Præsident Museveni har sagt, at utilfredse donorer med hans lov mod homoseksuelle bare kan “smutte med deres penge” – nu tager verdens største bistandsyder ham på ordet ved at smække kassen i (indtil videre) for et lån på henved en halv milliard kroner.
World Bank officials said they wanted to guarantee that the projects the 90 million US dollar (495 mio. DKR) loan was destined to support were not going to be adversely affected by the new tough anti-gay law, which has drawn criticism from around the world, BBC online reports Friday.
The now postponed soft loan (reelt rentefrit) was intended to boost Uganda’s health services by supplementing a 2010 loan that focused on maternal health (mødres sundhed), care for newborns and family planning.
The Ugandan government said the World Bank “should not blackmail (afpresse) its members”. The law, enacted on Monday, allows life imprisonment as the penalty for acts of “aggravated homosexuality” and also criminalises the “promotion of homosexuality”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has called the law “atrocious” (oprørende). Both he and South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu compared it to anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa.
The World Bank’s action is the largest financial penalty (straf) incurred on the Ugandan authorities since the law went into force.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim noted with regret that 83 countries – in the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Middle East – have passed laws making homosexuality illegal.
Ugandan authorities say that President Museveni wanted “to demonstrate Uganda’s independence in the face of Western pressure and provocation”.
Mere om Uganda og Verdensbanken på
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