A very strange story online. First, via Yahoo! New Canada, a Reuters report posted early Sunday: Germany halts aid to Uganda over corruption scandal. But it's not just corruption:
Germany was equally concerned about legislation that will impose an array of jail terms for convicted homosexuals, including life imprisonment in certain circumstances. U.S. President Barack Obama has branded the bill as "odious".
"If discrimination against human rights is voted through by the Ugandan parliament, this would have consequences for our cooperation," said Niebel.
Aid accounts for about 25 percent of Uganda's annual budget.
Cutting the funds would put public investments in health and education at risk in Africa's largest coffee exporter.
Well, that's alarming enough; Uganda needs every euro it can get for health. But the anti-homosexuality bill may be worse than described: AmericaBlog says this evening that the bill would not merely imprison gays for life, but execute them; and not merely gays, but anyone who criticizes the law.
And now The Daily Monitor has a report saying it's all OK. German aid will continue and Uganda's State Minister for Foreign Affairs Henry Okello Oryem has said: "As government, we are grateful that Germany recognises that we are doing all we can to clean up the mess at OPM [Office of the Prime Minister]. We are grateful Germany respects our culture, traditions and beliefs as regards homosexuality ..."
I have no idea what's really going on, but Uganda's got quite enough public health problems on its plate—AIDS, nodding syndrome, Ebola, and Marburg, for starters. Throwing gays into jail, never mind executing them and their defenders, would make matters much worse.
