World
Stolen document highlights homophobia in Uganda
‘If you don’t do something about your gay kid, he’ll end up in a grave with his guts hanging out’
Ugandan LGBT rights advocate Frank Mugisha blames American evangelicals for spreading homophobia in east Africa. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
By THOM SENZEE
There is a surprising portrait in Uganda’s parliament building. It’s an oil-painted Idi Amin sporting a toothy smile and full military regalia. Amin poses while engaging in his trademark low-down, dual-fisted version of a fist pump.
Normally, it would be no surprise for a tourist to encounter a painting of a country’s former president inside the house of its legislature. But Amin was no ordinary president. He was a brutal dictator. He was allegedly a cannibal who literally ate his opponents and detractors for breakfast. The evidence for Amin’s cannibalism were the corpses of political foes found dangling by their Achilles tendons, after he was deposed, from meat hooks inside of a walk-in refrigerator at his compound.
Earlier this year a British journalist—let’s call him Ian Smith because, as you’ll see, disclosing his identity might preclude him from ever visiting Uganda again—went to the Chamber of Parliament in Kampala and took photos of some of the building’s more interesting features. The place was a ghost town at the time thanks to a special event where members of parliament were then gathered.
“That made it easy for me to steal the document,” recalls Smith.
The document he stole is titled: “Protect our young people from homosexuality: Debate and pass the anti-homosexuality bill now!”
Smith took the document from the Press Office at Parliament when the secretary wasn’t looking. It contains morbid images, such as one that may be posed or altered to depict a human figure lying on a bed with his or her intestines literally extruding onto a bed from his or her rectum.
The photo purports to be of a young man named Turyamureeba Wycliffe, who supposedly died from complications of “fisting” and tuberculosis (supposedly also brought on as a result of his homosexuality).
Mercifully and perhaps manipulatively, the document also includes a photo of Wycliffe in far happier and healthier days sitting in a decidedly effeminate posture. The juxtaposed imagery more subtly drives home the same point the brief hammers out in writing as, “Attention Ugandan MPs and parents: If you don’t do something about your gay (or gay-acting) kid, he’ll end up in a grave with his guts hanging out, just like this one did in Katungu Village.“
Uganda’s relatively newfound hatred for homosexuality is directly traceable to American missionaries who penetrated the country’s mindset by providing assistance in the fight against the east African AIDS epidemic.
A document obtained by the Blade was stolen from the Uganda Parliament’s pressroom and contains shocking claims about homosexuality. (Photo courtesy Thom Senzee)
Uganda, which not so long ago seemed equal to Kenya and South Africa as a symbol of hope that liberal democracies could flourish on the African continent, been indoctrinated into fervent homophobia by American evangelical diehards.
Their efforts have not only won followers in east Africa. Some argue the work of rightwing religious organizations with ties to people like former governors and Fox News celebrities, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, has created a murderous environment for LGBT Ugandans.
David Kato, a Ugandan LGBT rights activist, was beaten to death after winning a lawsuit against a Ugandan magazine called “Rolling Stone” (no connection to the American publication of the same name) for publishing a list of names and photographs of 100 LGBT-rights leaders, calling for their execution. The article was a welcomed “calling out of perpetrators” for anti-homosexuality groups in Uganda, such as the Coalition for the Advancement of Moral Values (CAMOVA), which claims authorship of the aforementioned document, and the Family Life Network. While there is no proof that Kato’s death was connected to the magazine article, the New York Times reported that Kato “knew he was a marked man.”
However, Kato’s surviving friend, the officer of a group called Sexual Minorities-Uganda (SMUG), Frank Mugisha, makes no bones about American evangelicals’ role in creating a terrorized environment for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in Uganda.
“Most of the propaganda can be traced to U.S evangelists,” he told the Washington Blade. “They have been the most visible in Uganda.”
But it wasn’t always this way, according to Mugisha, who in 2011 received the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights.
“The religious propaganda is traced back from the late ‘90s—especially in Uganda where missionaries came in to do HIV/AIDS work,” he said. “But they became more visible in 2000.”
