Aid sanctioning and the protection of LGBT rights
An exploratory study to the politics behind Dutch aid sanctions
against Ugandan LGBT rights violations.
Benno Bastiaan de Grip – 10195750 Master Thesis International Relations
Research Project: Political Economy of Development Finance: ODA and Beyond Supervisor: dr. S. J. Lim
Second reader: dr. L.W. Fransen 24-06-2016
3
Abstract
LGBT rights are more often implemented in development policies and conditions of donor countries. This thesis has been among the first to analyse LGBT rights related aid sanctions. It analyses the motivations behind the aid sanctions because of LGBT rights violations. It particularly focuses on the case of Dutch aid sanctions on the Ugandan government due to the recent Anti-Homosexuality Act (2009-2015). These sanctions are motivated by moral commitment to the protection of LGBT people in Uganda. The combination of the aid cut on the juridical sector and the extra support for NGO's that support LGBT rights reveals that the primary aim of the Dutch government is to prevent the Ugandan government of
strengthening the criminalization of homosexuality and to protect LGBT people in Uganda. Sectorial aid flows show that the Dutch government has sanctioned the juridical sector but has continued their support to the productive sector, which indicates that, on the one hand the Dutch government does not want to decrease its own economic benefits in Uganda but on the other hand do not want to harm the poorest and most marginalized people in Uganda. The Dutch government does not address LGBT rights and equality consistently in their partner countries because of the importance of a country specific approach that is required on culturally sensitive topics as LGBT rights and the different leverage that the Dutch government has in partner countries. Uganda is being sanctioned because the (negative) developments in LGBT policies did provide donor countries the possibility to influence decision-making.
4
List of Abbreviations
Benelux Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg
DAC Development Assistance Committee of the OECD DGF Democratic Governance Facility
EU European Union
FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDP Gross Domestic Product
ILGA International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association IMF International Monetary Fund
JLOS Justice, Law and Order Sector
LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender NGO Non-Governmental Organization ODA Official Development Assistance
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development SRHR Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNGA United Nations General Assembly
5 Content
1. Introduction 7
2. Theoretical framework 11
2.2 Aid conditionality 11
2.3 Aid sanctioning and human rights protection 13
2.3.1 Constructivist arguments on aid sanctioning 14
2.3.2 Rationalist arguments on aid sanctioning 17
2.4 Aid sanctioning and LGBT rights 19
3. Methodology 21
3.1 Case selection 21
3.2 Process tracing 22
3.3 Content analysis 23
3.4 Data collection 24
3.5 Validity and reliability 26
4. Museveni and the chronology of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 28
4.1 Historical background 28
4.2 The Anti-Homosexuality Act (2009-2015) 29
4.2.1. The introduction of the act 29
4.2.2. Reconsideration, the international critiques and
Museveni’s struggle 30
4.2.3. Singing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 33
4.2.4. Annulment of the act by the Constitutional Court 34
5. Content analysis: The arguments of the Dutch government 36
5.1 Introduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 37
5.2 Reconsideration of the act 38
5.3 Singing of the act 43
5.4 Annulment of the act by the Constitutional Court 45
6. Descriptive statistics on development aid to Uganda and aid sanctioning 48
6.1 Sectorial aid flows 48
6.2 Selectivity 52
7. Conclusion 59
7.1 Conclusion and discussion 59
7.2 Limitations and further research 60
7 1.
Introduction
“Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.” This statement was made by Hillary Clinton in 2011, American Secretary of State at the time. With this statement the United States introduced new plans for the implementation of policies that would review the way developing countries treat their sexual minorities and take that into account when allocating the development aid (Kretz, 2013). A similar statement has been made by the British Prime Minister David Cameron at a Commonwealth meeting in Australia, where he announced to withhold foreign aid to countries that criminalize homosexuality and are not planning on decriminalizing homosexual contacts and relations (BBC News, 2011). Even though these statements did not proceed actual aid sanctioning, they indicate that the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people are becoming an important issue on the development agenda of some donor countries (Kretz, 2013)
Donor countries provide development aid for several reasons, the most proclaimed objective being alleviating poverty. Other objectives of providing development aid include promoting democracy; protect basic human rights and donor countries’ own economic and geopolitical interests (Radelet, 2006). To achieve the numerous different objectives of development aid donor countries have often tied their aid to economic and political conditions. Since the beginning of the 1990’s, governments of the Northern European countries linked their aid policies and the provision of their official development assistance (ODA) to issues of human rights (Crawford, 1998). The sanctioning of recipient countries because of the way LGBT people are treated is a relative rare and new form of aid conditionality and sanctioning. Donor countries have increasingly added LGBT rights in the human rights frame and included LGBT rights protection in the goals of development assistance (Kretz, 2013).
One of the first times LGBT aid conditionality came on the political agenda was when a Ugandan member of parliament introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Act, an act that would strengthen the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda. Several donor countries threatened to, and actually sanctioned the Ugandan government by cutting development aid. The Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Frans Timmermans called the day the law was signed by Ugandan President Musevini “A bad day for human rights in Uganda” and
8
immediately announced measures against the Ugandan government (Dutch government website, 2014). The Dutch government has suspended its aid to the Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) and said that they would address the issues diplomatically with Uganda as well as within the EU (Tweede Kamer, February 2014).
Figure 1 shows the Official Development Assistence (ODA) flows from the Dutch government to Uganda. The figure partly indicates the move by the Dutch government as indicated by the downward trend from 2013, the year the Anti-Homosexuality Act was signed by Ugandan President Museveni. Though the strong condemnation of the Anti-Homosexuality Act has been applauded by most Dutch political parties and the concerned NGO’s, the actual sanctioning gained a lot criticism. Critiques have been concerned with the donor’s motivations and the effectiveness of the aid sanctions. Questions arose whether sanctions would help the LGBT community in Uganda and if the sanctions do not harm the poorest people in Uganda.
Figure 1: ODA disbursements from the Netherlands to Uganda (Source: OECD)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 OD A in M ill io n $
ODA in million $ from Netherlands to
Uganda
ODA in million $ from Netherlands to Uganda
9
This thesis will answer the following research question:
What are the motivations and objectives that drive the Dutch aid sanctions on Uganda due to LGBT rights violations?
