By Ben Moses Ilakut
Kampala, Uganda (2010 Features): I traveled to Mexico for the XVII International AIDS Conference with high expectations that there would be some scientific breakthroughs in the response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic. I expected scientists to say something new to rekindle hope that HIV would one day in the in the near future be cured. Boy, was I disappointed – they did not have much to offer.
It was my first conference and I guess my expectations were too high. On my way back to Kampala, I asked Mr Robert Ochai, the Executive Director of the AIDS Support organization, TASO, a community based NGO in Uganda, what his impression of the conference was.
His first reaction was that it was a good meeting where sociological experiences, intervention successes and challenges were shared. His other view was more in line with what I felt.
“We expected some scientific breakthroughs but there were none. That was the general disappointment about the conference,” he said.
Similar observations were made a couple of days after the conference by the Director General of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Mr Kihumro Apuuli. Addressing journalists at a post Mexico briefing in Kampala, Apuuli said the participants waited anxiously at the conference to be told of new discoveries, but little came out.
“Experts noted that there was no hope yet for a breakthrough in finding a cure for AIDS,” Apuuli said.
The conference however enabled participants to put across specific messages on social interventions like poverty, re-packaging of educational materials to fast track health education and population control.
The participants exposed practices, cultures, laws and inhibitions that are believed to be key drivers of the epidemic. Top on the list was generalized stigma against people living with AIDS (PLWAs), and discrimination.
Explosive
But discrimination, to me, was the most explosive issue at Mexico. Some of the most outstanding demonstrations were by activists for men who have sex with men (MSMs), sex workers, lesbians, immigrants and injecting drug users (IDUs).
Not only did I see MSMs demonstrate, I also saw them romance in public. This was totally strange to me, having come from a country where such orientations are not only culturally unacceptable, but also illegal.
But what attracted my attention most was the public health perspective adopted by most speakers of the plenary sessions and some of the key sessions at the conference.
Dr Luis Soto-Ramírez, head, Molecular Virology Unit, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas and AIDS 2008 co-chairperson, said world leaders need to sort out stigma and discrimination.
“In this region, where men who have sex with men continue to bear the brunt of the epidemic; that means challenging homophobia everywhere in our society: In government policies, in health care settings, in our families, and yes, in our churches as well,” Ramirez said.
His speech, to me, was an endorsement to the demand by MSMs for their human rights to be integrated in the global HIV and AIDS strategies.
But the most penetrating remarks came from UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. He said it was not only “morally unethical” to discriminate against MSMs but also “nonsensical in the public health perspective”.
Culture Shock
The events at the conference certainly conflicted with what I was used to hearing and reporting at home and I found myself in a kind of reporters’ cultural shock.
My country, Uganda, was named in a few sessions as hostile to people of different sexual orientations. Days after returning from Mexico, I was determined to discover what my leaders and policy makers would say about the strong statements from world leaders; and hostility by MSMs activists at Mexico to my country.
The director general of the Uganda Aids Commission, Mr Kihumuro Apuuli, had no apologies for Uganda’s indifference to MSMs. Speaking to journalists at a post Mexico press briefing, he said, “Many speakers condemned our country but I believe we have our values in terms of behaviour. I believe we have our moral ground in terms of what we think is right.”
I thought he was being very bold, considering that up to 95 per cent of Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) in Uganda is paid for by donors, but none other than the President of the Republic, Yoweri Museveni, made statements that would literally buttress Apuuli’s.
Addressing a congregation in Uganda’s eastern town of Mbale recently, Museveni is quoted in a local daily as having praised the church of Uganda for resisting homosexuality.
“I salute the Archbishop and Bishops for resisting disorientation and a decadent culture, which is being passed by Western nations,” he is quoted as having said. He is also reported to have described homosexuality as mtumbavu (Swahili for stupidity).
“Don’t fear, resist and do not compromise on that. It is a danger not only to believers but to the whole of Africa. It is bad for our children to become complacent and think that people who are not in order are right. These foreigners should go and practice their nonsense elsewhere. That is the minimum demand.”
The church of Uganda headed by its Archbishop, Right Reverend Luke Orombi and other Anglican provinces in Africa, South America and Australia formed a new movement to challenge the failure of Canterbury the office and symbol of the Anglican Communion, to discipline the Episcopal Church of America for recognising same sex marriages and consecrating gay priests. Consequently, in July of this year a quarter of the world’s bishops angered by the ordination of gay bishop Gene Robinson in the US, boycotted the Lambeth Conference of bishops in the UK. This is the context in which Museveni was congratulating the Bishops.
Looking at the mood at home, where people literally freak out when they hear about MSMs, I am still at a loss on how countries, especially Africa, that are extremely opposed to homosexuality will in the future work with individuals and institutions that wholeheartedly support it./2010 Features
About the Author
Ben Moses Ilakut is a senior reporter and editor who works out of Kampala, Uganda. |
