Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has just signed the controversial anti-gay bill, defying warnings from the US Government. The bill has harsh implications such as life imprisonment for everyone that engages in aggravated homosexuality within the country.
President Yoweri Museveni signed the bill at his official residence at an event witnessed by government officials, journalists and a team of Ugandan scientists who produced a report saying there was no genetic basis for homosexuality.
President Yoweri stated that,"We Africans never seek to impose our view on others. If only they could let us alone," speaking of Western pressure not to sign the bill.
"We have been disappointed for a long time by the conduct of the West. There is now an attempt at social imperialism."
Government officials applauded after he signed the bill, which was influenced by the preaching of some conservative American evangelicals. In its original form, the legislation called for the death penalty for some homosexual acts, but this was removed after an international outcry.
The new law calls for first-time offenders to be sentenced to 14 years in jail. It also sets life imprisonment as the maximum penalty for a category of offences called "aggravated homosexuality," which defined as repeated gay sex between consenting adults as well as acts involving a minor, a disabled person or where one partner is infected with HIV.
The bill is popular in Uganda, but international rights groups have condemned it as draconian in a country where homosexuality is already criminalised. Some European countries threatened to cut aid to Uganda if the measure was enacted, and US president Barack Obama already warned them that signing the bill would "complicate" the country's relationship with Washington.
Museveni said he had previously thought homosexuality was merely "abnormal" sexual behaviour that some people were born with and this was why he once was opposed to harsh penalties against gay people. Now, he said he was convinced that it was a choice made by individuals who might try to influence others. Africans are "flabbergasted" by homosexual behaviour, he said.
The bill was introduced in 2009 by an MP with the ruling party who said it was necessary to deter Western homosexuals from "recruiting" Ugandan children. Ugandan activists challenged this account, saying the country's political and religious leaders were influenced by conservative US evangelicals who spread their anti-gay agenda in Africa.
Pepe Julian Onziema, a prominent Ugandan gay activist, said he was disappointed that Museveni signed the bill without taking time to talk to the people targeted by the law.
"The president is making this decision because he has never met an openly gay person. That disappoints me," he said.
Some in Uganda's gay community have repeatedly tried and failed to meet Museveni, he said.
The president, whose popularity has been fading amid criticism that he wants to rule for life, has faced pressure from the ruling party to sign the measure.
Some critics believe he has signed in hopes of galvanising political support within his party, the National Resistance Movement, before a meeting that is expected to endorse him as its sole choice in the next presidential election in 2016, when he will have been in power for 30 years.
