For once the Wales on Sunday columnist, Matt Withers has a valid point. It does not happen often so when it does it should be worth noting.
Writing in today’s paper about the decision of Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas to reveal that he is gay, Mr. Withers notes that the freedom to reveal ones sexuality in this way is not universal across the world.
In particular Uganda has recently announced plans to introduce the death penalty for homosexuals. It should come as no surprise to anybody that this development has been welcomed by the narrow-minded bigot, Stephen Green and his Christian Voice pressure group. However, as Matt says the proposal should raise some serious questions about the Welsh Government’s decision to give £75,000 of our money to help Ugandan coffee farmers:
On the face of it, it’s laudable. Coffee farmers are more susceptible to changes in the weather than most; in the Mbale region of the country, where the Assembly Government is targeting its cash, coffee farming is the number one industry.
“Industrialised countries like ours have a moral duty to help these regions prepare their own plans to adapt and prepare for our changing environment,” says Mr Jones, and he is right.
But industrialised countries also have a moral duty to educate developing countries when their standards drop so far behind the norm of human rights that they become unacceptable.
Yes, this money is targeted at a certain region and a certain sector of its economy. But would this have been an argument, say, in the days of apartheid South Africa? To suggest, as some did at the time, that their personal trading in the country had nothing to do with the wider political world?
Uganda’s proposal to execute homosexuals should make it a pariah state. If that means people such as the coffee farmers do not get money from the industrialised world, that’s unfortunate. But such hardships were what many South Africans had to suffer in order for the wall of apartheid to come crashing down.
Business as usual is not acceptable when governments decide to start killing people for something which should not be any business of any government.
These are serious questions that need to answered by Welsh Ministers when the Assembly reconvenes in early January.
Related posts:
What planet are Christian Voice living on?
Matt Withers was spot on about Uganda and I’m sure that WAG could find an equally deserving cause, with a nation a little more equality based.
Let me get this straight Peter – you’re saying that because the Ugandan Govt introduces a piece of legislation that you don’t like (or, quite rightly, abhor), it is wrong to give charitable assistance to a group of farmers who happen to live in Uganda but who are almost certainly in no way responsible for the legislation itself?
The people this scheme is intended to help must be some of the poorest on the planet – that means they’re likely to have had very poor access to education, and are therefore likely to be very disconnected from the democratic politics of their country. They didn’t introduce an anti-gay piece of legislation in their Parliament, and they shouldn’t suffer because some misguided politicians have voted it through.
In fact, a scheme intended to increase the incomes of subsistence farmers is exactly the type of assistance that will allow the farmers the extra little money to pay the school fees for their children, meaning the next generation will have access to the education which the current generation has missed out on. Surely it’s through that process that people will understand more about homosexuality, and see that callous arguments which paint gays as deserving of execution are based purely on ignorance? That’s how attitudes to homosexuality will be challenged and changed.
It’s very easy for our society to criticise the Ugandans, without realising that their current attitude towards homosexuality is about where our country was around 50 years ago. The bigger crime is that their living conditions are closer to where we were in the middle ages and if we in Wales can do a very small thing to help put that right then we should celebrate it.
I am making the point that we are indirectly supporting a state that is proposing an unacceptable law. I accept that these people are poor and in need of assistance but the same applied to South Africa when we operated sanctions against them duirng apartheid. All I am saying at this point is that Ministers need to be scrutinised on their decision and give assurances that the state itself will not benefit from this aid.
As far as I’m aware the support is not being given to the central Ugandan Govt, but more directly to the beneficiaries through a locally-run scheme. The reason Mbale in Uganda has been chosen by the Welsh Assembly Government is because of the existing strong links between Welsh civil society and Ugandan civil society. This is a fundamentally different (and arguably more empowering) model of charitable assistance than the DfID model of providing large bilateral aid grants directly to the developing nation governments.
It would be a real concern if, through scrutinising the Ministers, that you gave the impression that our party was not supportive of Wales’ efforts to support the development of African nations.
Well the whole point of scrutiny is to establish these facts and to get assurances. Personally I do not support the development of African nations like Uganda under their present government. And that is the point.
In the meantime perhaps you can explain why sanctions were OK for South Africa, Iraq and other illegal regimes but not for a state that executes it citizens for their sexual preferences?