Change.Org Petition Calling On Secretary Kerry To Block Uganda's Sam Kutesa Who Backs
Anti-Gay Surpasses 10,000 Signatures
New York City, June 9, 2014---A Change.org petition that calls on Secretary of State John Kerry to revoke the U.S. visa of Sam Kutesa, Uganda's foreign affairs minister who supports the jail-thegays law this afternoon surpassed 10,640 signatures, says the Petition's initiator Milton Allimadi.
The campaign runs through Wednesday.
Uganda's ruler Gen. Yoweri Museveni on Feb. 24, 2014 signed into law what President Barack Obama had referred to as an "odious" bill while it was being debated in the East African nation's Parliament. The bill had called for death-by-hanging for homosexuals in Uganda.
The version of the bill signed into law is harsh and calls for life-in-prison for so-called
"aggravated homosexuality" in other words anyone engaged in same-sex relations. Individuals who fail to "out" the LGBT community face as many as 7 years in jail. Landlords and employers could also face the same penalty if they fail to discriminate by reporting homosexuals to the authorities.
According to an article in The Guardian, the number of attacks on LGBT, including tortures, rose to 162 from December 2013 to May 2014 when the law was enacted by Parliament, compared to a total of only 8 for almost the entire of 2013.
Now the foreign minister of Uganda, Mr. Kutesa could become President of the United
Nations General Assembly on June 11, 2014, unless Secretary exercises the power he has to revoke the Ugandan's U.S. Visa.
This year the rotation process by regions means Africa gets to nominate the President of the General Assembly, an the African Union, the continental body endorsed Mr. Kutesa.
"It's preposterous that Mr. Kutesa would even be considered for such a prestigious position in a global organization that is supposed to embody the best ideals for pace, world harmony, and human rights for all, given his record on corruption alone," says Allimadi, who himself was born in Uganda, and now publishes New York City- based www.blackstarnews.com
"How can someone have such a senior post in an organization whose principles and goals he and the government which he serves do not share?"
Allimadi launched the petition, found on http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-sam-kutesa-from-becoming-president-un-gen-assembly?
share_id=OzYwJLdukp&utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition in April 2014 and this morning the number of signatures, from all over the world, exceeded 10,000.
The signatories include regular folk who are unknown to the public, and celebrities such as Bianca Jagger, who tweeted after signing yesterday.
The Petition is also promoted in the United Kingdom by leading Gay rights activist Peter
Tatchell, of the Peter Tatchell Foundation. Tatchell has called upon British Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague, to take action.
Tatchell's statement reads: “It is outrageous that Kutesa has been nominated by the African Union. He is not a fit and proper person to hold this prestigious UN post. David Cameron, William Hague and governments worldwide should be lobbying the UN to block Kutesa's appointment on the grounds that his political record is inconsistent with UN principles."
Additionally, Uganda's record of human rights abuses domestically, repression of legitimate political opposition, and military invasions of and plunder of neighboring countries, while carrying out massacres of civilians, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo should disqualify its foreign minister from consideration for the UN post, Allimadi says.
"In 2005, the International Court of Justice found Uganda liable of what amounts to war
crimes in the Congo and ordered it to pay $6 billion to $10 billion, not a dime of which has been paid," Allimadi adds. "On June 8, 2006, The Wall Street Journal reported that President Museveni himself contacted then Secretary General Koffi Annan and asked him to block a separate criminal investigation by the ICC, the same court that indicted the Sudan's Omar al Bashir. Do these men, General Museveni and his minister Kutesa sound like men who should be involved in UN leadership."
Some estimates of Congolese who have perished since the recurrent invasions from Uganda started in 1997 exceeds 7 million.
What's more, Mr. Kutesa personally has been dogged by allegations of corruption for over 15 years and in 1999 Uganda's Parliament censured him, after finding that he had abused his position as a minister to enrich himself, by conflict of interest, through his private company, Entebbe Handling Services (ENHAS), a baggage and cargo handling company.
Parliament found that Kutesa had diverted assets away from the country's only national airline, Uganda Airlines, for the benefit of ENHAS, leading to the collapse of the airline. When the acting general manager of Uganda Airlines challenged Mr. Kutesa over financial records, Parliament heard that Kutesa threatened the life of the airline manager.
Mr. Kutesa also removed the names as signatories to joint accounts belonging to the airline and ENHAS while the companies were in a 50/50 partnership and added the names of allies, including Gen. Salim Saleh, the brother of Gen. Museveni.
The U.K. government also considered revoking Mr. Kutesa's visa after he was alleged to have participated in the disappearance of $150 million, when Uganda hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2007, according to a memo to the State Department dated Jan. 13, 2010 by then U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier.