The study will build on the debate between constructivists and rationalist on aid sanctioning and human rights protection by looking at the case of Dutch foreign aid sanctions due to Ugandan LGBT rights violations in relation to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Constructivist scholars argue that donor countries impose sanctions and conditions due to a moral commitment to human rights (Risse et al, 1999), while more rationalist scholars argue that donor countries’ domestic political, economic and/or geopolitical interest is the primary objective of aid sanctions (Nielsen, 2013). By using the method of process tracing this thesis will conduct an in-depth single within case analyses of the Dutch sanctions on the Ugandan government in the period 2009 till 2015. In this timespan the act has been introduced, debated in the Ugandan parliament, signed by the President and eventually been rejected by the highest Ugandan court. Process tracing makes it possible to identify the causal mechanism of the case and to analyse Dutch responses to the events in Uganda. Empirical research in this thesis will proceed along two lines. Content analysis will make the different frames, patterns and meanings that have been or are used in the debate on the sanctions on the Ugandan government visible.It will be applied to policy documents, parliamentary questions, newspaper articles and in-depth articles. A descriptive analysis of aid flows from the Netherlands to Uganda will give insights in the actual aid sanctions and the differences in sectorial aid locations.
The structure of the thesis is as follows. Chapter two will provide insights in the constructivist and rationalist literature on the relation between aid conditionality and sanctioning and the protection of human rights. This chapter will also conceptualize the main concepts of aid conditionality and political conditionality in particular. Chapter three discusses the case selection and the methods used in this research. The method of process tracing with a content analyses of policy documents, newspapers and in-depth interviews will be explained and elaborated on. This chapter argues why the Netherlands-Uganda aid
10
relation, as a single case study, is a suitable approach to analyse LGBT rights-related aid sanctioning. In the fourth chapter, the historical and the current position of LGBT people in Uganda is further elaborated on, together with the international responses to the events happening in Uganda. This chapter will also include the chronology of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda. The proceeding chapters are concerned with the analyses: Chapter five includes the content analyses of newspapers, policy documents, parliamentary questions, and interviews with key actors. Chapter 6 looks closer at the descriptive aid statistics and will show whether the moral commitment to the protection of LGBT rights in Uganda by the Dutch government is reflected in the actual aid flows. This thesis concludes with a summary of the main findings and raises some points of reflection and discussion.
11
2. Theoretical Framework
In order to empirically analyse the motives and objectives of the sanctions of the Dutch government on the Ugandan government due to LGBT rights violations, a theoretical framework is required. The concept of aid conditionality will be conceptualized. The two types of aid conditionality: political and economic conditionality are explained. Before analysing the motives and objectives it is important to situate the analysis in the broader theoretical relationship between human rights protection and aid sanctioning. Aid sanctioning because of LGBT rights violations is a recent trend in aid conditionality, therefore there is little research conducted to the relation between LGBT rights violations and aid sanctioning. This thesis will borrow insights from the extensive literature on aid sanctioning and human rights violations. Both constructivist and rationalist literature on aid provision and conditionality and sanctioning is discussed in the theoretical framework. In the final section of this chapter the little research that has been done on the relation between LGBT rights, ODA and aid conditionality is presented.
2.2 Aid Conditionality
On the 25th session of the General Assembly of the UN in 1970, an agreement was made upon the amount of development assistance that should be provided by economic advanced countries: “Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its
official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 percent of its gross national product” (UN, 1970,
resolution 2626, paragraph 43). Though this target is not met by many developed countries, official development assistance totalled 131.6 action US Dollar in 2015 (OECD, 2016).
Donor countries provide development assistance for multiple reasons. In the debate concerning the objectives of the provision of development aid, there is a distinction between the ‘recipient needs view’ and the ‘donor interest view’ (Neumayer, 2003). The ‘recipient needs view’ on the provision of development assistance argues that it is the moral duty of high-income developed countries to help less-developed countries. Aid is provided to help the recipient country in overcoming poverty, promote democracy and protect human rights. According to Lumsdaine (1993) the richer states respond to the need in
12
developing countries because their identity as a state inclines them to do so. State identity is primarily formed by the individual identities of citizens and what citizens consider to be important in terms of aid allocation and global redistribution. This is shown by the findings of Noel and Thorien (1995) that provides evidence to show that states that are domestically more concerned with income distribution and poverty alleviation tend to also provide more development assistance.
Contrary to the ‘recipient need view’ that development aid is provided to help developing countries by alleviating poverty and promoting good governance and/or democracy there is the more rationalist argument that stresses importance of donor interest in aid provision and allocation. Bueno de Mesquita and Smith (2009) have questioned the ‘recipient need view’ by arguing that if poverty alleviation would be the main objective of developing countries to provide aid, than aid should flow to the countries with the highest amount of poverty and the lowest GDP. They however find contrary evidence that indicates that developing states receive higher amounts of aid when their GDP increases until a certain level: “The amount of aid given increases as recipient wealth increases up to approximately the 20th percentile (circa $1,000 per capita income) in terms of recipient wealth” (Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, 2009, 330).
Most of the aid is only provided when certain conditions are agreed upon to meet. Stokke (1995) distinguishes two types of aid conditionality. The first and more prevalent type is economic conditionality. Economic conditions on aid are primarily concerned with imposing policies that promote economic growth in developing countries (Radelet, 2006). Well-known examples of economic conditions on aid are the structural adjustment programs by the IMF. The structural adjustment programs by the IMF are an example of economic conditionality. The second type of conditionality is political conditionality. These conditions on development assistance concern the protection of human rights, the promotion of democracy or good governance and other political conditions (Stokke, 1995; Radelet, 2006). Before the 1980’s human rights and development were largely separated. Development and development assistance was primarily focused on areas such as agriculture, infrastructure and GDP growth (Bergenfield and Miller, 2014, 7). After the Cold War, development and human rights protection got more integrated. Human rights organization began to link
13
human rights to economic development and stressed the importance of a new approach to development that would take human rights into account when donor countries provided assistance to developing countries. The rights-based approach to development has gained support over the past decades and integrated principles as non-discrimination, gender equality, democracy and more into development policies (Bergenfield and Miler, 2014). Even though their objectives differ, political and economic conditions are often combined and used simultaneously and so are not always distinguishable from each other (Molenaers et al, 2015).
This thesis uses the definition of political conditionality and aid sanctioning that has been introduced by Stokke (1993) and recently updated by Molenaers et al (2015). Political conditionality is seen as “the allocation of financial resources to sanction or reward recipients in order to promote democratic governance and human rights” (Molenaers et al, 2015,2). This definition differs from Stokke's well-known definition because it includes both rewarding as sanctioning conditions. Recent studies indicate that since the middle of the 2000's a new type of political conditionality has emerged next to the sanctioning conditions. These conditions are more concerned with rewarding good governance and democracy than sanctioning violations or autocratic reforms (Molenaears & Nijs, 2009; Faust et al, 2012).
