arap moi joins the club

September 30, 1999: Kenyan President Moi has echoed the anti-lesbigay sentiments of Uganda's Museveni, but is it a matter of conviction or a method of distraction? Planet Out news staff reported.

Kenya's President Daniel Arap Moi on September 29 both warned against homosexuality and mocked gay people. Moi's speech at an agricultural show came just a day after neighboring Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni told a reproductive health conference that he had ordered his Criminal Investigation Division to arrest gays. However, the timing of Moi's remarks may also reflect his declining popularity and widespread protest at a lengthy delay in constitutional reform. Homosexual acts are illegal in both Kenya and Uganda.

As reported by the "East Africa Standard" newspaper, Moi said, "It is not right that a man should go with another man or a woman with another woman. It is against African tradition and Biblical teachings. I will not shy away from warning Kenyans against the dangers of the scourge." Although Moi is following other African leaders in a nationalist rhetoric that ascribes homosexuality only to the West, there is a considerable body of scholarship describing gays and lesbians in African traditions, including same-gender marriages.

Like Museveni, Moi also made what he intended and his audience took as a joke, saying, "Now we are seeing men wearing earrings to make it easy for them to be identified [as gay] by other men." However, a Reuters report attributed the growing fashion of men's earrings in Kenya to Western music videos, and also noted that a number of Kenya's tribal traditions include them.

Moi's political situation is somewhat comparable to that of Africa's most vocal homophobe, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Both are nearing the constitutional limits of their lengthy rules, and the citizens of both nations have resoundingly rejected suggestions to amend the constitution to extend their terms. A professionally conducted poll of a representative sample of Kenyans published earlier this month in the "Daily Nation" found that 87% wanted Moi to step down when his term ends in 2002, including more than 97% of college graduates and 78% of residents of Moi's own home province. On the same day Moi spoke out against gays, the not-yet-registered United Democratic Movement political party called on him to demonstrate he is preparing to leave office by resigning from the chair of the ruling Kenya African National Union party (KANU), as former South African President Nelson Mandela stepped down from leadership of the African National Congress before leaving office.

Zimbabwe and Kenya are both nations grown so corrupt that despite extraordinary natural resources, hunger is widespread. While Kenya has not yet experienced the level of civil unrest that Zimbabwe has undergone for several years, in June police did not hesitate to use tear gas against demonstrators including leaders of the Catholic Church. Catholic and other religious leaders in Kenya are publicly warning that civil unrest may well be brewing for an eruption in the near future. On the same day Moi spoke out against gays, a meeting of Catholic bishops in company with Kenya's National Council of Churches issued a pastoral letter denouncing Moi's government for its inattention to corruption, hunger, plundering of public resources, AIDS, and the country's failing infrastructure. They took particular aim at Moi for his reversal on allowing people other than Members of Parliament to be involved in a review of the national constitution, which has now been stalled for seven months by political differences. To complicate matters further, Kenya's Islamic leaders were offended on receiving information that Moi had agreed to meet with the Catholics regarding the constitution, when Muslims too want to be a part of the constitutional review process. It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that denouncing homosexuality-which no one is likely to step forward to defend-serves Moi as a useful distraction.

Meanwhile in Uganda, NewsPlanet has yet to receive word of any arrests actually being made, although the names were published of the locally well-known participants in a gay union ceremony that seems to have sparked Museveni's comments. However, the state-owned "New Vision" newspaper reported that a September 24 - 26 survey of 505 people found that 85% supported retaining the law there forbidding "carnal knowledge against the order of nature," which is punishable with life imprisonment. Sponsored by "The New Vision" newspaper and conducted by a team led by statistician Bennet Kizito, the survey queried what pollsters called a representative sample of Kampala residents on prostitution (64% opposed legalization) as well as homosexuality; the results are considered suspect by some in Uganda, who believe it to be a hoax.

Copyright © 1995-1999 PlanetOut Corporation. All Copyright & Trademark Rights Reserved.