexuality politics as central to decolonisation has to be found and struggles around it mounted.' (AFP)
Celebrations of Zanu-PF's massive parliamentary and presidential victory have been marred by homophobia within the most revolutionary party in Zimbabwe. This presents us with the question of how we can decolonise our societies and liberate ourselves from all forms of oppression, including on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender and Intersexed Community (LGBTI) issue.
This concern is no longer a marginal one because often the LGBTI struggle is hijacked by pro-colonial white supremacists. This is so primarily because the LGBTI struggle lacks a thorough anti-colonial ideological framework.
There is little doubt in the imagination of most black nationalists who see colonialism and white supremacy as the defining questions, even in the 21st century, that Zimbabwe is the most advanced in the fight for black liberation. Decolonisation is essentially a land issue, where the native takes back the land and the white settler is rendered superfluous or flees to their mother country. Only upon this event can a new relationship emerge among the people, one that is no longer defined by the indignity of colonial oppression. There is no doubt that Zimbabwe has indeed resolved the land question under the leadership of President Mugabe and Zanu-PF. However, both social liberation and the deepening of democratisation of the economy must still be advanced.
It can be said that with the indigenisation process currently under way in Zimbabwe, where the government compels all major companies to shed 51% of their ownership to Zimbabweans, the struggle on the economic plain is also at an advanced stage. It's not an easy matter that such global companies as Anglo-American have indeed signed away 51% of its platinum mines in Zimbabwe. Again Zanu-PF has to be commended for designing an ownership formula that is much more advanced and more broad-based than South Africa's elite-benefiting BEE programme. In Zimbabwe the expropriated 51% is distributed as follows; 10% to workers, 10% to the local mining community, 10% is to a BEE-type consortia and the state takes 21% into a national fund. The key is that ordinary Zimbabweans benefit directly and severally.
The question is how, then, within this reality of impressive decolonisation, do we confront the problem of homophobia? What has happened up until now is that the LGBTI movement has failed to raise the issue of sexuality politics as central to decolonisation. Because the LGBTI movement lacks a radical anti-colonial framework, often its concerns have been hijacked by the West to attack the decolonisation programme in Zimbabwe. It must worry us all that those who proclaim solidarity with the LGBTI struggles from Europe and the US are the same people who reject decolonisation and hate Mugabe for his anti-colonial efforts. It can be said therefore, that Zanu-PF's homophobia has been used by colonial forces to attack a revolutionary programme.
Collective concerns
The burden unfortunately falls within the LGBTI movement to undertake an almost impossible task of rejecting the western false allies and an internal struggle against homophobia and other related oppressions. Here, the liberal hyper individual rights discourses must be tempered with collective concerns because before we are queer, straight, or anything else, we are black and shaped fundamentally by our experiences of slavery and colonialism.
A unifying discourse of sexuality politics as central to decolonisation has to be found and struggles around it mounted. The legitimate argument that homophobia is a colonial Victorian construct can no longer be made to mock Mugabe and Zanu-PF from the vantage point of generalised western denigration of Africa and the Black.
Within this search for radically decolonising queer politics must be a study of how in South Africa the extension of gay rights has not meant the protection of black gay people against violence or discrimination. In reality, gay rights in South Africa are white rights. This is so because one is black before one is gay and as a consequence one lives one's queerness through one's race. The shocking racist events of last year's Jo'burg Pride, where black lesbians came under attack from their fellow white queer people, makes this point even more clearly. It's also a known fact that only black lesbians find themselves faced with the reality of being murdered for their sexuality. This is because they are already trapped within black spaces that do not respect life, not only of gay people.
The above conundrum raises the question the western and white influenced LGBTI movement often avoids in theory and indeed that there is no possibility of liberating individuals on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation outside a generalised decolonialising and anti white supremacist struggle. From this point of view, in the Zimbabwean situation, our first responsibility is to defend and advance the decolonising struggle, while we advance the course of liberation all at once. Here, a dialectical move is called for, it has to be stated publicly that Zanu-PF is the most authentic friend of the queer African in its decolonising moment and, at the same time, the worst enemy when it advances homophobic rhetoric and politics. From here the challenge is how to construct decolonising queer politics that don't, by default, land the LGBTI movement in the hands of colonialists.
Some promising yet underdeveloped discourse is heard in some South African black LGBTI activists who have constructed the slogan, "Lesbians for Land", a further development of this line of thought would open up possibilities of a unifying struggle for land and gender sexuality. In constructing such a new queer politics, regard will have to be given to the fact that a new morality and value system is being constructed, demonstrating how what is regarded as African is in most instances the creation of our colonisers. One hopes that in the 2018 elections Zanu-PF will elaborate a new vision on sexuality politics and begin to see the LGBTI movement as a legitimate part of decolonisation. That reality is dependent in large part on what the African Queer Movement does between now and then to decolonise itself.
Andile Mngxitama is a member of the central command team of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). He writes in his personal capacity. Follow him on Twitter: @mngxitama.
Labels: ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS, HOMOSEXUALITY, LAND REFORM, NEOCOLONIALISM, ROBERT MUGABE, ZANU-PF
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(THOUGHTLEADER SA) This is ‘corrective rape’. These are its rules
July 9, 2013
By Sekoetlane Jacob Phamodi
Early last week, the newspapers reported the discovery of another dead and mutilated lesbian body. Yet another poor, black, landless, queer body with a vagina has been killed and the story, we’re told, is because she was gay.
As the routine letters of condemnation from state, public and political officials came in their multitudes, and the routine commitments to protect queer bodies were renewed, I found myself caught in a routine depression over the
failure to acknowledge and address the structural conditions that make poor, black, queer bodies with vaginas so routinely available to violence.
Caught in this depressive state, some years ago I wrote a discussion paper to begin interrogating the notion of “corrective rape”. And in my interrogation, the paper quickly became a disruption of the notion and the discourse attached to it. I argued that both the term and the lens through which it is constructed and understood both obscure and participate in the confluence of structural systems of power which make particular kinds of bodies available to this and other forms of violence over others, as well as fixes particular kinds of bodies as the obvious perpetrators over others.
This week, again, I found myself caught in this same depressive state.
It happens often. It happens every day. It happens rarely, if at all, to some bodies. It happens repeatedly to others. Under very particular circumstances, we will all know about these incidents in absolute and graphic detail. In most, we will not know that it happened at all.
This is “corrective rape”. These are its rules.
We will ask why. We will be told that it is because she was drunk, that she was out at night, that she presented herself in a place known to be unsafe. We will be told that they wanted to correct her sexuality. We will give it a sexy name like “corrective rape”. This is how it happens. This is where it happens. This is who does it. This is who it is done to.
This is “corrective rape”. These are its rules.
We will know that the targets are black township lesbians. This will mean the perpetrators are black township men. We will identify “hotspots”. We will visit them. We will take our cameras and our writing pads to look at the perpetrators and write about the victims. In graphic detail, we will look at the victims and write about the perpetrators.
This is “corrective rape”. These are its rules.
We will go to the police. We will march on the council. We will, each of us, wear a different coloured T-shirt. A colour for each body. A colour for each martyr. We will lobby lawmakers. We will create special task-teams to define special crimes. We will tell them it is these rapes that matter. We will tell that it is these murders that require special laws. We will remind them that these are not normal rapes. That they are more brutal. That they are more traumatic.
This is “corrective rape”. These are its rules.
We are targets because we are gay, not because we are women. We are targets because we are gay, not because we are black. We are targets because we are gay, not because we are landless. We are targets because we are gay, not because we live in ghettoes. We are targets because we are gay. We are targets because we are gay!
This is “corrective rape”. These are its rules.
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, NGOs
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Gays, lesbians condemn 'reckless' Tsvangirai
08/03/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
THE Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) slammed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday after he told a public meeting in Harare that marriage “should be between a man and a woman”.
Tsvangirai told supporters in Glen View suburb on Wednesday night: “In the draft constitution, we said marriage is between a man and a woman. If some want to marry another from the same sex, then they have a problem. Why do you want to sleep with another man?”
The MDC-T leader’s views on homosexuality have been a moving target. Having condemned gays before, he travelled to London in October 2011 where he told the BBC that gay rights were a "human right" that conservative Zimbabweans should respect.
He told the BBC: "It's a very controversial subject in my part of the world. My attitude is that I hope the constitution will come out with freedom of sexual orientation, for as long as it does not interfere with anybody.
"To me, it's a human right.”
But the comments put Tsvangirai in direct confrontation with supporters in Zimbabwe, forcing his MDC-T party to declare that he was expressing his personal opinion in the BBC interview.
Zimbabwe is to hold a referendum on March 16 on a draft constitution. It explicitly bans same-sex marriage.
GALZ, which had campaigned for the recognition of gays, said it had been disappointed by Tsvangirai’s latest comments which it described as “reckless”.
In a statement, it said: “GALZ is of the view that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s statements fuel public prejudice against LGBTI individuals and contradict the very preamble of a draft constitution that he is seemingly promoting.