2.3 Aid conditionality and human rights protection
LGBT rights are a recent feature of aid sanctioning and only a few western countries have publically announced to include conditions in their foreign aid that call for the protection and improvement of LGBT rights in recipient countries (Kretz, 2013). Because the literature has not focused on LGBT rights in particular this thesis will borrow insights from the literature to the relation between aid sanctioning and human rights violations. Though a human rights approach to the development of international LGBT rights has been criticized by feminist and queer scholars (Kollmann and Waites, 2009) due to its universal conception of human rights and sexuality and culturally specific concepts like 'marriage' and 'the family', the approach is most suitable in this thesis because the human rights discourse is being used by policy makers and politicians that have implemented or threatened to implement sanctioning policies and conditions. The sanctions and conditions tied to foreign aid related to LGBT rights also show a lot of similarities with other human rights conditions due to the
14
highly controversial and publicized character of the violations and the sanctions in both donor and recipient countries (Kretz, 2013; Kerrigan, 2014)
There is a large body of research to donor’s foreign aid conditions concerning the promotion of good governance, democracy and donor responses towards the violation of human rights. Most of the literature is concerned with whether and when donors do sanction states that violate basic human rights and less with questions concerning the effectiveness of human rights sanctioning. The extensive literature on the relation between aid sanctioning and human rights violations shows a debate between scholars who argue that states sanction countries that violate human rights in their aid disbursement equally to protect human rights (Risse et al, 1999), scholars that argue that human rights protection does not play a significant role in the allocation of aid by donor countries (Carey, 2007) and scholars who argue that aid sanctioning is done selectively by donor countries by sanctioning recipient countries without any political ties with the donor country but not sanctioning befriended countries that violate human rights (Tomasevski, 1997; Nielsen, 2013). This thesis however is not concerned with the question whether donor countries do sanction human rights violations and in specific LGBT rights violations or not, but this thesis will explore the motives and objectives behind aid sanctioning due to LGBT rights violations. Different motives, arguments and objectives borrowed from the literature on the relation between aid sanctioning and human rights violations are explored in relation to LGBT rights violations.
2.3.1 Constructivist arguments on aid sanctioning
Constructivist scholars argue that moral commitments to human rights have played a significant role in sanctioning human rights violating recipient countries (Risse et al, 1999). The view of constructivist scholars on aid sanctioning is closely related to be the 'recipient needs view' of aid provision. Donor countries that have a strong commitment to human rights in domestic and international politics and policies themselves, will sanction a country that violates human rights by withdrawing or suspending aid more often (Stokke, 1989). According to Stokke, the socio-political values and norms incarnated by the welfare state form "the most fundamental determinants" of the aid policies of the donor country (Stokke, 1989, 284).
15
According to Lumsdaine (1993) foreign aid and conditions tied to it have partly served the self-interest of donor countries but has often been based on donor's humanitarianism and "their perception of the world as an interdependent community" (Lumsdaine, 1993, 4). The most analysed and most used type of bilateral aid is government-to-government aid (Dietrich, 2013). Government-to-government aid has been the cause of critique among scholars challenging the intentions of donor countries (Neumayer, 2003). It is often argued that the high amount of government-to-government aid despite high levels of corruption and the waste of aid money indicates that moral commitments to poverty alleviation, human rights, good governance and the promotion of democracy are not the main objectives of foreign aid (Neumayer, 2003; Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, 2009). Moral commitment to human rights in aid sanctioning becomes clearer when aid tactic and aid allocation, the different ways of providing and allocating aid, is taking into account. Dietrich (2013) has argued that donors increase aid effectiveness by channelling aid through international, national and local NGO’s. In this way the recipient’s government is bypassed, aid can be directly aimed at a development goal and support is given more directly to the people in need of the aid. It is expected that some of the aid that has been withdrawn by the Dutch government because of LGBT rights violations in Uganda is channelled back to Uganda through NGO’s (human rights organization and local LGBT organizations) to improve the position of LGBT people in Uganda.
Studies to financial aid flows, conditionality and sanctioning have looked at aggregate aid flows, which would assume that aid is a homogenous concept. Nielsen (2013) has argued that aid sanctioning has to be divided into different sectors. He distinguishes three aid sectors: economic aid, social aid, and human rights and democracy aid. The majority of aid is for economic sectors like budget support, infrastructure and the development of industries. According to Nielsen (2013) aid cuts are primarily aimed at economic aid because this aid is most punishing for recipient countries and is the most fungible (Nielsen, 2013, 794). Social aid concerns aid for sectors like healthcare, education and other social sectors. Aid to social sectors is less likely to be targeted by aid sanctions because cutting in the social sector would directly target the poorest people in the recipient country. The last sector, aid for human rights promotion and democracy is least likely to be targeted. This sector includes
16
aid to national and regional human rights bodies, protection of minorities, aid to legal and judicial sectors and other aspects to protect human rights and promote democracy. This type of aid is often channelled through NGO’s to avoid influence from the government (Nielsen, 2013, 795). To improve aid effectiveness and to achieve goals and objectives in the recipient countries, donor countries can use different aid allocation tactics. Dietrich stresses the importance of analysing the different channels of aid allocation in research to foreign aid (Dietrich, 2013, 708). Sectorial Aid allocation can provide an insight in the motivations and objectives behind the foreign aid sanctions of the Dutch government against Uganda’s LGBT rights violations. It is expected that if the primary aim of the aid sanctions is to improve the rights of LGBT people in Uganda and to stop the criminalization of LGBT people, aid should be cut less in sectors that would harm the poorest and the socially most vulnerable people and more in sectors that put fiscal pressure on the Ugandan government. Also, sectors in which Dutch firms are commercially involved should be no less likely to face the aid cuts.
