President Museveni Assents the Homosexuality bill after consulting local scientists.

President Museveni Assenting the Anti- Homosexuality Bill Uganda -  On Monday 4, February  2014 President Museveni signed the Anti-Hom...

President Museveni Assenting the Anti- Homosexuality Bill

Uganda -  On Monday 4, February 2014 President Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Law.

President Museveni struck a familiar note today, suggesting that Uganda’s latest controversy over homosexuality was the result of Western civilizations trying to impose their way of life to spoil African way of life.

After signing the Anti-Homosexuality Bill on Monday, President Museveni fielded questions from journalists at State House Entebe. Here are some highlights from the president's answers.

To the Western world, the president said:

“We want to work with the West but they cannot force us to do something like this, which is fundamentally wrong.”

In relation to his unhappiness with Parliament passing the bill after he had told them to wait, through Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, Museveni said:  “Those who do not listen are part of the problem.”  “My problem with Rebecca Kadaga and the MPs was that they did not listen to me.”

Museveni said Mbabazi had opposed the bill “on my orders”

He added: “Now that I have accepted, Mbabazi will also accept.”

Mbabazi had protested the passing of the bill by Parliament, saying that there was no quorum and there had not been enough consultation with him. Thereafter, the president asked for time to analyse the bill, with help from local and foreign scientists.

Museveni said that analysis was important to avoid collision with the Western powers. “It has now put us in collision with the enforcers of the western system. I do not mind the collision, but we need to be prepared.”

The Observer reporter Sulaiman Kakaire asked Museveni how the new law could be reconciled with the Bill of Rights, enshrined in the Ugandan Constitution.

The president suggested that any law that appears to impose homosexuality on Ugandans could be changed – quipping that the Constitutions was made by “us” and not by God:

He said: “Any document can be changed if it affects the existence of Ugandans and their cultural norms. Our existence is more important than [any] document”.

In what may be seen as a dramatic turnaround, President Museveni says he is ready to assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, passed by Uganda’s Parliament last December.

 A State House statement released on Sunday said the president was convinced there was no scientific evidence that homosexuality was genetic or natural.

 "There is no scientific proof yet that people are homosexuals by genetics,” the statement quoted Mr Museveni as saying.

“It is on the strength of that I am going to sign the bill. I know we are going to have a big battle with the outside groups about this, but I will tell them what our scientists have to say."

Museveni was on Saturday evening speaking at the closure of the 3rd NRM caucus retreat at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi. He said he had not rushed to assent to the bill because he had to take all the precautions as he was directly answerable for whatever he does as a leader.

The president thanked participants at the retreat for their deliberations also announced that legislation on not granting of bail to all those who commit heinous crimes like murder, rape defilement and corruption will soon be tabled. He also said he would push for the control of fund-raising activities as well as that of money lenders describing the two as the centres of corruption.

Mr Museveni will have left Kyankwanzi a very satisfied man.  The attendance at the ruling party MPs’ caucus was particularly impressive, with just over 30 MPs skipping the event for various reasons.

Besides, the president’s supporters in what has been becoming an increasingly restless ruling party pulled off a political coup. They passed a resolution that will isolate any party member dreaming of challenging Museveni for position of the party’s flag bearer in the presidential elections in two year’s time. That will open the way for Museveni to rule the country for 35 years.

Museveni’s prime minister, Amama Mbabazi, was the obvious target of the Kyankwanzi resolution. Despite being loyal to the president over the years, Mbabazi was understood to be harbouring his own presidential ambitions, perhaps in the event that the ageing president retires soon.

But the president has recently reiterated that despite knocking on 70, he was still very mentally agile, and was “still around”.

Museven explaining homosexuality abnormality

Surprising move

Mr Museveni’s latest position on homosexuality will surprise many. He has previously complained bitterly after Parliament passed the bill. On Friday, The Observer published an eight-page angry letter Museveni wrote to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and MPs after they passed the anti-gay bill, which he had since refused to sign.

In the letter, Museveni betrayed his conviction that homosexuality is a form of genetic disability for which people need help rather than jail. Much earlier, he had warned MPs against antagonising the international gay lobby, pointing out that its backers could gather as many as 300,000 people.

How many of you here, the president teased, can command a rally of 300,000 people?

Museveni explaining the homosexual 'abnormality' to the NRM MPs

After refusing to assent to the bill, the president asked Ugandan scientists to advise him on whether homosexuality was a natural or an acquired tendency.  

In their report, the scientists declared homosexuality as  an acquired deviant behaviour. This position flies in the face of mainstream Western scientific research, of which the Ugandan scientists must be aware.

Still, for a president not known for basing his decisions on scientific as opposed to political considerations, it is not clear why his position has suddenly changed. His decision to believe Ugandan scientists as opposed to western scientists who regard homosexuality as natural is curious.

The Observer Editor Richard M Kavuma believes the president may have been guided by political calculations. Because he was keen to win over MPs on key issues such as denying suspects bail on certain offences, Kavuma said, the president may have decided to sign the popular bill as a concession.

“But it is also true that some of the president’s people may challenge the legislation in court and given Uganda’s largely progressive Constitution, they may get the bill declared unconstitutional,” Kavuma said.

“That way the president comes out looking good to his anti-gay electorate, while the judges will take the flak from Uganda’s generally Christian conservative population.”

Kavuma added: “Because the law is likely to fail anyway, the president may have found the political cost of signing the bill to be much lower than that of maintaining his locally ‘anti-people’ stance.  On the contrary, he will be praised across churches, shrines and mosques if he signs the bill.”