EU Ambassador “Very Close” To Deal With Uganda On Anti-Gay Law, Won’t Consider Cutting Financial Aid
“We do not try to buy African acceptance for European or universal values through our development cooperation,” said Ambassador Kristian Schmidt.
posted on April 3, 2014 at 5:12am EDT
J. Lester Feder
BuzzFeed Staff
KAMPALA, Uganda — The European Union Ambassador to Uganda, Kristian Schmidt, said his delegation “came very close” to reaching an agreement with the government of Uganda that would mitigate the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in a meeting held last Friday.
During an interview in his office in the Ugandan capital on Wednesday, Schmidt would not specify what assurances the EU sought from the five cabinet officials he met with behind closed doors last week. But, he said, he was “very” satisfied with the conversation and expected to resume the discussion after Ugandan officials returned from a summit between EU leaders and African leaders being held this week in Brussels.
“I am satisfied with the fact that … there were five ministers [in the meeting] … ready to give us assurances, that the law wouldn’t mean violations of privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, [and] the way medical care will be extended in facilities that are already caring for men who have sex with men,” Schmidt said. And while the EU believes the “law is discriminatory from A to Z and it has to be repealed,” he said, “there are ways to limit the damage. I want to keep working on that [through dialogue].”
The European Union and its member states provide an amount equal to about 10% of Uganda’s annual budget, chiefly in the areas of good governance, infrastructure, and agriculture. As seriously as the E.U. regards the question of LGBT rights, he said, he rejected the notion that human rights conditions should be attached to international support in Uganda. In extreme cases — such as a coup d’etat — the EU has suspended aid to African countries, he said, but “you wouldn’t find any African country where we have done that on the basis of … an anti-homosexuality bill.”
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