Another constructivist argument on aid sanctioning and the protection of LGBT rights is related to state identity and the international status of the Netherlands. The Netherlands as donor country has been selected due to its norm entrepreneurial status when it comes to the protection of LGBT rights in domestic and international politics. The concept of norm entrepreneur has been developed by international relations scholars to stress the independent influence of smaller states that do not necessarily fit in classical international relations approaches that focus primarily on material power and capabilities relative to other states in the world (Ingebritsen, 2002, 11). Norm entrepreneurial state theory is not concerned with the maximization of power and territorial expansion but deals with a state’s reputation and identity (Finnemore, 1996). As Finnamore and Sikkink indicate “Norms do not emerge out of thin air; they are actively built by agents having strong notions about appropriate or desirable behaviour in their community” (Finnamore and Sikking, 1998, 869). Finnemore and Sikking (1998) distinguish three stages of norm development. The first stage is the norm emergence, the second stage norm acceptance and the final stage norm internalization (Finnemore and Sikking, 1998). The norm entrepreneurial status of the Netherlands on LGBT rights protection has evolved over the last century. The emergence of LGBT rights in the Netherlands can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century
17
when protests against the criminalization of homosexuality occurred. When homosexuality was decriminalized in the mid 1950’s and erased from the list of mental illnesses in 1971, the battle for equal rights for LGBT people in the Netherlands emerged which eventually resulted in the legalization of same sex marriage in 2001. Gerhards (2010) findings on the acceptance of homosexuality indicate that the state and society in the Netherlands conform to the norm of equal rights for LGBT people. Internationally the Netherlands has been on the foreground in promoting LGBT rights. The protection of LGBT rights domestically and internationally has become one of the examples of secular, Dutch “tradition of tolerance” (Mepschen et al, 2010, 970). It is expected that the foreign policies of the Netherlands in relation to the Ugandan LGBT rights violations are partly motivated by the international liberal status that the Dutch government wants to preserve.
2.3.2 Rationalist arguments on aid sanctioning
Contrary to the constructivist theory on aid sanctioning and the protection of human rights is the rationalist theory. Rationalist scholars question the role of moral commitment in donors aid policies and focus on the donor countries’ self-interest when it comes to aid disbursement (Svensson, 1999, Neumayer, 2003,Nielson, 2013). The continuous high levels of government-to-government aid despite high levels of waste of aid and controversies of corruption and poor aid allocation in recipient countries has made scholars question donor’s true motivations and objectives of their foreign aid (Neumayer, 2003; Bueno de Mesquita and Smith, 2009).
Rationalist scholars state that development aid is given primarily to serve the self-interest of the donor country whether that is an economic or security based self-interest. It has often been argued that donor countries do sanction human right violators but do so selectively (Svensson, 1999; Neumayer, 2003; Nielsen, 2013). The selectivity in aid sanctioning can have numerous motivations for the donor countries. One of the objectives of selectively sanctioning or not sanctioning a recipient country for human rights violations are the political ties or the lack of political ties with the recipient country. Nielsen (2013) disproves the existing premise that aid sanctioning is done equally and consistent to all recipient countries and in every single aid sector. Nielsen argues that aid sanctions are more nuanced. Recipient countries that violate human rights are sanctioned in three instances: When there
18
are no political ties between the donor and recipient country, when the human rights violations can have negative consequences for the donor countries and when the human rights violations are widely publicized in the media (Nielsen, 2013). Sanctions also differ per sector. Aid donors distinguish between economic, social and human rights/democray aid. Sanctions and cuts on aid are most often on economic aid (Nielsen, 2013) This is partly due to the fungibility of economic aid (Feyzioglu et al, 1998) and because economic aid seems to have the biggest impact and therefore influence on the key institutions and can challenge political success (Kono & Montinola, 2006).
Svensson (1999) finds that respect for political and civil rights has had a positive influence on whether a country receives aid at all from Cananda, Japan and the United States but not from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Svensson also looked at the amounts of aid distributed and showed that respect for human rights in recipient countries leads to a higher amount of aid from Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden (Svensson, 1999). In an analysis of the total amount of bilateral and multilateral aid, Neumayer (2003) has shown a mixed picture on whether donor countries reward respect for human rights. On the one hand developing countries that have always had more respect for basic human rights receive a higher share of aid. On the other hand countries that improve the protection of human rights are not rewarded with higher amounts of aid.
Studies on Dutch aid allocation and the relation between aid sanctioning and human rights protection and the promotion of democracy and good governance are often concerned with the Dutch-Indonesia relation and the aid sanctions imposed by the Dutch government in the late 1980’s and the ending of the aid relationship in 1992 (Nordhold, 1995; Baehr, 1997). Although the relation between the Netherlands and Indonesia differs a lot from the relation between the Netherlands and Uganda, mostly due to the colonial history of the Netherlands and Indonesia, it can still provide an insight in the Dutch conditionality policies. Criticism of the Dutch–Indonesia aid relationship and the aid sanctioning has been dominated by critiques of paternalism (Baehr, 1997). By referring to double standards being used by the Dutch government in sanctioning Suriname more harsh due to their human rights violations than Indonesia, the selectivity of Dutch sanctions is being criticized (Baehr, 1997, 373). The rationalist argument that questions the moral commitment to address human rights due to
19
selectivity in the recipient countries has often been used in the case of the Netherlands and Indonesia (Baehr 1997).
2.4 Aid sanctioning and LGBT rights
Kretz (2013) has been the first to explore LGBT related aid conditions and sanctions by analyzing British and American foreign aid policies with the intend to protect sexual minorities. Both countries had publically announced that foreign aid disbursements will take into account the way LGBT people are treated under the law in recipient countries (Kretz, 2013, 10). Kretz argues that these pronouncements have had an impact on the development of international LGBT rights because of the rhetorical changes but did not actually lead to policy changes in the way aid has been allocated especially by the United Kingdom but also by the United States. In the case of the United Kingdom despite the strong language used by David Cameron and officials from the Foreign Office there has been little change or an indication of change towards their foreign policy (Kretz, 2013). The strong language was not followed by any plans on how countries violating LGBT rights would be sanctioned. Kretz has called this the lack of definition in the actual British foreign policy.
Bergenfield and Miller’s (2014) starting point are the same rhetorical changes observed by Kretz (2013). In their study of twelve of the largest aid agencies from North-America, Western Europe, Japan and the World Bank (WB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), they have analysed four different dimensions of change. The first dimension is the rhetorical changes of the leaders of the agencies. Bergenfield and Miller found that out of the twelve agencies analysed, ten senior leaders have publically made statements about the inclusion of LGBT rights in development policies. The second dimension they have looked are the guiding development policies of the agencies. According to Bergenfield and Miller, six out of the twelve agencies have included sexual orientation and gender identity in their strategic policies or have specific policies towards the protection of LGBT people (Bergenfield and Miller, 2014, 9). The third and the fourth dimension they have analysed are the inwardly-directed and the outwardly-directed non-discrimination policies for LGBT people of the agencies. Inwardly-directed policies concern the formal protection against discrimination of the employees within the agency itself. Outwardly-directed anti-discrimination policies refer to the policies that explicitly prohibits
20
discrimination in development programs by implementing partners. Nine of the agencies analysed have such inwardly-directed policies. One agency, the EU, has outwardly-directed non-discrimination policies (Bergenfield and Miller, 2014).
