Will Ugandan Gay Rights Activist David Kato’s Murder Be A Catalyst For Change, Remembering David Kato

Reuters reports on the early days following the killing of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato, suggesting that his death has prompted reflection on the country’s climate of profound anti-gay hate. The police continue to define the murder as a robbery gone awry, although given that Kato’s computer was left untouched, that argument appears fallacious at best. As a consequence, there are rumours of a police cover-up, guided by the government, concerned that targeted violence will jeopardize Western aid. On Friday, Alan Kasujja, the host of a breakfast radio program in the capital city of Kampala, urged Ugandans to reject homophobia, and focus on more pressing issues. “I have tons of friends who are gay,” he said. “These are people who I have gone to school with, who I have worked with. They are our brothers and sisters, our children. So am I supposed to join ill-informed, undereducated people who advocate for them to be ostracized? Sorry, I cannot be a part of that.” Alan said his listeners were divided over whether David Kato was the victim of hate or of robbery, adding that a number of listeners texted, telling him to stop promoting “deviants.” In stark contrast to Kasujja’s radio program, there was coverage of Kato’s killing by Kampala’s Red Pepper paper, which headlined the story “Self-Confessed Bum Driller Murdered” and arguing that Kato had been “luring” men into gay sex. Two gay Ugandan men, who read the Red Pepper story, seemed resigned to the culture of ignorance, one saying “This is what we have to deal with day-to-day,” adding “But I listened to the radio this morning and I read Twitter yesterday and I felt some hope. Maybe this is so awful, it can change things.”

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Gettleman, a reporter for the New York Times remembers meeting David Kato for the first time, “a small man with thick glassed and thin wrist. He said police officers had broken and cracked him in the nose after he held Uganda’s first gay rights news conference several years ago. He talked fast, constantly scanning the darkness. He struck me as clearly brave and deeply frightened.” Gettleman underlines that David Kato lived in a post-March, 2009 Uganda, after the American evangelicals toured, talking about “the gay agenda – that whole hidden and dark agenda,” and to assert that gay men often sodomize teenage boys, thereby demonizing homosexuals and homosexuality. One of those evangelicals, Don Shcmierer, called Kato’s murder “horrible” and said that “Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed, but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that,” adding “I don’t spread hate.”