NEW TWIST ON OUNDO’S ANTI-GAY CONFESSION

By Nthateng Mhlambiso (BTM Managing Editor)

UGANDA – 30 March 2009: A confession by George Oundo and his claim that he has abandoned homosexuality seems to be nothing more than him trying to get back at the LGBTI movement in Uganda since he accuses the leaders of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) of neglecting him and his friend when they were in need.

The outraged Oundo has accused the LGBTI movement in Uganda of lack of transparency, greed and hypocrisy in their work.

He said that things started to go wrong after Victor Mukasa left SMUG and that the present leaders misuse the money that could be used to look after other activists.

“Even though they put us at a hotel after we were arrested, after that the leaders of SMUG neglected us. They left me and Brenda at a station in Matunge with nowhere to go.” 

He also said that when he tried to talk to the LGBTI movement in Uganda about his grievances, people ignored him.

Oundo also said that the other eight men who confessed are people who also have grievances with the LGBTI movement in Uganda.

Asked whether it is true that he has abandoned homosexuality and whether his confession was not just a way of getting back at the LGBTI movement in Uganda Oundo said “No one can change someone when the heart is still there.”

Oundo is one of the nine men who have confessed to recruiting school boys into homosexuality in Uganda.

He shocked parents and the LGBTI community in Uganda when he said that he used to supply pornographic materials in a form of books and compact discs, showing homosexuality to young boys in many schools as part of a programme to promote the practice in Ugandan schools, something that the Ugandan LGBTI movement denies any knowledge of.

While Oundo announced that he is now a born again Christian who has abandoned homosexuality, he continues to baffle the LGBTI community when he says he is still an LGBTI activist at heart and that “even now living like a man is very difficult because of what I am.”

Frank Mugisha, Chairperson of SMUG said that George Oundo expected too much from the LGBTI movement.

“It is bad that he is using his sexual orientation for selfish gains. When his demands were not met by the LGBTI community, he sought a new tactic. We believe he has not changed he is still gay and will always be, it is a matter of time before we will all find out that he is lying”, Mugisha concluded.