This thesis will contribute to the existing literature by analysing an actual case of aid sanctioning because of LGBT rights violations. Kretz (2013) has observed and analysed the aid related rhetoric of politicians and policy makers in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the time period that Kretz has observed no actual sanctions were imposed by the two countries and the United Kingdom still has not imposed actual sanctions. This thesis will contribute to the existing literature by analysing the motivations and objectives of a case in which aid sanctions have been imposed.
Studies on the international position of LGBT rights in both developed as developing countries have been done from a feminist/queer perspective (Kollman and Waites, 2009; Wilson, 2009) or from an international law perspective (Kretz, 2013). These studies have primarily focused on the desirability of universal LGBT rights and the adoption of LGBT rights in developing countries. This thesis will give new insights in the relation between the protection of human rights, LGBT rights and aid sanctioning by analysing the aid sanctions from an international relations perspective with a focus on the debate between constructivists and rationalists.
21
3. Methodology
The existing theories on aid sanctioning and human rights violating are analysed in the case of the Dutch – Uganda aid sanctioning due to LGBT rights violations in the Anti-Homosexuality Act from 2009 until 2015. The act that would criminalize homosexuality even further and make homosexual acts punishable by a life sentence and in some cases by death gained a lot of international criticism. In the timespan between 2009 and 2015, the act has been introduced, debated in the Ugandan parliament, signed by the President and eventually been rejected by the highest Ugandan court. During that period several aid threats and sanctions have followed the behaviour of the Ugandan parliament and President related to the Anti-Homosexuality act.
3.1 Case selection
To analyse the motives and objectives of the Dutch government to impose foreign aid sanctions against Uganda’s LGBT rights violations, this thesis will conduct an in-depth single within case analysis. Within case analysis is concerned with exploring causal relationships by looking at multiple features of a single case through a close analyses of the intervening processes that link the variables outlined in a hypothesized causal relationship (Tansey, 2007; Mahoney, 2000). To specify the main events and the timing of the sanctions, a short overview of the events will be provided. These events will be elaborated on more extensively. The main events in the process of the implementation of the Anti-Homosexuality Act that have triggered reaction from donor countries started with the introduction of the act in 2009. From 2009 till 2011, the act has been debated on in the Ugandan parliament and was eventually dropped by the cabinet because they considered the already existing laws against homosexuality sufficient. In the following year the act has been introduced several times but never came to an actual pass in parliament. The act eventually passed the Ugandan parliament in December 2013. After consideration and despite international pressure the Ugandan President Museveni signed the act in February 2014, which provoked the actual sanctions of some donor countries including the Netherlands. At the end of 2014 the constitutional court of Uganda declared the act invalid because it had not passed with the required quorum. Many of the sanctions however were not lifted and are still in place.
22
The Dutch aid sanctions due to LGBT right violations is considered an intrinsic case. The main purpose of an intrinsic case is to better understand the particular case and the causal mechanism within the case (Berg, 2007). The uniqueness of the aid sanctions due to LGBT rights violations is the main cause for conducting a research on the case. There has not been any research conducted on the case and little research on LGBT related aid sanctioning. An in-depth research of the single case can provide insights in the motivations and objectives of the Dutch government to impose sanctions on Uganda. Though the uniqueness of the case makes it hard to generalize the outcomes, the case can also be considered an instrumental case since another purpose of the research is the refine and test theories concerning aid sanctioning and human rights protection on the relative new phenomenon in the human rights approach, LGBT rights. As Stake mentions there is not always a solid line drawn between an intrinsic and an instrumental case (Stake, 1993, 237). Even though the main purpose is to understand the Dutch aid sanction on Uganda, the research can refine theoretical insights that might help understand other and future cases of aid sanctioning due to LGBT rights violations and usage of aid conditionality to protect LGBT people.
3.2 Process tracing
By using the method of process tracing this thesis will explore the causal mechanism behind the aid sanctions imposed by the Dutch government on Uganda due to LGBT rights violations. Process tracing is an increasingly used method in social science case study research and has accelerated since Alexander George and Andrew Bennett’s (2005) book
Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. The main goal of process
tracing is to “obtain information about well-defined and specific events and processes” (Tansey, 2007, 765). George and Bennet (2005) argue that it is essential to identify causal mechanisms and that within case studies are required to explore a causal mechanism in detail.
In this thesis process tracing will entail collecting and analysing policy documents, newspaper articles,in-depth interviews with the key actors, debates in the Dutch Parliament and quantitative aid flow data on the aid sanctions of the Dutch government on the Ugandan government due LGBT rights violations, Process tracing will make it possible to see whether theories concerning aid sanctioning and human rights violations are evident in the
23
case and whether the expected actions derived from these theories are visible in the case of the Dutch foreign aid sanctions due to Uganda’s LGBT rights violations. Process tracing in this thesis is nested in a mixed methods design including content analyses and a descriptive analyses of aid flows to identify the patterns and causal mechanisms of the single case. A key point in process tracing is the focus on the occurrence of events over time (Collier, 2011). Therefore, a specific time period of the event that is being researched has to be set. The time period being analysed in this thesis is from 2009 till 2015. As mentioned above, this is the period in which the Anti-Homosexuality Act has been introduced, debated over, signed and eventually declared invalid by the constitutional court. According to Collier, the unfolding of an event is impossible "if one cannot adequately describe an event or situation at one point in time" (Collier, 2011, 824). Therefore it is important to pin point the key moments in the process to analyse actual changes, objectives and motivations in responses and sanctions of the Dutch government towards the event of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda. To pin point the main events in the case of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and responses of the Dutch government, news articles in the major national Dutch newspapers that have been published in the period 2009-2015 have been analysed.