Mugisha said the first time he saw the CAMOVA brief was when the Blade supplied it to him via email. He found it disgusting, but not surprising. In fact, he says, Uganda’s powerful, American-connected religious right has a firm grip on the ears of members of parliament.
“Our members of parliament go to church a lot. They interact with our church leaders. Politics in Uganda are centered around the church. So yes, the politicians unfortunately believe all these things.”
For journalist Ian Smith, the CAMOVA brief begged to be snatched for exposure in the media.
“I didn’t feel disgusted when I saw it sitting there in the press room,” Smith recalls. “I genuinely thought it was comical. Then, of course, you think more deeply into it and you realize, these people really believe this absurd rubbish.”
Multiple attempts to obtain comment about the document via the email address noted as contact information for the document’s author(s) yielded no response. Attempts to obtain reactions to the document from members of the Ugandan Parliament were also unsuccessful. According to Mugisha, there is little support for LGBT people among Uganda’s parliamentarians. But, he says, there is some.
“Yes there is,” he said. “But it’s very minimal; and most of the members of parliament are not comfortable giving us support in public. If they do support us they would rather it remains quiet.”
That means his and his colleagues’ work is lonely and dangerous. Most support comes from outside the country—from Americans and Europeans. What little support Sexual Minorities-Uganda gets from allies inside the country comes cloaked in secrecy.
“We do advocacy every day,” he says. “It happens at different levels. I spend half of my time in Uganda in meetings with different political leaders at all levels—from local leaders to national leaders. I lobby government, non-government organizations and civil society, trying to encourage them to work with SMUG.”
LGBT-rights advocates in Uganda and outside of the country blame the most recent, most radical and most violent anti-LGBT propaganda and homophobic activity in east Africa on a seminar organized by Ugandan Stephen Langa.
According to the New York Times, in 2009, Langa invited three prominent American evangelical Christian ministers to speak to Ugandan parents about the supposed threat of recruitment of their children by leaders of the so-called homosexual agenda for all kinds of terrible purposes.
At least one of the three was associated with discredited and recently shuttered “conversion-therapy” purveyor, Exodus International.
Another of the American evangelists blamed for setting in motion Uganda’s anti-gay hysteria with the 2009 seminar, entitled “Exposing the Homosexuals’ Agenda,” is Scott Lively.
Lively is author of a “gay-proofing” book for parents who fear having a gay child, which has been panned by mainstream psychology practitioners as “psychobabble” and “quackery.”
Mugisha says LGBT people in his country still live in constant fear and danger as a result of the seminar held more than four years ago.
“What I can say is that the Family Life Network and the anti-gay groups in Uganda have spread so much propaganda, which in turn has caused fear within the Uganda people,” he said. “This fear has brought hatred toward known and openly gay persons in Uganda, hence increasing the homophobia and hate crimes.”
The good news is that the anti-homosexuality bill, which the CAMOVA brief implored the Ugandan Parliament to pass last year, has not passed. If it had passed in its original form, homosexuality would have been punishable by death (the law was later rewritten to specify life in prison as the penalty for some convictions of homosexuality).
Further good news, according to Ian Smith, is the possibility that even the document presented to MPs by the homophobic Coalition for the Advancement of Moral Values in December 2012 may itself represent a silver lining of sorts.
“You would have thought all of their work of sewing hate was well done by now,” says Smith. “You wouldn’t think they would feel the need to go to such lengths as creating and passing about such a load of rubbish as this document.”
Perhaps, he says, the document in question is a sign of a cracking at the seams of the anti-homosexuality lobby in Uganda.
“Clearly there’s a feeling among them that they have not succeeded in convincing people that gay people are bad for Uganda.”
Was there ever a time in east Africa when LGBT people could live without fear of harassment, beatings and murder? According to Mugisha, there were indeed far better times.
“I would say all the way back before the British came and colonized us,” Mugisha said. “LGBT people were free. But more recently, before the coming of the evangelicals—especially the U.S. evangelicals.”
Recent events notwithstanding, Mugisha is hopeful about Uganda’s future.