“The PM has been jolted into castigating violence in Headlands recently, however we find him equally guilty of inciting violence and advocating hatred and hate speech on the LGBTI community in Zimbabwe.”
President Robert Mugabe has railed against homosexuals, whom he famously described as “worse than pigs and dogs”.
GALZ said Tsvangirai’s latest comments proved he has failed to “uphold his commitment to human rights and the acceptance of diversity.”
Labels: GALZ, HOMOSEXUALITY, MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, NGOs
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Apartheid's 'Dr Shock' jailed for five years in Canada
05 Feb 2013 08:31 - Sapa
Aubrey Levin, known as Dr Shock after using electrotherapy to "cure" gay military conscripts, has been imprisoned for sexually abusing his patients. Aubrey Levin was known as "Dr Shock" during the apartheid era, when he headed a programme in Pretoria that aimed to 'cure' homosexual soldiers with shocktherapy. (Anti-Levin Facebook page)
Click here to find out more!
Levin (74) was sentenced in a Calgary court last Thursday, and was earlier struck off the roll of medical practitioners, the Beeld reported on Tuesday
His wife Erica was charged with defeating the ends of justice after she allegedly tried to bribe a juror in the case.
"Your patients came to you for help. Instead, you were responsible for creating more problems. This was a horrible violation of trust," court of queen's bench Justice Donna Shelley told Levin during sentencing.
Levin was found guilty on three of nine charges against him. His Canadian offences came to light in March 2010 when the original complainant showed two videos, taken on a spy camera, which showed Levin fondling his genitals.
Shelley said Levin deserved eight years in jail, but was given a reduced sentence because of his age and ill health.
Levin, who would be registered as a sex offender, was known as "Dr Shock" during the apartheid era when he headed a programme in Pretoria that aimed to "cure" homosexual soldiers with shocktherapy.
'Treating' homosexuality
According to the Daily Maverick: "Ward 22 of 1 Military Hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte, near Pretoria, was where he operated. That’s where suspected gays in the army were sent to Dr Aubrey Levin for 'treatment'.
"Levin was positively evangelical about curing homosexuality: in 1968 he wrote to Parliament asking to address its members on potential changes to the laws on homosexuality, noting that he had 'treated' many homosexuals and lesbians and enjoyed some measure of success in therapy.”
In March 2010, the Mail & Guardian reported that South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard that Levin was guilty of “gross human rights abuses”, including the chemical castration of gay men. But after arriving in Canada in 1995 he managed to suppress public discussion of his past by threatening lawsuits against news organisations that attempted to explore it.
Following the arrest, other male patients have contacted the authorities.
One, who was not identified, told CTV in Canada that he had gone to Levin for help with a gambling addiction and alleged he had been questioned about his sex life and subject to sexual advances.
Levin, who made no secret of his hard right-wing views and was a member of the ruling National Party during apartheid, has a long history of homophobia.
Still to be dealt with is a contempt charge against the offender’s wife, Erica (69), who allegedly tried to bribe a juror on January 11 by offering a female juror an envelope with cash inside in an attempt to get her to find her husband not guilty, said the Calgary Herald.
She has been under house arrest and banned from attending court until her husband’s trial was over.
Levin's legal team was expected to file an appeal within two weeks.
Labels: APARTHEID, AUBREY LEVIN, HOMOSEXUALITY, SADF
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COMMENT - Great, now if Amnesty International showed the same level of interest in ending the criminal war on drugs, we'd be even further along.
Amnesty International hails Malawi on gays stance: Historic step forward’
By Green Muheya, Nyasa Times
November 5, 2012
Human rights group Amnesty International (AI) has applauded Malawi government following the announcement by Justice Minister Ralph Kasambara that Police have been ordered not to arrest or prosecute homosexuals until parliament has debated on whether to to repeal the anti-homosexuality laws.
Kasambara made the announcement during a debate Thursday night in Lilongwe, that after President Joyce Banda made a decision that Malawians should debate the issue, all the laws that criminalise same-sex relationship are no longer in force until the matter is concluded.
Amnesty International welcomed the announcement as a "historic step" forward in the fight against discrimination in the country.
“Amnesty International welcomes Minister Kasambara's statement and hopes it serves as the first step towards ending discrimination and persecution based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity in Malawi,” said Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International's southern Africa director in a statement made available to Nyasa Times.
Gay kiss: Malawi gays cannot be arrested, for now
At present, homosexual acts carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail.
“We urge the government not to lose momentum on this basic human rights issue and to ensure the full repeal of these discriminatory and hate-filled laws,” said AI in the statement.
Malawi made world headlines in 2010 when two gay men were arrested for getting married. Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were arrested and locked up for five months during their trial and after their conviction, unti the then president Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them on May 29 amid international outrage and protests.
AI pointed out that criminalisation of individuals on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity violates Malawi's obligations under treaties it has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Malawian Constitution. These obligate Malawi to respect and protect freedom from discrimination, freedom of conscience, expression and right to privacy.
Criminalisation laws can also violate the right to health as set out under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, also ratified by Malawi.
Labels: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, HOMOSEXUALITY
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Malawi judge Mwaungulu faults shelving of anti-gay laws
By Thom Chiumia, Nyasa Times
Malawi High Court Judge Dunstain Mwaungulu, who is also an authoritative commentator on topical issues on various internet discussion forum, has spoken against the move taken by the government to suspend anti-homosexuality laws.
Under the country's penal code, men can be sentenced for up to 14 years and women to five years for homosexuality.
But Justice Minister and Attorney General Ralph Kasambara told a recent radio debate that the laws will not be “enforced until the time that parliament makes a decision” on whether to reapl them or not.
Mwaungulu, in his post on Nyasanet and Facebook, said the move to suspend the laws “is an affront to constitutional law theory.”
Mwaungulu : Only parliament can suspend laws
He posted: “Unless the Penal Code provides for the Minister or the President to suspend laws, the Attorney General and the President cannot suspend the operation of laws.”
The judge, who was writing in his personal capacity, argues that if the attorney general is seen to do this in this particular case, “the society has no guarantee that the public defender may suspend other laws at the whims of his finger.”
Added Justice Mwaungulu: “That is dangerous. Only Parliament can suspend the operation of laws!”
He is accusing the President and the Attorney General of wasting everybody’s time.
“This matter need not go to Parliament. Our parliament will be using political arguments to a fairness question”.
He also says the matter must go to the constitutional court through a criminal prosecution, which the Attorney General has “by his action stopped!”
Mwaungulu has highlighted several arguments to this regard:
I think arrest someone, get him to court and let the constitutionality of the law be examined without any debate. It is unnecessary to start debating on a minority issue
the matter must go to the constitutional court through a relator, our Attorney General is a relator, he can challenge a law, like this that puts a sector of a community under jeopardy.
The matter must go to the constitutional court through a referral by the President to the constitutional court
A citizen just taking an action and say that a right may be violated by the legislation.
Mwaungulu pointed out that the government’s “action or decision” to suspend the law instead of having its determines by the courts “is potentially reviwable by the courts.”
Abolish sodomy law
Mwaungulu, known for his high profile case determinations, is on record arguing that Malawi should also consider abolishing sodomy law.
“The sodomy law is not a gay law. It is a criminal law and common law crime based on that sodomy, annal sex, is an unnatural offence like bestiality. All of us would be very reprehensible when a man has sex with a cow! But sodomy, unfortunately is possible even if you are not gay,” he argues.
“Unfortunately, sodomy, and we Judges take judicial notice occurs very frequently as normal sexual behaviour among the married, prisoners etc., who may be heterosexual. It is more incident among gays where it is their way of sexual expression.
“From a theological perspective, the church regards homosexuality as sin much like adultery, but the church does not support criminalization. More when the matter is open to public debate when the law is repealed.”
Malawi made world headlines in 2010 when two gay men were arrested for getting married. Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were arrested and locked up for five months during their trial and after their conviction, unti the then president Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them on May 29 amid international outrage and protests
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY
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Churches against gay rights in draft constitution
This article was written by Our reporter on 7 September, at 01 : 32 AM
CHURCHES have vowed to mobilise their followers countrywide to vote against the draft Constitution at the referendum if the document does not outlaw homosexuality and same-sex marriages.
This follows revelations by Copac co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana that Copac deliberately left the draft vague on homosexuality after failing to agree on whether or not to outlaw it.
Mangwana’s sentiments were echoed by MDC-T policy director Eddie Cross who confirmed his party’s pro-gay stance during a discussion on Star FM on Wednesday night.
“As a party, we are not prepared to criminalise homosexuality because we think 10 percent of our population have homosexual tendencies,” Cross said adding, “We think that criminalisation of personal practices and preference is a violation of human rights.
“We fundamentally differ with Zanu-PF because they want to criminalise homosexuality.”
Cross confirmed his party’s intention to make the Constitution remain silent on homosexuality.
The National Statistical Report, that contains the views of the people, says 76 percent of Zimbabweans want homosexuality outlawed.