3.3 Content analysis
The analysis of the documents will be conducted by using qualitative content analysis. Content analysis will make it possible to identify different frames being used in policy documents, speeches, debates, interviews and news articles (Berg et al, 2004). Content analysis is "a careful, detailed, systematic examination and interpretation of a particular body of material in an effort to identify patterns, themes, biases and meanings" (Berg, 2009; Neuendorf, 2002). The qualitative content analysis in this thesis is based on the interpretive approach. Policy documents, parliamentary questions and in-depth interviews with major actors in the debate on the Dutch sanctions on Uganda will be organized and structured to uncover patterns in the discourse being used (Berg, 2009). This method is most suitable to answer the research question because the primary aim of the research is to find the (multiple) motivations for imposing sanctions on the Ugandan government. An analysis of the policy documents, parliamentary questions and in-depth interviews allows identifying patterns and meanings in the data. Because aid sanctioning due to LGBT rights violations is a
24
recent phenomenon the explorative character of the data collection and analysis provides a wide insight in the single event.
The interpretive content analysis will be conducted according to the analytical structure provided by Berg (2009). The first phase of the content analyses is the collection of the data. The next paragraph will go into more detail on the data collection on behalf of this study. All interviews conducted will be transcribed into text. Codes used are analytically developed out of the theory and made into categorical frames. The policy papers, parliamentary question and interviews have been analysed using five different frames that have derived from the theory on motives of aid sanctioning and human rights protection. These frames are: ‘Moral commitment to LGBT rights’, ‘Norm-entrepreneurial international status of the Netherlands’, ‘Economic argument’, ‘Dutch domestic politics’, ‘Geopolitical reasoning’. To identify similar arguments and patterns, the data collected is being sorted into these frames.The last phase of the analyses concerns the application of the identified arguments and patterns on the theory provided in the theoretical overview (Berg, 2009, 341).
3.4 Data collection
The chronological overview, including the sub events in the main event of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the Dutch responses to the introduction, signing, and rejection of the act, is created by analysing news articles in the major Dutch newspapers in the period 2009-2015. The articles were found using LexisNexis. All articles with the keywords 'Uganda', 'Netherlands', 'gay' and ‘law’ in the title and/or first paragraph have been selected. This resulted in a total amount of 114 news articles. These articles have been analysed and labelled according to their content. The labels used to systematically provide a chronology of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the international and Dutch responses to the events are: ‘Dutch sanctions’, ‘international response and pressure’, ‘Origins of the Anti-Homosexuality Act’, ‘Ugandan response to international pressure’, and ‘reconsideration of the act’.
The policy documents used in the content analyses includes all official published policy documents of the Dutch government and political parties concerning the responses to the event of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in the period 2009-2015. All documents are published
25
on the Dutch Parliament website (www.tweedekamer.nl). This includes letters from ministers to the parliament, parliamentary questions and responses, official policy papers, statements by members of parliament debate. In total, 25 policy documents have been selected and analysed.
Though the main analyses will be focused on policy documents and parliamentary questions, four in depth interviews are conducted to achieve a better understanding of the causal mechanism of the imposed aid sanctions. Open and semi-structured in depth interviews are conducted with the key actors who played a significant role in the implementation of the aid sanctions. These include members of parliament from several Dutch political parties. Sampling is based on identifying the key political and influential actors who have had the most involvement in the actual sanctioning of the Ugandan government. This thesis will deliberately not sample interviewees randomly because that would increase the risk of excluding important actors. The parties that have played a significant role in the debates concerning the Ugandan LGBT rights violations have been GroenLinks (the Dutch green party), Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA, labour party), D66 (Liberal democrats), Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV, Party for Freedom) and ChristenUnie (Christian Union). By using snowball sampling1 with the respondents as a starting position, I was able to identify and reach the main actors involved in imposing the sanctions on the Ugandan government. In this way hidden actors were identified and approached. Next to politicians, interviews have been conducted with the president of Pride United, an international LGBT organization and the former president of the COC, Frank van Dalen. Next to these stakeholders the Ugandan ambassador in the Benelux has also been interviewed to get a better understanding of the Ugandan point of view and their responses to the international criticism and sanctions. Figure 2 shows the structure of the methodology and the data that has been collected and used.
1 Snowball sampling is a way to sample, by accessing informants through contact information that is provided
26
Figure 2: Methodology
3.5 Validity and reliability
The methods used in the analysis have several implications in terms of both validity and reliability. The single within case analyses makes it possible to identify the motives and objectives of the Dutch government to impose sanctions in this particular case. The purpose of the single case study is to generate an intensive examination of the Dutch sanctions on the Ugandan government. The single case study makes it hard to generalize the outcomes to other cases of aid sanctioning. This is, however not the purpose of the single case analysis. In other words, the internal validity of the research is high but the external validity of the analysis is low (Bryman, 2008, 32).
The method of content analysis, with the use of frames, can decrease the reliability because of a researcher bias in the selection and the application of the frames. To overcome the researcher bias in the selection of the frames, all frames used derive from the existing theory on donor countries' motives for aid sanctioning due to human rights violations.
Process tracing
(mixed method
design)
Content
analysis
25 Policy
documents
114 newspaper
articles
4 Interviews
Descriptive
analysis
Sectorial aid
flows
(OpenAidNL)
27
With the interviews conducted and the policy papers analysed there is always the threat of a social desirability bias, which could decrease the reliability of the research. The Dutch government may not honestly express the self-interests behind the aid sanctions and parliamentarians may only express their moral commitment to LGBT rights instead of talking about any self-interests of the Dutch government in imposing sanctions. This thesis has tried to overcome this bias by means of triangulation and selecting a representative from the Ugandan government to express their views on the Dutch aid sanctions. Moreover, the combination of the descriptive analyses of aid flows with the content analyses helps to overcome the social desirability bias and to increase the reliability of the research by looking at the case from different angles.
28
4. Museveni and the chronology of the Anti-Homosexuality Act
This chapter will provide a chronological overview of the events related to the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the international responses to it. To provide this overview and to understand the actual policies it is important to point out the origins of anti-LGBT attitudes in Uganda and the historical colonial background that preceded the Anti-Homosexuality Act. First, I elaborate on the historical background of the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the domestic responses to the Act. Second, I will provide a chronology of the Anti-Homosexuality Act itself. The thesis will focus on a set of key events from 2009, the year the Act was first introduced in the Parliament to the year 2015 in which the signed law was declared invalid by the constitutional court. I also examine the international responses that followed the events. I identify four sub-events, based on the analyses of 114 newspaper articles in the main Dutch national newspapers. The four sub-events include: (1) the introduction of the act, (2) the reconsideration of the act and responses to international critiques, (3) the signing of the act, and (4) the eventual annulment of the act by the constitutional court of Uganda. For each of the four events, the international responses to the specific event will be elaborated on.