"Ironically, today, 15 years later, Mr. Kutesa finds himself in another situation of conflict of interest," Allimadi adds. "His company, ENHAS, lists on its website the United Nations peace keeping operations, MONUSCO, UNMISS, and UNAMID, as clients."
ENHAS's first agreement to work with the UN started in 2006 when it negotiated to handle baggage and cargo at 10 United Nations airports in the Congo, according to media reports. It now also handles the airport in Juba, South Sudan. The peace keepers are in Congo, as a result of the repeated invasions from Uganda and Rwanda and the related fighting by armed militias trained by these two countries. Uganda also is fighting on the side of President Salva Kiir, against former Vice President Riek Machar, in South Sudan's civil war.
"So we now see that Mr. Kutesa actually gains from these conflicts. He has financial fighting to see conflict continue rather than end. Some people have referred to ENHAS as the Halliburton of East Africa," Allimadi continues. "If it was revealed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has shareholding interest in a private company that does business with the United Nations, he would surely be asked to resign. On the other hand, Mr. Kutesa is caught in glaring conflict of interest, and he's to be given a top job on Wednesday."
Allimadi notes that affirming Mr. Kutesa as President of the General Assembly is a test of the United Nations itself and the international community. "Remember the embarrassing scandal involving the badly mismanaged UN oil-for-food contracts when Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq and it allowed Mr. Hussein to line his pocket with billions of dollars?" Allimadi says. "The UN is still recovering from that episode, which was widely covered for months by media and destroyed the reputation of many officials. There is risk of another scandal here. I have asked for details about any contracts with the UN and ENHAS or through third parties and I've been waiting for the information since last Friday."
He added: "The best thing the UN can do is defer the vote until a future date and look into all the contracts that ENHAS may have with the UN or with third-parties to do work on behalf of the UN." Ultimately, Mr. Kerry could just block Mr. Kutesa by revoking his visa. "Africa would then be able to nominate another candidate with stellar reputation, between now and when the General Assembly of the United Nations starts in September," Allimadi says.
Note-- Background briefing on Sam Kutesa: http://bit.ly/1piX5Sh
ARTICLES ABOUT KUTESA
THE GUARDIAN
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/01/uganda-anti-gay-minister-human-rights-kutesa
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/anti-gay-minister-lead-un-general-assembly
THE DAILY BEAST
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/03/the-u-n-s-next-president-is-a-gay-hating-friend-of-uganda-s-corrupt-dictator.html
THE TIMES OF LONDON
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/africa/article4109334.ece
SALON
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/01/critics_slam_the_u_n_for_appointing_ugandas_anti_gay_minister_to_top_leadership_role/
LGBT News
http://lgbtweekly.com/2014/06/02/uganda%E2%80%99s-homophobic-foreign-minister-sam-kutesa-slated-to-be-next-u-n-general-assembly-president/
UPI
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/06/02/UN-faces-backlash-over-appointment-of-homophobic-politician-to-senior-position/
2511401737924/
Huffingtonpost
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/milton-allimadi/waiting-on-john-kerry-att_b_5415446.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Contact: Milton Allimadi
Publisher, The Black Star News
(646) 261-7566
Email: milton@blackstarnews.com
Web: www.blackstarnews.com
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Replies
revolutionary greetings,
europeans have had a history of homosexuality as part of their cultural complex, which to non-europeans or the indigenous peoples of earth view as a form of dysfunctionalism. in ancient kemet, the story of the evil-minded set attempting to have sexual contact with the goodly horu was a way to display contempt for such a practice. now, since the europeans have gone just about all over the planet and have masked lands and peoples, suffocating their unique cultures in favor of a european way of life, they want to accuse anyone who still wants to hold on to their traditional ways of life as homophobic. the fact is that the only homophobes are the minority whites who have taken a stance against homosexuality from a religious-biblical viewpoint, the same one that the conquering europeans took against afrikan and other indigenous peoples when their spiritual forms of worship were being blasted as anything but a sanction of god. in essence, the pro-homosexual tolerance agenda, veiled as same-sex rights, which has even projected itself in the same vein as the so-called civil rights movement, seeks to guilt trip those who reject it, villainize and isolate them, because its leaders and proponents are looking for a way to reverse a psychology which, by nature, is against homosexuality. and just the fact that such groups as change.org are pressuring kerry to so-call block uganda's leader is tantamount to white supremacy as a global dysfunctionalism, which seeks to preserve whiteness on the planet since it is in the minority.
UHURU!