Church leaders said they backed Zanu-PF’s amendments to the draft.
In its proposed amendments, Zanu-PF wants clause 4.35 that covers Marriage Rights to include two new sections (4) and (5) to read as follows: “(4) Same-sex marriages are prohibited; and ‘‘(5) Homosexuality, gays and lesbian practices are prohibited’’.
The churches say the proposed new Constitution should clarify that Zimbabwe does not condone homosexuality.
“As the church, we have never been for homosexuality and we want it clarified in the draft Constitution that it is outlawed,” said Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe president and spokesperson Dr Goodwill Shana.
“The current draft doesn’t have a provision where homosexuality is outlawed. We want it amended.”
Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe leader Bishop Trevor Manhanga, said churches would mobilise people to vote against the draft at the referendum if the amendment was not effected.
“If they don’t clarify in the Constitution that homosexuality is outlawed, then we won’t vote for it and we will mobilise our people to vote NO.
“We applaud Zanu-PF for coming up with amendments in line with what the people said. We don’t want a situation where people will go to the court because the law is silent.
“It is better that we answer that question in the beginning than to have people flooding our courts,” Bishop Manhanga said.
Bishop Joshua Chiwenda of Revival Ministries International said: “If they want to bring a draft without those amendments then the church will campaign for a NO vote.
“There is no negotiation on that matter because homosexuality is an abomination before God and our culture.
“We want the amendments by Zanu-PF on homosexuality to be incorporated in the draft Constitution. We want it to be clearly outlined that homosexuality is outlawed.
“It must be outlined that according to the Word of God and culture, homosexuality is outlawed. These things are being peddled by the New World Order because they are fighting God,” Bishop Manhanga said.
Pastor Alwyn Bizure of Adonai Ministries said: “We want the draft Constitution to clearly spell out that homosexuality is outlawed.”
The Constitution-making process has been referred to the Principals of the Global Political Agreement who are now seized with the process.
The MDC formations have, however, endorsed the Copac draft with MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai announcing that they will soon launch a “Yes” campaign.
Labels: CONSTITUTION, COPAC, HOMOSEXUALITY
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Shock at lesbian couple cheat video
11/07/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
THIS video posted on YouTube shows the dramatic moment trust was shattered between a Zimbabwean lesbian couple who exchanged vows in a civil ceremony in England last year.
The video, circulated on social networks among Zimbabweans in the United Kingdom since Tuesday, is believed to have been shot at a house in Manchester which is shared by Nicky Chigoba Chalenga and her lesbian partner, Chido Chalenga.
New Zimbabwe.com has confirmed that the voice on the video is that of Nicky, who walks in to find her partner pleasuring their married friend, Brenda Muchi Soko, with their SEX TOYS. Nicky, with her mobile video camera rolling, confronts the pair.
“Brenda what are you doing in my house, and with Chido in my bed? What’s going on guys?,” she asks the shamed cheaters.
Chido stares at her while Brenda, who lives with her husband nearby, covers herself with a duvet.
Her voice cracking with emotion, Nicky pulls the duvet from the two while continuing her running commentary.
“Using our sex toys? Haa? What’s going on guys? Brenda, how could you? Chido, how could you? What’s going on? Is this the love you were talking about Brenda? With our sex toys?”
As Chido scrambles to cover herself with a pillow, Nicky then introduces the cheating pair to "everyone".
“Hi everyone, this is my wife and our so-called friend Brenda Muchi Gadzi Soko, **** *****’s wife, with my partner Chido Chalenga in bed,” she says before the video terminates.
Nicky told our correspondent on Wednesday that she had shared the video with Brenda’s husband and was not responsible for circulating it. She begged us to “let it die a natural death”.
And writing on her Facebook Wall, brave Nicky signalled she was ready to move on.
She said: “When you hold resentment, hate and anger toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel.
“Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”
Brenda, who was a member of a woman-only Facebook group called 'Dandaro NemaGirls', said: "I am sure you are all aware of what has happened, everything is now in the public eye and and I'm sorry to everyone on the group and the parties involved, my family and close close friends.
"I must take complete responsibility for my actions both public and private... As much as I wanted this to just go away and handle it privately, I can't.
"It has come out that I had an inappropriate relationship with a friend's partner, it's true. I'm sorry for the hurt that has been caused and I take full responsibility. It was wrong... I am human and make mistakes and this is one of them."
Nicky and Chido are among the first Zimbabwean lesbians anywhere in the world to enter into a civil partnership. They have a child together via a sperm donor.
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, YOUTUBE
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President speaks on gays
Emilia Zindi
President Mugabe has scoffed at calls for the inclusion of so-called gay rights in the country’s constitution, saying such lobbying was misplaced, not only in Zimbabwe but also in the rest of Africa. Addressing participants at the high-level meeting of the Global Power Women Network Africa in Harare on Thursday, the
Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said women were the ones who bear children. The meeting was organised in collaboration with the African Union and UNAIDS.
“She, and she alone, has the womb. I do not know what others in the gay world believe in. We do not believe in that in Africa,” he said.
“The task to bear a child is for the women. It does not belong to men.
“Even in the Bible, it tells us that God created Adam and, so, the Lord Almighty gave him a different species, and that was a species with a womb, a woman.
“If all women in the world stop bearing children, we will be extinguished. Men are not women and we, as men, have our own ways of looking at women.’’
Cde Mugabe said it was unfortunate that some African customs made women seem inferior. Zimbabwe has, however, gone an extra mile to change the status quo by enacting various laws that recognise the role of women in society, he said.
The President said women can now share and inherit property in terms of property rights enshrined in the constitution.
Cde Mugabe bemoaned the increase in the abuse of the girl child.
“When the police give us reports regarding crime, we hear that in Mashonaland West, Matabeleland, etc, men are raping a girl child as young as three or four years old.
“We must say thank you to women in Zimbabwe for all they have done during our hard times due to the economic sanctions imposed on us by Europe and America which have affected families.
“We respect them and certainly wish them to have better treatment from us, politically.’’
President Mugabe hoped for equal parliamentary representation.
“The problem will be how to get that 50-50 representation as parties are sceptical to have candidates along that basis. The men will say we cannot have these women. Affirmative action will be the answer because squaring it up in constituencies . . . women will lose.’’
Labels: CONSTITUTION, HOMOSEXUALITY, ROBERT MUGABE
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Malawi's Banda vows to lift gay ban
21/05/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
MALAWI President Joyce Banda is seeking to repeal the law which bans homosexuality in her country. Banda, who assumed the presidency in April, has embarked on a charm offensive to repair relations with key Western donors which were left frayed by her predecessor, Bingu wa Mutharika.
Mutharika died in office in April. Banda, who was vice president, stepped in to serve out his term which ends in 2014.
"Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed," she said in her first state of the nation address.
But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote, and it is unclear how much political support Banda would have for sweeping changes in her conservative country.
Malawi faced international condemnation for the conviction and 14-year prison sentences given in 2010 to two men who were arrested after celebrating their engagement. They had been charged with committing "unnatural acts" and "gross indecency".
Mutharika pardoned the couple on "humanitarian grounds only" while insisting they had "committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws."
Banda’s speech was welcomed by human rights activists, but they cautioned getting the necessary backing from parliament will not be easy.
"The issue of homosexuality has been a contentious issue," said human rights activist Undule Mwakasungula. "Definitely it will raise controversy in parliament."
Banda said her government wants to normalise relations with "our traditional development partners who were uncomfortable with our bad laws."
Britain has already called for urgent action to prevent a Greece-style financial crisis in Malawi after problems Banda inherited and her recent abrupt currency devaluation left the new government with a gaping hole in its budget.
The 33 percent currency devaluation - although widely recommended by economists - has put huge strain on the treasury, and on many ordinary Malawians, as the price of imported goods has soared.
"Malawi is at a crossroads today and action in three to six months may be too late," said Andrew Mitchell, Britain's Secretary of State for Development.
The UK was among those which suspended direct aid to Malawi last year after Mutharika expelled the country's envoy for publicly criticising him.
Banda conceded that the country needed urgent help.
"We need a lot of support, very quickly - in the region of $500 million," she said, while insisting that the country’s problems would be resolved.
"We have moved quickly. The situation was self-made therefore things can be corrected - and the good thing is that we know what to do.”
Western diplomats have warned of the possibility of economic collapse and a backlash against President Banda, if the situation isn't handled firmly and fast.
"An inflationary spiral is a real threat - if the economy collapses, Banda will lose support and political instability could follow. The cost of rescuing Malawi will be much more expensive than supporting it now," said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, JOYCE BANDA, NEOLIBERALISM
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Draft constitution triggers new gay storm
08/05/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
THE Parliamentary committee leading the country’s constitutional reforms (COPAC) has triggered yet another storm over homosexuality after including in its latest draft a clause that critics say could be used to guarantee gay rights.
A draft released in February included a controversial reference to “natural differences” which had been rejected by the majority of Zimbabweans during the constitutional outreach exercise.
