Friday, December 30, 2011

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do


David Kato Kisule (February 13, 1964 - January 26, 2011)

David Kato Kisule (February 13, 1964 – January 26, 2011)

A respected teacher and iconic LGBT rights activist, considered a father of Uganda's gay rights movement and one of the founding members of SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda), David Kato was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in 2011, shortly after winning a lawsuit against the Ugandan tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone, which had published his name and photograph along with 99 other people, calling for their execution as homosexuals. The article was published in October 2010 and on November 2, 2010; Kato along with two other SMUG members, sued the tabloid to force it to stop publishing the names and pictures of people it believed to be gay or lesbian. The photos were published under a headline of "Hang them" and were accompanied by the individuals' addresses. Giles Muhame, the paper's managing editor, commented: "I haven't seen the court injunction but the war against gays will and must continue. We have to protect our children from this dirty homosexual affront.” On January 3, 2011, High Court Justice V. F. Kibuuka Musoke ruled that Rolling Stone's publication of the lists, and the accompanying incitation to violence, threatened Kato's and the others' "fundamental rights and freedoms;" attacked their right to human dignity; and violated their constitutional right to privacy. The court ordered the newspaper to pay Kato and the other two plaintiff 1.5 million Ugandan shillings each. It was a short lived victory for Kato, but he shone the light for the thousands of stigmatized and vulnerable LGBT people in Africa and gave them courage to stand up and fight for their rights.


On January 26, 2011, at around 2 p.m. while talking on the phone with SMUG member Julian Pepe Onziema, Kato was assaulted in his home in Bukusa, Mukono Town, by at least one unknown male assailant who hit him twice on the head with a hammer before fleeing from the scene on foot; Kato later died en route to the Kawolo Hospital. Kato's colleagues note that Kato had spoken of an increase in threats and harassment since the court victory, and they believe that his sexual orientation and his activism had lead to this gruesome end. They strongly believed that this was a pre meditated hate crime. International media condemned such acts of violence instigated by homophobia. James Nsaba Buturo, the Ugandan Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity, is on record as having declared that "Homosexuals can forget about human rights" when organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, both called for an in-depth and impartial investigation into the case, and for protection for other gay activists in Uganda.

Born to the Kisule clan in its ancestral village of Nakawala, Namataba Town Council, Mukono District, David Kato received the name "Kato" because he was the youngest of a pair of twins. He came out to his older twin brother John Malumba Wasswa, before he left to teach for a few years in Johannesburg, South Africa during its transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy. The activist in him was waking up to the call of LGBT rights in the country fuelled by the end of the apartheid-era ban on sodomy. Coming back to Uganda in 1998, he decided to come out in public through a press conference for which he was arrested and held in police custody for a week. Kato joined the faculty at St Herman Nkoni Boys Primary School in 2002.

He became highly involved with the underground LGBT rights movement in Uganda, eventually becoming one of the founding members of SMUG on March 3, 2004. By 2010, he had quit his job as a school teacher in order to focus on his work with SMUG in light of the events surrounding the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Kato was subsequently given a one year fellowship at the Applied Centre for Human Rights based at the University of York in the United Kingdom, a centre which provides fellowships to vulnerable and threatened Human Rights activists as a reprieve from the dangers they face in their own Countries. Kato’s Life was always in danger and he knew it well. As one of his colleagues Frank Mugisha (The 2011 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award laureate and present executive director of SMUG) writes in an article:

‘I remember the moment when my friend David Kato, Uganda’s best-known gay activist, sat with me in the small unmarked office of our organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda. “One of us will probably die because of this work,” he said. We agreed that the other would then have to continue.’

The law enforcement agencies tried to negate the hate crime scenario by blaming the murder on robbers who had allegedly killed at least 10 people in the area over the last two months. They arrested one suspect, Kato's driver, and were seeking a second. On February 2, 2011, police announced the arrest of Nsubuga Enock, saying that he had confessed to the murder. A police spokesperson described Enock as a "well-known thief" and local gardener, but stated as to Enock's alleged motive, "It wasn't a robbery and it wasn't because Kato was an activist. It was a personal disagreement but I can't say more than that."

Kato's funeral was held on January 28, 2011, in Nakawala. Present at the funeral were family, friends and co-activists. However, the funeral was not a peaceful one. As reported:

David Katos funeral - Denied a peaceful burial

‘Anglican pastor Thomas Musoke (who was presiding over the rites of the funeral) launched into a homophobic tirade, shocking the dozens of gay men and women as well as foreign diplomats in attendance.

"The world has gone crazy," Musoke said. "People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man."

Witnesses said that Kato's former colleagues at Sexual Minorities Uganda, where he worked as an advocacy officer, quickly shouted Musoke down.

"We have not come to fight," one woman screamed. "You are not the judge of us. As long as he's gone to God his creator, who are we to judge Kato?"

A scuffle ensued where the police had to intervene and lead the preacher away from the scene. Excommunicated Anglican Church of Uganda bishop Christopher Senyonjo officiated Kato's burial in the presence of friends and cameras.

Accused murderer Sidney Nsubuga Enoch was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison on 10 November 2011 by Mukono High Court judge Joseph Mulangira. American activist Melanie Nathan, writing to the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, called the prosecution's rendering of events leading to the murder as "a cover-up of the actual facts and events leading up to Kato's brutal murder"

Frank Mugisha writes about the present predicament of LGBT people across Africa:

'The right to marry whom we love is far from our minds. Across Africa, the “gay rights” we are fighting for are more stark — the right to life itself. Here, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people suffer brutal attacks, yet cannot report them to the police for fear of additional violence, humiliation, rape or imprisonment at the hands of the authorities. We are expelled from school and denied health care because of our perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. If your boss finds out (or suspects) you are gay, you can be fired immediately.

People are outed in the media — or if they have gay friends, they are assumed to be “gay by association.” More benignly, if people are still single by the time they reach their early 20s, what Ugandans call a “marriage age,” others will begin to suspect that they are gay.

Traditional culture silences open discussion of sexuality. I am 29. I grew up in a very observant Catholic family in the suburbs of Kampala. From the time I was old enough to have romantic feelings, I knew I was gay, but we weren’t supposed to speak of such things.

Standing on David’s shoulders, we are no longer alone. Political leaders like Mrs. Clinton and religious leaders like Archbishop Desmond Tutu are willing to publicly state that being gay is just one of many expressions of what it means to be human. I call on other leaders — particularly my African-American brothers and sisters in politics, entertainment and religious communities — to come to Uganda, to stand with me and my fellow advocates, to help dispel harmful myths perpetuated by ignorance and hate. The lives of many are on the line.'

I hope this plea reaches out to everyone and induces courage and tolerance in the hearts of all human beings in Africa and worldwide. I hope they understand that such hate fuelled by religious fanaticism only goes to drown a nation into the depths of inhuman cruelty and instead of endearing them to their God, pushes them towards a living hell on earth. I hope they understand that believing in God and imagining themselves to be God are entirely different things.

Like Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

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