What next for Ireland and Ugandan relationship?

The Ugandan President signed into law on February 24 legislation that criminalises homosexuality. This new law provides for a 14-year jail term for a first offence and life imprisonment for the offence of ‘aggravated homosexuality’.

The bill had been passed by the Ugandan Parliament in December.

The only apparent intervention by Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, since before Christmas, was a statement published on February 18, in which he indicated he was ‘deeply concerned’ by the prospect of this legislation and that enactment ‘would affect our valued relationship with Uganda’. That was an unconscionable delay and a weak response on his part, given Ireland’s membership of the UN Human Rights Council and Uganda’s membership of this body until last year.

This relationship between Ireland and Uganda has been in place since 1994. It cost taxpayers €156m in bilateral development aid between 2009 and 2012. There were 1.5 million people living with HIV in Uganda in 2012 and 140,000 new incidents of HIV infection. This legislation will clearly obstruct effective responses to HIV/AIDS and encourage harassment and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and effectively undermine the objectives of Irish Aid.

What impact will this law therefore now have on the ‘valued relationship’ between Ireland/Uganda which Mr Gilmore cherishes? Will it result in the imminent and permanent closure of the Irish Embassy in Kampala because Irish diplomacy failed to persuade the Ugandan President not to sign this bill? Will Irish Aid withdraw from all of the 37 African countries that ban homosexuality on the grounds that each human being is entitled to enjoy the same basic rights worldwide and live a life with dignity and without the menace of intolerable discrimination and the threat of a long prison sentence?

Myles Duffy

Glenageary

Co Dublin