But the new draft released last week replaced the contested phrase with ‘‘circumstances of birth’’ which legal experts and political analysts said was still open to manipulation by gay rights activists.
Said Harare lawyer Jonathan Samukange told the Herald: “Circumstances of birth may include sexual orientation because those people can actually go to court and challenge any discrimination based on that clause.
Vague
“That is how other countries end up having gay rights in their constitutions, it won’t be clearly stated for instance the South African constitution provides for non-discrimination and that is used by the gays.
“This provision in our draft I think is actually intended to cover up for homosexuality and the moment it’s in the constitution then it will be used by the gays.”
Another Harare lawyer Terence Hussein added: “The clause itself is vague, it will need to be clarified by the courts because someone can argue that they were born with a particular sexual orientation and demand that they not be discriminated against.
Tsholotsho North MP, Jonathan Moyo whose Zanu PF party is opposed to the inclusion of gay rights in the constitution said it was scandalous that COPAC was resorting to “trickery and deceit” in a bid to protect homosexuality.
Trickery
“It is scandalously revealing that the latest Copac draft constitution released last week has resorted to trickery and deceit in a desperate but ill-fated attempt to retain and entrench homosexuality by mischievously hiding it under the cover of a new seemingly innocuous and yet loaded phrase of ‘circumstances of birth’ which has replaced the roundly rejected phrase of ‘natural difference’ which was controversially included in the February Copac draft,” he said.
“What is very offensive about this is that the people of Zimbabwe specifically and vociferously rejected the constitutional protection of homosexuality during the Copac outreach programme.
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“The fact that homosexuality has come back in a foolishly hidden way in the latest draft demonstrates beyond any doubt that the Copac co-chairs, who have taken ownership of the draft in the name of a negotiated consensus, are contemptuous of the people’s views and proves that the MDC-T, which has been very vocal in support of the latest draft, is fully behind the latest sinister trick to entrench homosexuality in the Copac draft constitution against the very clear views of the people of Zimbabwe who have spoken in their great numbers against homosexuality.”
But former Attorney General, Andrew Chigovere said in his view there was nothing wrong with clause in question.
Interpretation
“If provisions are written in such a way that is susceptible to many interpretations, then we may have problems but as far as I understand this clause, it is not about homosexuality but the manner in which one is born,” he said.
“We may have a situation where one is born by an insane person and those are the circumstances of birth that are being talked about.
“We already have a provision for marriage being between people of opposite sex so it is not possible for someone to claim that homosexuality is provided for. The only thing gays can do is to argue that the provision on marriage is discriminatory in the sense that it talks of people being of opposite (sex).”
Zimbabwe is currently writing a new constitution as part of a raft of political reforms expected to culminate in fresh elections to choose a substantive government.
But the critics have dismissed the process, already delayed by constant bickering between parties to the coalition government, as a costly failure with many insisting the exercise should be abandoned.
Said Harare academic Ibbo Mandaza last week: “Copac got its mandate through … the Global Political Agreement (GPA) wherein the three political parties agreed it should lead the drafting of a new constitution for Zimbabwe.
“Herein lies the first problem: a political tri-partisanship that has proved almost fatal for Copac and in general accounts for the incessant bickering therein, the failure to complete work within the stipulated 12 months and the obscene budget of US$45 million!
“Copac has so far succeeded most in affording constitution-making a negative image. A laughing stock perhaps! But Zimbabweans in general are no more informed about constitutionality under Copac than they were in 2000 when the draft constitution was rejected, for the wrong reasons, in that referendum.
“To be fair, people have become cynical about constitution-making, let alone about Copac.”
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, MDC
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Draft constitution triggers new gay storm
08/05/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
THE Parliamentary committee leading the country’s constitutional reforms (COPAC) has triggered yet another storm over homosexuality after including in its latest draft a clause that critics say could be used to guarantee gay rights.
A draft released in February included a controversial reference to “natural differences” which had been rejected by the majority of Zimbabweans during the constitutional outreach exercise.
But the new draft released last week replaced the contested phrase with ‘‘circumstances of birth’’ which legal experts and political analysts said was still open to manipulation by gay rights activists.
Said Harare lawyer Jonathan Samukange told the Herald: “Circumstances of birth may include sexual orientation because those people can actually go to court and challenge any discrimination based on that clause.
Vague
“That is how other countries end up having gay rights in their constitutions, it won’t be clearly stated for instance the South African constitution provides for non-discrimination and that is used by the gays.
“This provision in our draft I think is actually intended to cover up for homosexuality and the moment it’s in the constitution then it will be used by the gays.”
Another Harare lawyer Terence Hussein added: “The clause itself is vague, it will need to be clarified by the courts because someone can argue that they were born with a particular sexual orientation and demand that they not be discriminated against.
Tsholotsho North MP, Jonathan Moyo whose Zanu PF party is opposed to the inclusion of gay rights in the constitution said it was scandalous that COPAC was resorting to “trickery and deceit” in a bid to protect homosexuality.
Trickery
“It is scandalously revealing that the latest Copac draft constitution released last week has resorted to trickery and deceit in a desperate but ill-fated attempt to retain and entrench homosexuality by mischievously hiding it under the cover of a new seemingly innocuous and yet loaded phrase of ‘circumstances of birth’ which has replaced the roundly rejected phrase of ‘natural difference’ which was controversially included in the February Copac draft,” he said.
“What is very offensive about this is that the people of Zimbabwe specifically and vociferously rejected the constitutional protection of homosexuality during the Copac outreach programme.
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“The fact that homosexuality has come back in a foolishly hidden way in the latest draft demonstrates beyond any doubt that the Copac co-chairs, who have taken ownership of the draft in the name of a negotiated consensus, are contemptuous of the people’s views and proves that the MDC-T, which has been very vocal in support of the latest draft, is fully behind the latest sinister trick to entrench homosexuality in the Copac draft constitution against the very clear views of the people of Zimbabwe who have spoken in their great numbers against homosexuality.”
But former Attorney General, Andrew Chigovere said in his view there was nothing wrong with clause in question.
Interpretation
“If provisions are written in such a way that is susceptible to many interpretations, then we may have problems but as far as I understand this clause, it is not about homosexuality but the manner in which one is born,” he said.
“We may have a situation where one is born by an insane person and those are the circumstances of birth that are being talked about.
“We already have a provision for marriage being between people of opposite sex so it is not possible for someone to claim that homosexuality is provided for. The only thing gays can do is to argue that the provision on marriage is discriminatory in the sense that it talks of people being of opposite (sex).”
Zimbabwe is currently writing a new constitution as part of a raft of political reforms expected to culminate in fresh elections to choose a substantive government.
But the critics have dismissed the process, already delayed by constant bickering between parties to the coalition government, as a costly failure with many insisting the exercise should be abandoned.
Said Harare academic Ibbo Mandaza last week: “Copac got its mandate through … the Global Political Agreement (GPA) wherein the three political parties agreed it should lead the drafting of a new constitution for Zimbabwe.
“Herein lies the first problem: a political tri-partisanship that has proved almost fatal for Copac and in general accounts for the incessant bickering therein, the failure to complete work within the stipulated 12 months and the obscene budget of US$45 million!
“Copac has so far succeeded most in affording constitution-making a negative image. A laughing stock perhaps! But Zimbabweans in general are no more informed about constitutionality under Copac than they were in 2000 when the draft constitution was rejected, for the wrong reasons, in that referendum.
“To be fair, people have become cynical about constitution-making, let alone about Copac.”
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, MDC
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COMMENT - I'm not gay (if I was, I'd say so), however this article is important in understanding the Republican party's tactics during elections. It may also shed a light on what is going on in Uganda with regards to 'The Family' and introducing all kinds of anti-gay, very draconian, but if you examine it closely, un-Constitutional criminal bills. (Read Article 21 of the Ugandan Constitution, which goes very far in protecting civil liberties.)
Secret documents reveal anti-gay marriage group planned to divide gay and black voters
by Christopher Brocklebank for PinkNews.co.uk
27 March 2012, 4:36pm
Maine, where the documents were revealed in court this weekConfidential documents made public in a court in the state of Maine yesterday revealed the leading opponents of same-sex marriage planned to defeat campaigns by “fanning the hostility” between black and gay voters and by casting President Obama as a radical enemy of marriage.
The documents, circulated by the LGBT rights group Human Rights Campaign, were marked “confidential” and contained details of the internal strategy of the National Organisation for Marriage (NOM).
An internal report on the 2008 and 2009 campaigns, in a section titled “Not a Civil Rights Project” stated: “The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key Democratic constituencies”.
It continued: “Find, equip, energise and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots”.
The document also targets Hispanic voters, who Republicans have long placed hope in as allies against gay rights:
“The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity – a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation”.
The Human Rights Campaign’s Media Director, Kevin Nix, who has fought NOM for many years now, said: “Nothing beats hearing from the horse’s mouth exactly how callous and extremist this group really is.”