“With the dialogue now and people talking about gay rights, we hope that things will change,” he said.
Even without passage of the anti-homosexuality law, homosexual acts are still against the law in Uganda, though Mugisha remains optimistic that change is coming.
“I think that there is a possibility that homosexuality will be decriminalized soon,” said Mugisha. “And the sodomy laws may be removed.”
Until then, Mugisha and myriad others in Uganda and across east Africa simply focus on surviving while working for change.
“SMUG can exist,” he said. “We are doing nothing illegal [and] we can exist in Uganda as an association. But we have to be careful. As an openly gay man, I can exist. But also, I have to be careful and take precautions some times.”
CAMOVA Anti-homosexuality Brief Uganda – Washington Blade exclusive
Hungary
Viktor Orbán ousted in Hungarian elections
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister conceded defeat after polls closed
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday conceded defeat in the country’s elections.
The Associated Press notes Péter Magyar’s center-right Tisza party is significantly ahead of Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition.
Orbán had been in office since 2010. He and his government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
Sunday’s elections took place less than a week after Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, and urged Hungarians to support Orbán.
The Washington Blade will update this story.
Eswatini
The emperor has no clothes: how rhetoric fuels repression in Eswatini
King Mswati III’s anti-LGBTQ comments can have deadly consequences
In an absolute monarchy, the words spoken by the sovereign can swiftly become a baton striking a citizen. When King Mswati III speaks, his words do not simply drift into the air as political “opinion”; they often quickly turn into, sometimes violently, state policy. This reflects the reality of Eswatini, where the right to freedom of expression, including the right to hold dissenting political views, is increasingly being systematically eroded by the very voice that claims to uphold “traditional values.”
To understand the current crisis facing the LGBTIQ+ community in Eswatini, one must view it through the lens of a broader strategy: the weaponization of culture to justify the erosion of democratic institutions, the rule of law, and human rights protections. As observed across Africa, from the streets of Harare and Dar es Salaam to the parliamentary courtrooms of Dakar and Kampala, African leaders are increasingly using the marginalised as an entry point to dismantle civil society. In Eswatini, this strategy has manifest its most brutal expression in the king’s recent harmful rhetoric concerning sexual orientation and gender identity.
The danger of the king’s words lies in how the state apparatus interprets them as a divine mandate for persecution. Recently, we have seen this “Rhetoric-to-Policy Pipeline” operate with chilling efficiency. Shortly after the Minister of Education made public vitriol against the existence of LGBTIQ+ students, reports emerged of children being expelled from schools. In a country where the king is culturally and traditionally called the “ingwenyama” (the lion), the bureaucracy acts as his pride; when leadership suggests that a particular group is “un-African” or “deviant,” the machinery of the state, along with the emboldened segments of the public, moves to purge that group from society.
For an openly gay man who has dedicated most of his adulthood to advancing equality and dignity for all, especially marginalized communities, these are not merely policy changes; they pose existential threats. When a powerful leader speaks, they offer a moral shield for the dogmatist and a legal roadmap for the policeman. In Eswatini, where political parties are banned, and the “tinkhundla” system (constituency-based system) — a system that systematically silences dissent and favors those aligned with the sovereign — is celebrated as the sole “authentic” form of governance, any identity that falls outside the narrow, state-defined “tradition” is seen as treason. By branding LGBTIQ+ rights as “ungodly” and essentially unwelcome in Eswatini, the monarchy effectively views the mere existence of queer Swazis as a subversive act against the crown.
The most harrowing example of this pattern is the assassination of human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko in January 2023. Maseko’s murder did not happen in isolation. It followed a period of heated rhetoric directed at those calling for democratic reforms. The king had publicly warned those demanding change that they would face consequences. On the evening after the king had said, “[t]hese people started the violence first, but when the state institutes a crackdown on them for their actions, they make a lot of noise blaming King Mswati for bringing in mercenaries,” Maseko was shot dead at his home in front of his family.