4.1 Historical background
An often-heard claim from Ugandan politicians and public figures is that homosexuality is un-African and a western product that western donor countries want to impose on Uganda (NRC Handelsblad, 2010a). To find out where the idea in Uganda of homosexuality as un-African and as a western idea comes from it is important to highlight the colonial history of Uganda.
Before British colonialism there was no Uganda. The geographical location that is now called Uganda had numerous centralized kingdoms and decentralized communities (Jjuuko, 2013, 384). Even though there is not much written down of this period, oral history has taught that there was no such thing as criminalization of homosexuality. Homosexual practices were never condemned nor suppressed in the areas that are now known as Uganda (Tamala, 2003, 29).
29
It was only during the British colonization that the so-called ‘laws on unnatural offences’ were introduced. The sodomy laws were introduced in all British colonies and have had an impact of the position of LGBT people in all Commonwealth countries (Sanders, 2009). The Penal Code Act that was introduced in 1950 copied most of the sodomy laws introduced by the British. Section 145 of the Penal Code Act states that:
Any person who— (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment
for life.
(Ugandan Government, 1950, section 145)
After Uganda became an independent country in October 1962, many of the laws of the colonial era were adapted in the new Ugandan laws and constitution including the Penal Code Act. These laws have been in place ever since. In 2005, President Museveni signed a constitutional amendment that declared marriage between persons of the same sex was prohibited making Uganda the second country in the world to do so (Human Rights Watch, 2005). Many other countries do not allow same-sex couples to get married but have not included this in their constitution. This constitutional amendment was the first new law implemented that opposed equality for LGBT people since the adoption of the 1950 Penal Code Act.
4.2 The Anti-Homosexuality Act (2009-2015)
4.2.1 The introduction of the act
The Anti-Homosexuality Act was first introduced as a private members act, not by someone from the executive branch, by David Bahati, member of the Ugandan Parliament in October 2009. The introduction of the act was for a major part influenced by a workshop organized earlier in 2009 called “seminar on exposing the homosexual agenda” (Volkskrant, 2009). This workshop organized by the Family Life Network, an anti-gay organization in Uganda, included discussions on how to make gay people straight again and how to destroy the gay movement that is seen as an "evil institution whose goal is to defeat the marriage based
30
society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity" (Dicklitch et al, 2012, 456). The workshop featured three American evangelistical Christian speakers: Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer. American Christian evangelists are seen as the major influence on Bahati's Anti-Homosexuality Act (Cheney, 2012, 84). The act implemented by David Bahati would criminalize homosexuality further than the pre-existing laws. It distinguishes between the offence of homosexuality and the offence of aggravated homosexuality. The act states:
1) A person who commits the offence of homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.
2) A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death.
(Ugandan Parliament, 2009)
Aggravated homosexuality includes multiple offences of homosexuality and an act of homosexuality while having HIV/Aids. Another important aspect of the act concerns the criminalization of not reporting someone who has committed the offence of homosexuality while knowing that he or she did. Immediately after the official introduction of the act, international criticism followed. American President Obama threatened to reconsider the aid that is given to Uganda and Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen expressed his disapproval of the act (NRC Handelsblad, 2010b). Other countries such as Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the EU threatened to impose sanctions on the development aid. The act never came to an actual vote in 2009 and therefore no sanctions were imposed on the Ugandan government. In the Dutch parliament questions were raised on the matter. Leader of the social-liberal party (D66) asked Minister of Foreign Affairs, Uri Rosenthal to express disapproval of the law in the highest diplomatic levels and to call upon the international community and the EU to condemn the Anti-Homosexuality Act and to point out international treaties signed by the Ugandan government that will not allow them to pass such legislation (Trouw, 2011a).
31
4.2.2 Reconsideration, the international critiques and Museveni’s struggle
In the period following the introduction of the act, President Museveni has gone back and forth in defending and rejecting the act. After supporting the act when it was introduced, President Museveni called the act a matter of “International and foreign political affairs” in January 2010 (NRC Handelsblad, 2010c). With this statement he indicated that the act could make Uganda internationally unpopular and could cause a loss in revenues from donor countries. Museveni asked the author of the law, David Bahati, who is a member of the same political party as the President, to reconsider the act and the overlook the case. These comments of the President caused domestic critiques that stated that the President only listened to western governments and gave in to easily to the international pressure. The death penalty was eventually dropped in the act and in a second version that was presented to parliament homosexual acts could lead to imprisonment for life (Trouw, 2010a).
In accordance with the homophobic sentiment in the population of Uganda, the tabloid newspaper Rolling Stone published a list of hundred names, addresses and pictures of homosexuals in Uganda. One of the headline’s next to the list stated: “hang them” (Trouw, 2010b). International media soon picked up the publication of the list, which resulted in a lot of international criticism towards Uganda and Uganda’s government. Numerous international LGBT organization called upon western governments to not let the increasing levels of homophobia in Uganda and the role of the Ugandan government in this go unnoticed. Frank Mugisha, a Ugandan LGBT rights activist sued the newspaper for publishing the photos and the court approved Mugisha’s indictment. The newspaper was fined by the court for publishing the photos names and addresses (Volkskrant, 2011a).
The act had not come to a vote in 2010 and with the new elections coming in February 2011, the act in its current form would not come to a vote any more (Volkskrant, 2011b). Major supporters of the act in parliament announced that the act would be re-introduced when the new parliament was elected. Members in parliament in favour of the act suspected the government to deliberately postpone the act till the new elections to make sure it did not come to a vote and to quietly shelve the act because of the international pressure.
32
The international criticism was raised again when David Kato, one of the leading LGBT activists in Uganda, was murdered on the 26th of January 2011. Whether he was murdered because of his sexuality remains uncertain. The LGBT community thinks it was a homophobic murder because of the recent publication of Kato’s picture, name and address as one of the leading LGBT activist in Uganda. The police and the major newspapers however report it was a murder related to a robbery in his house. Western countries including the Unites States, the United Kingdom and the EU condemned the murder of Kato and called on the authorities to investigate the murder carefully and to prosecute the perpetrators (NRC Handelsblad, 2011a).