The documents also outlined NOM’s plans for the 2012 presidential election race, including a strategy that “requires defeating the pro-gay Obama agenda” and a $1 million plan in conjunction with the conservative American Principles Project to “expose Obama as a social radical.”
This section, titled Sideswiping Obama, suggested raising “side issues” – including pornography – to attack the Democrats.
The group also sought to identify “victims” of same-sex marriage, such as children raised in gay households — using a budget of $120,000 to locate “children of gay parents willing to speak on camera.”
The documents came to light in a dispute over campaign financing under Maine law, and also include detailed 2009 budget plans for the group. So far, NOM’s spokeswoman has not responded to emails seeking comments.
Labels: CHRISTIANITY, HOMOSEXUALITY
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The US will continue to assist the government, even if the authorities refuse to legalise gay rights in Zambia-Schwartz
TIME PUBLISHED - Saturday, March 3, 2012, 7:27 am
THE United States (US) deputy chief of mission to Zambia Stephen Schwartz has said that his government has not asked the Zambian government to legalise gay rights as a pre-condition to receiving aid.
He said the US government’s provision of development aid to Zambia is on the basis of commitment to poverty reduction, respect for human rights and good governance.
Mr Schwartz said the US government engages in regular dialogue with Zambia to monitor its commitment to poverty reduction and other areas.
“The US government’s provision of development assistance to the Government of Zambia is on the basis of its overall commitment to reducing poverty, respecting human rights, improving public financial management, fighting corruption and promoting good governance and transparency,” he said.
Mr Schwartz said the US raises issues with governments when there are serious and systematic violations of human rights.
He said to date, the issue of gay rights has not arisen with the Zambian government, adding that the US will continue to assist the Zambian government, even if the authorities refuse to legalise gay rights in Zambia.
“My government will not cut aid to Zambia and what I can say at the moment is that our development aid to Zambia has increased and we will continue to assist Zambia as we promote human rights for all the people,” Mr Schwartz said.
His comment follows calls by United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon that the Zambian government should discourage discrimination against anyone, based on sexual orientation.
Mr Schwartz said this in Lusaka during the week when he held a governance and public dialogue meeting with students at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA).
[Zambia Daily Mail]
Labels: AMBASSADOR, BAN KI-MOON, HOMOSEXUALITY, UN, USA
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COMMENT - There is something very uncool about foreigners flying in and declaring the protection of one type of rights as the key to actual human and civil rights. Remember that through the criminal code, homosexuality is illegal in former British colonies to begin with, because upto 1981 (Northern Ireland) it was illegal in Britain itself. I have no problem with the anti-discrimination clause of the respective constitutions changing 'sex' to 'sexual orientation', however, making a big show of it feels like a colonial imposition of 'norms and values' and frankly emphasises the foreign nature of this imposition. Besides, I think that UNAIDS is a criminal organisation, and it's management should be prosecuted for fraud. That should be the Secretary General's priority.
UN chief’s gay speech torches storm
Wednesday, 29 February 2012 00:00
LUSAKA — UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon may have flown out of Zambia after a two-day official visit, but he has left raging controversy over his call for the southern African nation to respect and uphold gay rights.
The UN chief has touched a thorny issue in this conservative southern African nation that has left people wondering why he should come all the way to advocate homosexuality. Social network sites such as Facebook are awash with debate on Ban’s statement.
“A diplomat comes to a very peaceful country which is facing poverty, cholera, typhoid, unemployment and forgets all that and focuses on sexual orientation,” Stephen Mudoma, a Zambian journalist, wrote on his Facebook page.
Most Zambians did not take kindly to the UN chief’s speech.
During his address to parliament, Ban said, “Now you have embarked on a transformation agenda, a process for a people-driven constitution that will be a foundation for Zambia’s progress, a constitution that will stand the test of time.
“This offers Zambia an opportunity to lead once more by enshrining the highest standards of human rights and protection for all people regardless of race, religion, gender, sex orientation or disability.”
The Zambia Rainbow Coalition, a local non-governmental organisation, has since asked Ban to apologise for trying to knit into the country’s moral fibre, vices that are offensive.
The organisation has described the secretary-general’s move to promote homosexuality in Zambia as an act of trying to force foreign “cultures in exchange for aid” and noted that this is a new form of colonialism.
“It is with utter displeasure that we the Zambia Rainbow Coalition note that the historic visit of the UN secretary-general was to be an ambassador of colonialism and not development.
“We would like to categorically state that in Zambia we have our own morals and culture and we believe that homosexuality is not part of our culture,” the organisation’s programme director Malekano Mwanza said in a statement.
Homosexuality, he said, is like all other mental diseases which need to be treated through an array of rehabilitative approaches. — Xinhua.
Labels: BAN KI-MOON, HOMOSEXUALITY, UN
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Mugabe tells youths to shun Western values, gays
Birthday boy ... President Robert Mugabe arrives at Mutare's Sakubva stadium
25/02/2012 00:00:00
by Agencies
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe wound up a week of celebrations marking his 88th birthday with a lavish gathering Saturday, where he urged the nation’s youth to shun Western values, homosexuality and greed.
Mugabe, hosting a celebration in the eastern city of Mutare, said some African leaders have become “weak and naive” and thought only of material gains when “kneeling” to Westerners.
Organizers from his Zanu PF party said 20,000 people gathered at a Mutare sports stadium Saturday for his annual bash targeted at the country’s youth.
A cake baked in Harare was taken to Mutare under police escort, and livestock were slaughtered for the event.
Regional party official Charles Samuriwo told reporters that businesses made “sufficient” donations and “no one will go back home on an empty stomach.”
In a nationwide broadcast of the event, Mugabe said it was up to the young to “carry the torch in the future” and maintain a high standard of moral and sexual behavior.
He said that unacceptable Western values included same-sex marriages.
“We reject that outright and say to hell with you,” he said in a nationwide broadcast of the event.
"You David Cameron, are you suggesting that you don't know that or is it some kind of insanity or part of the culture of Europeans.
"In their newspapers, that's one of my sins. That I called (gays) worse than pigs and dogs because pigs know there are males and females.
“I won't even call him a dog because my own dog will complain and say, but what have I done. It's even in the Bible that you create through the system of marrying. That's how we were born, so we reject that outright and say to hell with you.
“You are free as a man to marry a woman and that is what we follow. That’s what produced you and me. This kind of insanity is now part of the culture” of Europe and the United States, he added.
Mugabe told Zimbabwe’s young that the fight against Western influence still had to be fought.
“You must go to the head of the imperialist and knock out his brain,” he said, cautioning them also against to “any love for money than is greater than your political conscience.”
In nearly four hours of birthday broadcasts this week, Mugabe said he would call elections this year to end a shaky coalition government with the former opposition of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai, who was not in Mutare, insisted Friday that elections can only be held next year after constitutional and election reforms have been completed.
Mugabe said Saturday those opposing early polls “know they will lose if we go to elections this year.”
Tsvangirai on Friday described the three-year coalition with Mugabe, formed after disputed and violent elections in 2008, as a “painful and sorrowful experience” and said he will “resist” elections being held in 2012.
He said Mugabe wasn’t to be trusted in power-sharing as “we have a president who indicates left and turns right.”
Mugabe, whose birthday was Tuesday, said he had been showered with gifts, blessings and prayers from home and abroad, and that support from his countrymen “warms my heart and invigorates me.”
Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Full text: Mugabe's 88th birthday interview
21/02/2012 00:00:00
by Tazzen Mandizvidza I ZBC
President Robert Mugabe turned 88 on Tuesday. The following is the transcript of an interview with the state-run ZBC General Manager News and Current Affairs, Tazzen Mandizvidza, broadcast on Monday night:
TM: Your Excellency, thank you for being with us on this special programme.
President Mugabe: Thank you!
TM: Ndakamirira mhuri yeZBC ndingatange ndichiti makorokoto, amhlope, congratulations.
President Mugabe: Aiwa ndeedu tose. Kwete pamakore asi mufaro wacho.
TM: Your Excellency, one issue that has been talked about for quite sometime is the issue of the Constitution. It has taken longer than we all thought but are you really happy with the progress?
President Mugabe: Not really. It’s a process that is puzzling us now. When we begun we thought it was a matter of 18 months and we have an election. But as things look now, one doesn’t know what’s happening and one doesn’t know which way people would want us to go.
There is the dragging of feet, so much delay in the process. I don’t know what the real problem is but as others describe the problem, they think those who are charged with the task of putting ideas together, examining what the people said during the outreach programme are dragging their feet deliberately.
They want longer time, longer time because it means more money. They are given allowances. They are being paid and if the process comes to an end, so does naturally, the payment. It comes to an end.
I don’t know it, that is, the reason, whether it’s because the people who are at the top of it want a longer period to earn money or there are some problems.
But, I would want to believe that one problem is that some people or shall I say, one or two parties to the constitution-making process might now have discovered that this way of the constitution making is not in their favour and that the views that were obtained during the outreach programme are not in their favour.