The parallel here is unmistakable. When the king targets the LGBTIQ+ community with his words, he is aiming at the most vulnerable. If a world-renowned human rights lawyer can be silenced following royal condemnation, what chance does a queer youth in a rural area stand when the king’s words reach the local chief or school head? This is what I call “Chaos as Governance”: a state where the law is replaced by the monarch’s whims, leaving the population in a constant cycle of managed chaos that renders collective opposition nearly impossible. Despite strong condemnation from the organization I founded, Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities (ESGM), recent reports already suggest growing support for the rhetoric shared by the king, indicating treacherous weeks and months ahead for ordinary queer people in Eswatini.
The monarchy’s defense of these actions is almost always based on “African tradition.” As Mswati has shown, the ban on political parties and the suppression of minority rights are framed as a return to indigenous governance, the “tinkhundla” system. But we must ask: whose culture is being defended? Is it a culture that historically valued communal care and diverse social roles, or is it a modern, imported authoritarianism cloaked in the robes of the ancestors?
When he uses his platform at the “sibaya” (traditional gathering) to alienate a segment of his own people, he is not engaging in dialogue; he is delivering a monologue of exclusion. This weaponized version of culture serves a dual purpose. First, it offers a “neocolonial” defense against international criticism, portraying human rights as a foreign threat. Second, it creates an internal enemy, the “terrorist” political dissident or the “immoral” LGBTIQ+ person, to distract from the fact that nearly two-thirds of the population live below the poverty line. In contrast, the royal family resides in obscene luxury, acquiring fleets of expensive vehicles.
The silence of Eswatini’s neighbors worsens its situation. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional organization ostensibly committed to democracy and human rights, has repeatedly allowed Mswati to evade accountability. By agreeing to remove Eswatini from the Organ Troika agenda at the king’s request in 2024, SADC sent a message to every authoritarian in the region. If you conceal your repression behind the guise of tradition, we will not intervene.
The call for freedom of expression, including LGBTIQ+ rights, is a fundamental human right vital for safety and dignity. It demands that a child should not be expelled from school because of who they are. It insists that a lawyer should not be murdered for expressing their beliefs. It states that a king’s word should not be a death sentence. We must resist the “politics of distraction” that portrays the fight for minority rights as separate from the fight for democratic reform. The dissolution of political parties in Burkina Faso, the attack on lawyers in Zimbabwe, and the criminalization of advocacy in Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda are all parts of the same pattern. They reflect a leadership class that fears its own people.
It is time for the African Union and SADC to decide whether to uphold the ideals of their lofty charters or to prioritize political convenience across Africa. For the people of Eswatini, improving livelihoods and human development can only occur when the king’s words are limited by a constitution that protects every citizen, regardless of whom they love or how they pray. Until then, the chaos is not a failure; it is the purpose. The monarch’s word may be law today, but the universal right to dignity is the only law that will endure. We must demand an Eswatini, and by extension, an Africa that seeks to improve the lives of its people, and where the “lion” protects all his people, rather than hunting those he deems “unworthy” of the shade.
Melusi Simelane is the founder and board chair of Eswatini Sexual and Gender Minorities. He is also the Civic Rights Program Manager for the Southern Africa Litigation Center.
Cuba
Cuba bajo presión y sin respuestas
Cubanos no hablan en términos geopolíticos. Hablan de sobrevivir
Las tensiones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba han vuelto a subir de tono. No es algo nuevo, pero este momento se siente distinto. Las medidas más recientes desde Washington buscan cerrar aún más los espacios financieros del gobierno cubano, limitar sus fuentes de ingreso y presionar sectores clave de la economía. No es simbólico. Es una política directa.
Desde Estados Unidos, el mensaje es claro. Se busca provocar cambios que no han ocurrido en más de seis décadas. También hay un componente interno, una presión política que responde a sectores del exilio que llevan años exigiendo una postura más dura. Todo eso forma parte del escenario.
Pero esa es solo una parte.
Del lado cubano, la respuesta sigue un patrón conocido. El gobierno habla de agresión externa, de guerra económica, de un embargo que se endurece. Cada medida se convierte en argumento para reforzar su narrativa y cerrar filas. No hay espacio para reconocer errores propios. Todo apunta hacia afuera.
