David Kato

I met David Kato in February 2010 at the Dublin Platform, a large conference for human rights defenders organised by Front Line. He was a Ugandan LGBTI activist, outspoken, forceful, loud. I think I can be honest in saying I wasn't his biggest fan - I was amongst a small army of interns and volunteers with whom he was sometimes demanding and unhelpful. But inside, in the main conference room, he described the death threats and tension and fear inherent in homosexuality in Africa.

Today I heard that yesterday afternoon, someone broke into his house in Mukono, a suburb on the road from Kampala to Jinja, and beat him to death. He was 42 years old. In the interests of impartiality and unproven facts, I should report that a police investigation is underway and the motivation for the killing has not yet been determined. But I think objectivity might today be somewhat less important than saying David Kato was bludgeoned to death with either a hammer or iron bar not only because he was gay, but because he was publicly so.

Last October, a few months after I left Kampala, a local newspaper - Rolling Stone - printed the names, photographs and home addresses of "Uganda's most notorious homos" under a headline that said "Hang Them". David Kato's picture was on the front page. He and two other activists recently won a court case ordering the newspaper to stop printing names and addresses of homosexuals. The editor of Rolling Stone today commented on the murder, condemning it and claiming that the paper's aim had not been to encourage public attacks.

"We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them."

Right.

I want to be able to write something insightful and incisive about this. I want to analyse and dissect and clarify the politics of this act. But I can't. I can't explain, and I can't understand. Sure, I know something about African concepts of sexuality, traditionalism and social conservatism. I could copy and paste something from Wikipedia about the central importance of Christian faith in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly of Evangelical churches, and of African believers' deep-rooted, often literal belief in the Word of God. I could try to arrange my thoughts coherently about the current trend for homosexuals as the scapegoats du jour, conveniently ostracised so that they can aid all manner of distraction from continuing social fragmentation, economic stagnation and the covert consolidation of political power.

Except that I can't do any of that, because I know the given reasons and I still don't understand. What interests me greatly about the brutal persecution of LGBTI around the world is how, really, they pose no overt or apparent challenge to authority. It is somewhat inevitable that the pro-democracy activists of Iran or the freedom of speech advocates of China will suffer; without meaning to denigrate, such repression is relatively straightforward and that type of restrictive or intimidating behaviour on the part of the State intensifies, in a logical fashion, in direct correlation to the level of threat posed to authority by the activist.

So what interests exactly do gay individuals challenge? Moral authority? Religious sentiment? Societal consensus? Obviously the emergence of a group of politically-aware, organised and motivated individuals is never in the interest of a government with authoritarian tendencies, but there are far bigger groups of mobilised activists in Uganda who march for different causes, and who pose a far larger threat to the political authorities. As for a threat to the established order, that may be a different matter of course. There are many figures of authority throughout Ugandan society other than the government whose interests may be threatened by liberalisation of societal mores and structures. Is the LGBTI movement really strong or large enough to constitute such a threat? I can't see it.

Of course, all the authority figures considered above probably fear the incremental effects that might originate with an initial loosening of anti-homosexuality laws (the floodgate principle). But it's also true to say that most African homosexuals hardly demand gay marriage right now. I simply imagine that most would be relieved just to avoid the death penalty, life in prison, or prison sentences for friends, family and colleagues who are aware of their sexual orientation.

So I don't understand. I don't understand why some individual - whoever he was (and I only presume it was a he, because of prejudices of my own that I don't fully understand either) took the matter into his own hands. I don't know why this individual thought either that David Kato needed to be silenced, to be put in his place, that a message needed to be sent to other activists, or that this was a righteous act in defence of the community.

What I do understand is the direct link between this act and the generally accepted environment of discrimination - nay, persecution - towards LGBTI that has been established in Uganda and several other African countries through the use of language, rhetoric, the media, the churches and general hysteria, which has been condoned if not actively encouraged by both political and social authority figures. I can only hope this might lead to some of the debate about accountability and responsibility which followed the Tucson shooting in Arizona. Sadly, I doubt it.

How does Giles Muhame, the editor of Rolling Stone, feel tonight? Does he believe his own statement on the case?

I feel dreadful tonight, thinking about this. For most of the afternoon I felt physically sick. My thoughts are with David Kato's family and friends, and with the LGBTI community. I don't understand.