They are not supportive of their parties and so they are dragging and dragging and dragging on, either to confound the process or to get the other side to tire and give up the exercise and the exercise doesn’t happen at all.
So one wonders why we abandoned, in the first place, the process that we had agreed on that this was going to be based on the Kariba Draft, which was all ready, all agreed and enunciating, you know, the process, which could have been completed in a short period. But we listened to our counterparties that it was better to listen to the people first.
To get a comprehensive view from our nation and on the basis of the views that would have been expressed, build a constitution.
But this is not proving to be a success at all.
TM: Your counterparts in the Global Political Agreement are actually accusing Zanu-PF. They say Zanu-PF is causing the delays because it’s afraid of elections.
President Mugabe: No! We want elections, we wanted them yesterday, we want them today, we want them any day, but others are saying no, no, no, we can’t have elections.
First, they were saying 2012, now they are saying in 2013. But perhaps when we get much further without elections they will say no elections at all; let us remain in power without elections.
TM: Your Excellency, looking at this scenario, when are we likely to have elections?
President Mugabe: Yes, sure; this year! We just must have elections. They just must take place with or without a new constitution.
And we will, on our side as a party, we have made a decision, last year at our conference that this year we definitely have an election exercise. If others don’t want to have an election then they are free not to participate.
Nobody is forced to go to an election but definitely I will exercise my presidential powers in accordance with the main principal law, the Constitution of our country and announce when the election will take place. And I will do this.
TM: But looking at the process that we have been going through with the help of our brothers from the Sadc region. If, for example, we have elections and the other parties boycott, what will likely be the result? How would Sadc react?
President Mugabe: Well, we will tell Sadc what the problem is and Sadc can’t compel us to continue an exercise which is futile and I am sure there is greater wisdom on the part of Sadc. And anyway, the GPA states that a party can resign, completely reject it and once a rejection takes place, we revert back to our Constitution, which all these years we have based ourselves and it becomes the basis of our election.
TM: Your Excellency, are you telling us that Zanu-PF is likely to withdraw from the GPA if this does come to an end?
President Mugabe: No, no, no! All I am saying is that Zanu-PF will withdraw from the GPA if others continue with these dirty tricks. We can’t have them anymore. We can’t put up with them anymore.
Anyway, what I should say is, last week, the principals — that is the other two and myself — Tsvangirai, Mutambara and myself decided that we be provided with the draft constitution, that the management should present that to us.
We got the draft (but) we haven’t looked at it yet and we would want to see what the draft says but I am told the draft is not yet reviewed by the management committee and so it’s a draft which we can’t base any definite views of our own.
The other part which should look at the draft hasn’t done so and hasn’t presented it to us as a reviewed draft. But it’s just a raw draft directly from the drafters. All we can do is just look at and perhaps see what the drafters have put together and give time to our management committee to look at it and present a reviewed version of it.
Now we had decided that once we have looked at the draft having been looked at, first, by the management committee, we will then decide on the road map. We the principals and I think none of us is for any undue postponement of elections. No!
TM: Your Excellency, what is this roadmap? What should the nation expect?
President Mugabe: They should expect a referendum, a referendum to get the people’s views, whether the people accept the draft constitution or not.
If they reject it then we revert to the old constitution, if they accept then the usual process takes place. Parliament must also endorse it and then it becomes a legal document after it has been passed by Parliament and we can go for an election. If it’s rejected then of course, announce the process that should take place.
TM: Your Excellency, talking of the draft constitution, there have been reports that there is a certain clause that has been put there in order to bar you from contesting as a presidential candidate by limiting terms of office.
President Mugabe: Cowards, cowards, cowards! Why are they afraid of me? Why should they ban anyone at all?
We haven’t come to a position where political tricks or legal tricks, for that matter are put in place to bar anyone, who normally has the right to participate in an election.
TM: Still on elections, is Zanu PF ready for elections? I am saying this in light of the factionalism we hear about. Are you prepared as a party?
President Mugabe: Well I don’t know anything about factionalism. You always get differences in a party. I suppose this makes the process. It’s always the fact of differences, we have contradictions. We must resolve these contradictions, move forward and you move forward, you will also encounter new contradictions, new differences and also have solutions and that’s how progress is made, isn’t it?
It always comes after such contradictions provided solutions do occur in regard to them. Yes, yes, yes the party is always ready, ever ready. This means we are always ready to fight.
TM: Your Excellency, what calibre of a leader would you want to succeed you and at the moment can you say you have found that successor?
President Mugabe: NO! The party will find a successor. It’s the people who can find a successor. I came from the people and the people in their wisdom, our members of the party, will certainly select someone once I say I am now retiring, but not yet.
At this age I can still go some distance, can’t I?
TM: Zanu-PF has been in power for the past 32 years, what do you offer the electorate?
President Mugabe: What do we offer the electorate? Goodness me! Independence gave us political freedom and we say that political freedom can not be complete unless we have sovereignty over our natural resources and we started by exercising the right, sovereign right, in acquiring our land and apportioning it to our people and so the first step was for us to feel that we are not just politically sovereign.
That we are also economically sovereign and the first step as I said was that of acquiring the ownership of our land and getting it from the British settlers and put it into the hands of Zimbabweans. That sovereignty over the land resources! But that’s not all. The land question is just one area. There are other areas which are economic. We must exercise our sovereignty also in regard to, you know, the economic sector.
And not that the agriculture sector is not part of the economic sector, it is!
But you have also mining, manufacturing sector. You have the infrastructure and that sovereignty has not yet based itself. Therefore, now with our law on indigenisation and empowerment, we will want to ensure that our people also have the ownership of the resources that lie underneath.
That way the mining sector is meaningful. It was not meaningful all along because there is a process where it is owned by outsiders but we want the resources to remain in our hands even though we are ready, we are prepared that those who will be partners with us should have a share of our resources, not ownership, but of the benefit that comes from our resources.
And that is why the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act was passed and this requires that whatever companies undertake mining in the country or any manufacturing exercise or any other socio-economic activity; if these companies are foreign, they must cede at least 51 percent.
This should belong to the people of Zimbabwe either to the Government and Government acting on behalf of the people and that’s part of indigenisation also and so this is an exercise we are working on now.
The land has come, now the minerals must also come and manufactured products must also belong to us and of course we have the infrastructure, we have the telecommunication and other communication activities.
The programmes that are due to take place, we want our people and all those to participate as owners and shareholders but particularly owners in that regard on their own.
Yes we will continue to produce people with skills in that they work, become workers, they become labourers in some cases but they must be owners of their own resources, owners of these enterprises. Be entrepreneurial, in attitude, in their disposition, generally not expect that outsiders will come into the country and develop the country for us and do it at our own expense.
When we get the benefit of being workers and nothing more than workers and then at the end of the day what comes to us is that which the State gets by way of taxation. That must stop now!
TM: Just out of curiosity, Your Excellency, draft constitution ikauya kwamuri mukaona ma issues amusingafarire, do you have the authority ekubvisa?
President Mugabe: Tinoramba. Ehe, tinobvisa. Ko togoregererei? Nhai, nhai, nhai! It’s a draft constitution and we will say this we do not want. If for example, you have in the constitution kuti ngavatemwe makumbo, vanenge vaba, ngavatemwe makumbo. Aiwa zve tinoramba. Kana homosexualism zvese tinobvisa.
TM: Let’s move away from elections and the party. Let’s look at the GPA. Are you happy with the progress that you have made?
President Mugabe: I am happy with the fact that it has managed to at least get us together with the other parties so they can participate in Government and have a feel of what Government is and also be exposed to the public. Now that the public knows what Zanu-PF stands for, MDC-T, M, N or whatever they call themselves; what these stand for.
I am sure no one can deceive the public anymore by hiding their own views and ideas because they have not yet entered the arena but they are now in the arena and the people can see who speaks sense and who speaks nonsense and who is better behaved. And who is guilty of misbehaviour and so on and so forth.
So we are there for the people. It has also enabled us, and it is one good thing it has done; the GPA enabled us to work together, know each other. We are parties and perhaps cease regarding ourselves as enemies but regard each other as opponents.
People, yes, with differences among themselves, ideological differences, political differences.
Differences in approach to definite issues and therefore people who can tolerate each other and at the end of the day we are Zimbabweans. All of us so that is very important and it’s important to our people that we may differ politically, religiously even ethnically. Differ in various other ways but we are all Zimbabweans and that is what counts much more than anything else.
It counts much more than your ethnicity, it counts much more than your political affinity and much more than any other — ism that you may have that you are a Zimbabwean national, Zimbabwean citizen, mwana wevhu; singing one national anthem and waving one flag. That is what must always guide us; that these differences are really artificial.
But one thing that we can never deny an individual, no matter what dress he is wearing, no matter what religion he belongs to, what tribe he belongs to, is the nationality.
The fact that he is a Zimbabwean. That is the son or daughter of the soil. So that is very important and that is also the source of the other principles that derive there; the fact that we are one.