Mientras tanto, la vida en la isla va por otro camino.
La crisis energética que hoy vive Cuba no empezó con estas medidas. Lleva años acumulándose. El sistema eléctrico está deteriorado, sin mantenimiento suficiente, con fallas constantes. Los apagones no son nuevos. Lo que ha cambiado es la frecuencia y la duración.
Durante años entró petróleo a Cuba, especialmente desde Venezuela. Hubo acuerdos. Hubo suministro. Y aun así, la vida del cubano no mejoró. La electricidad seguía fallando, el combustible seguía racionado, el transporte seguía siendo un problema diario.
Entonces la pregunta sigue siendo la misma.
Si el petróleo estaba entrando, ¿por qué nada cambiaba?
¿Dónde fue a parar ese recurso?
¿Dónde está el dinero que generó?
Hoy se habla de restricciones al petróleo como si fueran la causa principal de la crisis. No lo son. Empeoran una situación ya frágil, pero no la explican completamente.
Hay una historia más larga que no se puede ignorar.
Lo mismo ocurre con las brigadas médicas.
Durante años se presentaron como un gesto de solidaridad internacional. Y en muchos casos lo fueron. Médicos cubanos trabajaron en condiciones difíciles, salvaron vidas, sostuvieron sistemas de salud en otros países. Eso es real.
Pero también funcionaron como una de las principales fuentes de ingreso del Estado cubano.
Muchos de esos profesionales no recibían el salario completo por su trabajo. Una parte significativa quedaba en manos del gobierno. En algunos casos, ni siquiera tenían control sobre el dinero que generaban.
Y hay algo más duro.
Si uno de esos médicos decidía no regresar a Cuba, ese dinero no llegaba a su familia. Se quedaba retenido.
Hoy varios países están revisando o cancelando esos acuerdos. Y otra vez, la respuesta oficial es señalar hacia afuera. Pero la pregunta sigue siendo inevitable.
¿Se está perdiendo un modelo de cooperación o un sistema que dependía del control sobre sus propios profesionales?
Dentro de Cuba, la conversación suena diferente.
La gente no habla en términos geopolíticos. Habla de sobrevivir. De cómo llegar al final del día. De los apagones, de la comida que no alcanza, del transporte que no aparece, de una vida que cada vez se hace más difícil.
Hay quienes miran las medidas de Estados Unidos con cierta expectativa. No porque quieran más escasez, sino porque sienten que el sistema no cambia por sí solo. Hay una sensación de estancamiento que pesa.
Pero esa expectativa convive con una realidad concreta.
Las sanciones no golpean primero a quienes toman decisiones. Golpean al ciudadano común. Al que hace la fila. Al que pierde la comida por falta de electricidad. Al que no tiene cómo moverse.
Esa es la contradicción.
El gobierno cubano pide solidaridad internacional. Y la recibe. Países que envían ayuda, organizaciones que se movilizan, voces que defienden a la isla.
Pero hay otra pregunta que también está ahí.
¿Esa ayuda llega realmente al pueblo?
La falta de transparencia en la distribución de recursos es parte del problema. Porque no se trata solo de lo que entra, sino de lo que realmente llega a quienes lo necesitan.
Reducir lo que pasa en Cuba a un conflicto entre dos gobiernos es no querer ver el cuadro completo.
Aquí hay responsabilidades compartidas, pero no iguales.
Estados Unidos ejerce presión con efectos reales sobre la economía cubana. Eso no se puede negar. Pero dentro de la isla hay un sistema que ha tenido décadas para corregir, para abrir, para responder a su gente, y no lo ha hecho.
Esa parte no se puede seguir esquivando.
Yo escribo esto como cubano. Desde lo que vi, desde lo que viví y desde la gente que sigue allá tratando de resolver el día.
Porque al final, más allá de lo que se diga entre gobiernos, la realidad es otra.
Cuba hoy está más apretada, sí. Pero también lleva años arrastrando problemas que nadie ha querido enfrentar de verdad.
Y mientras eso siga así, da igual lo que venga de afuera. El problema sigue estando adentro.
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