In August 2011, the new government under the leadership of the same President Museveni unanimously decided that the current laws that criminalized homosexuality were sufficient and that no further and harsher criminalization of homosexual acts was needed (Reuters, 23 August, 2011). Members of Parliament however did not agree with the position of the government and asked to re-open the parliamentary debate on the matter. In February 2012 David Bahati re-introduced the act into parliament, this time with the death penalty dropped. Again the act was postponed on the agenda several times by the speaker of the house, according to observers due to tied relation between the speaker of the house, Rebecca Kadaga, and Museveni, who feared the economic consequences of passing the act due to the international threats of cutting development aid (NRC Handelsblad, 2014a). A change in the views of speaker Kadaga occurred at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Quebec City, Canada, at the 28th of October 2012. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, John Baird, raised a lot of critical questions towards Kadaga about the Anti-Homosexuality Act and about the murder of David Kato. In a furious response to the questions, Kadaga announced not to bow towards western colonial attitudes. In her speech she said: “On behalf of the Uganda delegation and the people of Uganda, I protest in the strongest terms the arrogance exhibited by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, who spent his entire presentation attacking Uganda and promoting homosexuality.” (Kadaga, 2012). She left the conference and at her return in Uganda she was welcomed by thousands of supporters at the airport. In the next week she stated that she was going to let the Anti-Homosexuality Act come to a vote as a “Christmas gift for the Ugandan people”(NRC Handelsblad, 2014a). Only a year later the act actually came to a vote and passed
33
parliament on the 20th of December 2013 with the acts of homosexuality and the offence of aggravated homosexuality being punishable by lifetime imprisonment (Trouw, 2013). The only thing left needed to implement the law was the singing of the act by the President. According to the Ugandan constitution, the President has to sign the law within a month after it has passed Parliament.
Question on the matter were raised in the Dutch parliament. Members from the right wing Party of Freedom (PVV) and the Liberal Party (VVD) asked the Minister of Development Cooperation, Ploumen, to reconsider the development aid from the Dutch government to Uganda. The Minister replied by stating that she first wanted to wait till the act was actually signed and implemented before the Dutch government would consider aid sanctions. After the act had passed Parliament, President Museveni wrote a public letter to the speaker of the Parliament in which he called for a review of the law and refused to sign the current act. He also stated that the law was probably not valid because too little members of Parliament were present during the vote. In his letter to the speaker he asks himself and the speaker the question: “What do we do with abnormal people, Do we kill or imprison them?” later he answers the question himself: “abnormal or ill people need to be helped and cured, and not imprisoned or killed”, according to Museveni “economic rehabilitation” could cure homosexual people (NRC Handelsblad, 2014b).
In the month following the passing of the act in Parliament, Museveni decided to reconsider his announcement of a month ago. He asked for a scientific research to the nature or nurture question related to homosexuality to make up his mind on the law. Many countries immediately responded with threats. American President Obama wrote a letter to Museveni indicating that the good relationship between Uganda and the United States was at stake and that all the aid given to Uganda would be reconsidered by the American government if the act would be signed by Museveni. Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Frans Timmermans came with similar threats pointing out the long and good relation between Uganda and the Netherlands that was in danger due to the possible singing of the law (Volkskrant, 2014a).
34
4.2.3 The signing of the Anti-Homosexuality Act
On the 24th of February 2014, President Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act that would criminalize homosexual acts further and make homosexuality punishable by lifetime imprisonment. Museveni invited a lot of national and international press for the occasion of the signing of the act. In his statement he said that there was no proof that people were born homosexual and therefore it is a result of bad behaviour and needs to be punished. He also added that Uganda will not give in to “western social imperialism” (Trouw, 2014a). Immediately after Museveni signed the law, the international criticism and responses followed. In the Dutch parliament the social-liberal party (D66) and the conservative Christian party (ChristenUnie) asked for sanctions on the aid provided by the Dutch government. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Timmermans, called it a terrible day for universal human rights and answered with an aid sanction of seven million euros to JLOS due to the act. According to the Dutch Minister of Development Cooperation, Ploumen, the aid to JLOS was suspended because the Dutch government did not want to support a justice and law sector that prosecuted people for being gay. The Minister also summoned the Ugandan Ambassador of the Benelux countries to the ministry to show the Dutch disapproval of the act and asked the Dutch Ambassador in Uganda to do the same in Uganda and to support LGBT organizations on the ground. The government of Austria and Norway also immediately decided to impose sanctions on Uganda. The American government declared it was going to reconsider all the aid giving to Uganda (Volkskrant, 2014b). The World Bank, that previously never intervened in domestic political decision-making, decided to postpone a 90 million dollar loan to Uganda (BBC News, 28 February, 2014).
The day after the act was signed, Ugandan newspaper ‘The Red Pepper’ published a list of 200 “top-homosexuals”. Ugandan LGBT organizations expressed their concerns about the law and the rising anti-gay sentiment in society towards western governments. They also declared that sanctioning wouldn’t immediately benefit the LGBT community. They feared that the LGBT community in Uganda would be held responsible for the loss of a large amount of aid and fear to be seen as the “collaborators with western neo-colonialism” (Volkskrant, 2014c).
35
4.2.4 Annulment of the act by the Constitutional Court
Half a year after President Museveni had signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act, the Constitutional Court of Uganda declared the act invalid. According to the court there were not enough members of Parliament present during the voting to pass the act. A group of LGBT and human rights activist had asked the Constitutional Court to review the procedures of voting on the act and the Court approved their claim (Trouw, 2014b). Though the LGBT activist had called upon the court to annul the act because of the content that would not be in line with the constitution, the court did not give any statement regarding the content of the act (Volkskrant, 2014d).
Even though the act was declared invalid rumours of plans to implement a new act arose. Member of Parliament and supporter of the previous Anti-Homosexuality Act Medard Bitekyerezo, told the media that he was writing a new act with other members of parliament (Volkskrant 2014e).
The Dutch government decided not to continue support for JLOS in the first instance because of the uncertainty of the policies in the proceeding months. In a letter to Parliament, Minister Ploumen stated that the aid to JLOS was permanently cut. In her letter she says that even though the constitutional court has declared the act invalid, it is possible that a new act will be on the Ugandan political agenda soon (Ploumen, 2014)
Figure 3: Timeline of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (2009-2015)
Introduction of the act(2009) Reconsideration, international critiques and Museveni's struggle (2009-2013
Signing of the act and international
sanctions (February 2014)
Review of the act by the Constitutional Court (August