Must we hate each other because we belong to different religions and bodies or because we are of different tribes or different parties? No!
But yes, we may oppose each other and oppose each other quite firmly. But must we unleash violence to each other? That must stop of course. No violence.
That is what the GPA has taught all of us and we are also very happy that our national healing exercise, as there is an organ which is led by Vice President John Nkomo, and each championing this, you know, campaign of getting people to understand each other, appreciate each, one another, sons and daughters of Zimbabwe.
But having said that, there are great differences between us and the other parties — Zanu-PF and the others. We believe ourselves in the people of Zimbabwe as a sovereign people. We believe that they are endowed by the Almighty with the right to sovereignty over their land. That no one from outside has the right, you know, to acquire a piece of land or any national resource without their permission.
In other words, the outsiders must be entertained by us, accommodated by us, must be permitted by us to live here and to make homes here, to enjoy themselves, to marry our beautiful girls and also to eat our beef; to kill our deer, antelope, go to Kariba and fish, catch our fish; in other words, to do things that we can do. Yes!
We accommodate people from outside, just as our people can be accommodated in other countries as well. But no, they should never, never, never attempt to impose their power over us. I am talking now of countries like Britain, of nationals like Britons who once upon a time said the sun never sets in the British Empire. Priding themselves on never, never, never being slaves; as they sang Britain, Britain, Britain will never be slaves.
They never sang Britain will never, never be slave masters. You see they will never be slaves but how about being slave masters? So there is the difference between us. They should never try to impose their culture on us and hence our abhorrence or feeling of abhorrence. The feeling that if we are to get aid from Britain we must first accept that man can marry man and woman can marry woman. That’s what David Cameron said. You don’t say those things to other nations. So there it is.
The GPA emphasises that, but we differ with the other parties. Zanu-PF is of the strong view that we are sovereign but we still have these other parties still going to the Europeans, you know, Europeans, when we have problems, Europeans.
They must get to Britain; they must go to France, German etc to get ideas. No! We have ideas here.
Fortunately, now we have well educated people. Very, very highly educated people and nobody can boss us intellectually.
TM: Yes, Your Excellency and we also read of alleged clashes between yourself and the Prime Minister. How do you describe your working relationship with the Prime Minister?
President Mugabe: I read of the clashes in the papers. In the Standard and what are the others? The little papers! (TM: Daily News?) Dustbin things, Yah!
This is where the fights are and I wonder where they get the information from.
But because they must create these fights it’s Tsvangirai going for Mugabe. So and so and I am always at the receiving end, you see. Even when people come to my State House where I am the resident, they have come to fight me. No, no, no!
It has always been very peaceful. We were very suspicious of each other at the beginning but as time went on, we got to know each other.
Now Tsvangirai can drink a cup of tea which I make and I have no objections drinking a cup of tea which he makes.
TM: Your Excellency, from what you have said this might become a tricky situation where it has been alleged that the Prime Minister was involved in some fraudulent activity which involves the purchase of the Prime Minister’s residence and it is said the police have done their work and are waiting for the go ahead to arrest him. Is he going to be arrested?
President Mugabe: I am not a policeman. The President is not a policeman. When crimes are committed, the police do not come to the President to ask permission to arrest an individual.
They just proceed on the basis that they derive their power from the law and arrest individuals.
I have read also in the papers that there has been some fraudulent behaviour but it if this is so, well, it’s the Prime Minister who should answer and if he does not get to you, you don’t have to get him to answer via the President.
If there is really a case that requires him to answer, I am sure he will be able to explain what happened, himself.
What we don’t want is people getting arrested on the basis of evidence which is not clear and on the basis of facts which have not been thoroughly investigated.
The police must investigate these cases thoroughly so that by the time they get to the stage of building a case and taking it to the court they are quite sure that they have a case against the particular individual to whom it relates. But just rushing to build a case against somebody doesn’t do us good at all.
If anything, it harms our reputation and I hope they have investigated the matter thoroughly not just rush to make up things against the Prime Minister.
TM: Your Excellency, from there we take you to the state of the economy. You spoke about mining, you spoke about indigenisation, are you happy with the contribution that mining has done to the economy in totality?
President Mugabe: There is mining taking place. Just now our eyes are fixed on diamond mining. Not much has come from that mining yet because the sales are not many and there are hindrances being put along the way.
Put in the way of selling and marketing diamonds by the United States. They go to our main markets, to main buyers of diamonds and threaten them. (The go) to ask them not to buy Zimbabwean diamonds. It is alleged that these are blood diamonds but I haven’t seen any blood flowing on the diamonds. I have visited Chiadzwa, I have done so twice, but they are very clean.
We know that the US, Britain and other Western countries do not want to see us succeed. They want their sanctions to pull us down and ruin us economically but we refuse to be ruined.
We are a resilient nation and we know what our rights are and we will not be subjugated by anyone. But they try their best and this is the reason why not much has come from the diamond sector. But with more companies being licenced, we hope that the State will get a greater benefit. I can assure you I have my eyes there.
We know of the talk about diamonds being smuggled, but no really, there is strict security; but it’s a case of selling the diamonds. The mining is taking place but the marketing is what is so limited when it takes place.
But other areas of the mining sector are also important. We have platinum, but there is very little contribution being made by platinum to our development.
If anything really, our platinum is developing other countries much more than it is developing Zimbabwe. Then there is gold, gold is the main, I would want to believe, the main mineral and you get it practically in every province in the country.
And you have small miners, makorokoza, vanamai nanababa, along the rivers, digging everywhere. We have nothing against them but we want them to be better organized, taught how to do their gold mining.
But they are making a contribution, where they are doing it properly; to the development of the country but these are areas that should be better organized. However, because of sanctions there has been a sagging of the sector and it needs to be revamped, needs quite some capital to go into it. You know, machinery wears out and there is need for some spare parts or new machinery. We need to see much more production.
Gold is fetching higher prices. US$1 755 per ounce, that’s the international price at the moment and it is lots of money and we need now to improve and get the process which will see our gold mining recover very much. So we want to get to about 30 tonnes that we used to produce in the past. About that and even exceed that.
Platinum also must be managed. I hope the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act will now enable us to get greater benefit from all this mining exercise which has been taking place in the past by doing so at our expense, national expense that is.
Now that we must go into all these companies with at least 51 percent, that is least, it can be more than that. Fifty-one percent shareholding in a company! The reward to Zimbabwe must be greater but what is required is revamping, improving the performance and greater productivity taking place in the mining sector.
Manufacturing also requires the same exercise; injecting more capital and I think companies, as you see, had actually gone down miserably to about 10 percent. And now we want to see this production capacity rise but we must inject more capital, more capital into them and this has been the problem.
TM: Do you have this capital?
President Mugabe: We thought we had SDRs. The IMF gave us but they were used otherwise. Yes, we create capital. We can borrow from international institutions but the World Bank and IMF must obey the dictates of the West and impose sanctions on us. Even if they don’t say so but in practice that is what happens and we can’t rely on those ones.
But we have the Afrrexim bank which has been there and the regional banks and reliance on the eastern bloc, China, India and their financial institutions.
We can borrow from them and use our resources as security and get loans.
They are prepared to give us loans. They are also prepared to bring their companies here and partner us and that way get us rejuvenated and increase the production of our companies.
TM: Your Excellency, you mention the issue of sanctions, how are you going to handle that within the GPA as your partners are constantly failing to sing from the same hymn book?
President Mugabe: That is what baffles us. Surely, if you are a Zimbabwean and Zimbabwe is being attacked by outsiders and it doesn’t matter what differences between the MDC and ourselves, when outsiders attack us, we must unite against the outsiders and try to drive the outsiders out of Zimbabwe, get his hand off us.
His intervention bids us to be together but, no, the MDC decides to side with the Americans, with the Europeans in supporting sanctions against its own people. We do not understand that. They fail to, they find it very difficult, to say sanctions are hurting us.
They try to avoid using the word sanctions; they want to call them restrictions. I do not understand, perhaps, it’s the lack of political consciousness, national consciousness, which characterize them. You see, they have not gone through the grill like us. But one doesn’t have to have been a member of the ANC, National Democratic Party, Zapu, Zanu in order to have national consciousness.
Just a feeling that Zimbabwe is your country and you will countenance, you will not accept any attack from outside, whether this attack is physical or it’s economic by way of sanctions.
That’s what a real party that stands for the people, that operates in the interest of the people, should do.
But if you are for the people, how can you then at the same time turn against the people by supporting sanctions, which hurt them.
TM: Pamunosangana hamumbobvunza here kuti zvii zvinorema?
President Mugabe: Vanoti tiritose asi kuti vaenda kunze uku vanoudza varungu vavo kuti ah, chimboregai ma sanctions aripo, vanhu vaye, vanaMugabe havasati vavakuda regime change, havasati vanzwa. Hatife takanzwa!
Imperialism is imperialism. An imperialist is just an imperialist. I often repeat the words of Nkurumah: Only a dead imperialist is a good one.
TM: One of the issues to do with the economy inyaya yemari. We have serious cash shortages. Are we likely to see the return of the Zimbabwean dollar? What solutions do you have as a Government to deal with the shortages seeing that the money we are using doesn’t come from Zimbabwe?
President Mugabe: I agree, the US dollars did help a bit but the dollars are not minted by us, we don’t manufacture them, we don’t print them. They are American. You can’t expect to develop an economy using foreign currency, American foreign currency. You got to have your own foreign currency.
Yes, sure, we had that inflation that rendered our Zim dollar worthless but these things happen to economies when they have the burden of sanctions, the burden of bearing lots of debts and so on and so forth.
We cannot improve the situation in the GPA very much. That’s why we would want to have an election and we know as Zanu-PF government we would certainly bring about a far, far much better situation to the economy in respect of getting capital injection into it.
We are persons who look east and at the moment if you look west, Europe and America are looking east, what you encounter are eyes that are looking east and your eye is looking west.
In other words, they have nothing to offer at all and it’s futile to hope that the West can redeem us.
Even if we were in good books with Europe, Europe will never ever help you to the extent of your being able to transform your economy from being, you know, a primary producer to being a producer of secondary products.
In other words, that adding of value to our raw products, qualitative improvement, which Europe did when they started industrializing as much as possible, moving dependence on agriculture to dependence of manufactured food.
That is yet to occur in Africa, in South Africa it is okay, here it had started okay a bit but we are now handicapped and that is what we must do, ensure that we raise the level of our economy. Take it from primary to secondary and that’s get it to the manufacturing stage where now you beneficiate your products.
And you produce products of greater value. Then, of course, you can have your own currency that is backed by an economy which is viable. We have gold, we have diamonds, we have platinum, valuable minerals and very precious minerals and these can back our economy.
But I believe that if we can go back to the use of gold as the basis of our currency, that will ensure that our currency will become viable and will not be doubted internationally at all.
And it cannot be assailed by the American dollar, which is just a paper and America has been printing and printing. Because then you can only print money if it’s based on the value of gold that you have. This is based on purely the effectiveness of your economy. How much level of volume of production of your GDP, Gross Domestic Product and then you print money according to the level of development in that regard.
So I believe personally that we have a very great future and thank God we still have lots of wealth underground. Thank God the British settlers did not scoop all and in some cases didn’t discover some of the minerals like platinum. But perhaps, diamonds for one reason they were discovered but they did not want to reveal to the world. De beers I understand were carrying; they said they were carrying out tests, year in, year out, getting lots of soil to South Africa.
Filling lorries from Chiadzwa there and when you ask they say we are still doing tests then we discovered later that, no, there were diamonds, ah, then they stopped; the tests didn’t continue.
And then we had that company called the ACR, born out of De Beers. They tried to put Africans, you know, into it. We resisted it, remember. We said no, and it was then that we took some action and said only the State can operate in that area.
[I did not know ACR was directly tied to De Beers. African Consolidated Resources, perhaps better called Andrew Cranswick Resources, was run by Andrew Cranswick, which is wanted in Zimbabwe for f
We were fencing it because we wanted time to arrange and gear ourselves and prepare ourselves for proper mining in the area. Well, I have great hope that, in the GPA, they will be real, real development in gallops rather than in slow strides as at present.
Well, we have done something with the GPA but very little. The companies are still down. Manufacturing factories, main factories in Bulawayo, down, down, down! And the mining ones too, even gold, some closed and we are having to open some of them now, you see, but we will do so with our friends.
They are not the Chinese only, there are lots of other friends in the East there who are prepared to partner us properly and not on a horse and rider partnership which was what (Roy) Wellensky and (Godfrey) Huggins during the Federation talked about that the partnership with an African was a horse and rider partnership.
And we asked who was the rider and who was the horse and they didn’t provide the answers. Then they talked about the two-pyramid system, that’s Huggins now, who became Lord Malvern later. Two pyramids, the European pyramid is up there, the African pyramid is down here. But when will it ever rise and grow in order to get their height.
But look at the strides we have made since independence, education and socially. Look at our people, we have almost eradicated illiteracy and almost everybody can read and write and this is it. And not the skills, we have now been able to export skills, you see, South Africa, most of our young people.
Even in Australia, Britain, they are proud to have young Zimbabweans with skills to operate in their factories or in their banks etc. That’s Zimbabwe.
But we put ourselves much more together; get our people in the Diaspora to come and join us and we sail together. Our young people must feel that they have a stake in their country and that’s very important because the future is more theirs than ours.
They are the ones we want to equip, they are the ones we feel must have the necessary skills, intellectually and physically, that will enable them now, to run the country and undertake the various operations that are necessary in order to bring about greater development and transformation of the socio-economic system.
TM: Thank you Your Excellency, let me take you to issues facing Africa as a continent. Recently you came back from the AU summit and you came back a disappointed man. Do you feel betrayed by your African brothers when it comes to decision-making; decisions that affect Africa?
President Mugabe: I think the crop of leaders we have now is quite different, quite different from the older crop, from their elders. Those of them who came together to form the Organisation of African Unity and vowed that Africa would be freed from imperialism and colonialism and you had them like Nkrumah, you know, pledging that Ghana would not regard itself as free if any part of Africa was still under the yoke of colonialism and imperialism.
Then they were bidding that Africa must unite and Nkrumah wrote a book to that effect.
You see, they formed the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 and formed also the liberation committee and taught us how to fight for our countries, organised us and showed us how unity could enable us to fight and fight successfully in redeeming our countries and liberating them.
TM: 88 years makore akawanda. Ndaapi mashoko amungape vechidiki kuti varame hupenyu hwakanaka?
President Mugabe: Life is what you make it, they say. But it’s not always what you make it. You have a part of it which is inherited. The physical entity which we are we inherit from our parents so the genetic system is inherited from what your parents gave you.
But there are things that you must do for yourself. Don’t drink. Ahhm or if you want to drink don’t drink too much but I would say don’t drink at all. Yeah, don’t smoke at all. When you smoke the nicotine goes to your lungs; it’s a sure case that your lungs are inhaling... Look after yourself...girlfriends...when you are young you want two or three girlfriends, but you finally make a choice...little houses, some little houses are dangerous these days.
And then nechirwere chedu ichi. I have seen youngsters in the extended families just going one after another. Kune vakasiiwa...We are having to look after them. Havasisina vanoriritira. And i have said to myself if this is what has happened around me, what about the extended family of Tazzen, my neighbour there?
This is what has happened to our nation, young people going in their 30s, 40s - so that is the part that we take care of. The other part we inherit from our parents.
Otherwise if you don’t take to drinking, take to smoking and exercising of course...
TM: You are still exercising?
President Mugabe: Every morning. I have my one hour and ensure I exercise. That’s the way we grow but some live longer than others. My brother Raphael I never saw him. He was born before me, 1922 and when he was six months, mother said he suffered from dysentery. But Michael, who was born before him ... takatamba tese naMichael. He was very bright, a footballer - everything, an athlete.
I wasn’t bright, I was much more conservative, much more inward thinking, but bookish... my mother at one time was worried kuti mwana wangu anogona kunyengawo asikana imi?
Mike was clever; he was also bright, perhaps much brighter than myself. Ah he was really bright, but poorly (in) 1934 he drank poison achibva afa aine 10 years. It was a sad sad death my father couldn’t take it vakati ah mwana wangu apuwa poison kwasekuru vachibva varamwa kuenda kuBulawayo from 1934 only to come back 1944 atova nemumwe mudzimai, 1945 achibva afa muna June, ini ndatova teacher zvangu.
Ndini ndakazodzidzisawo vakanditevedzera, so i was lucky that way. ndikazogona kunyenga ndikati amai ndauya nomuroora ndabva naye kuGhana.
So God looks after us but there is a portion we must play. You must eat well, you take some vegetables, don’t over-eat beef, it’s dangerous, eventually unoita gout. Taida kudya nyama zvakakomba tiri mafreedom fighters. Vose vatakadya navo vaida nyama ah, as for Joshua Nkomo ndiye aive mukuru weduzve, aida nyama maningi, Ndebele style. Kana tikapihwa chicken aitora yose, but then akazoita gout, then the doctor said no...Ah. VaMuzenda gout; VaMusika gout...
TM: Well thank you so much Your Excellency for giving us your time to talk to us about your family, the state of the economy and the country at large. We wish you many more.
President Mugabe: Thank you thank you, you are doing a good work, continue doing that good work. Most of you are on the younger side so we hope that you continue to be revolutionary, if you are, if you are not then read, read mabhuku avana Nkrumah, read a lot, even go out to read.
Labels: BOOKS, DEBEERS, GOLD, HOMOSEXUALITY, INFLATION, INTERVIEW, KARIBA DRAFT CONSTITUTION, MDC, MDC CORRUPTION, NEOCOLONIALISM, ROBERT MUGABE, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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