C Street

by Jeff Sharlet

  Kérékou’ stole an election… Titan: “US Company Admits Benin Bribery,” BBC News, March 2, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310331.stm.

  Hamed admitted: Case No. 07–00087–02-W-NKL, United States of America v. Mubarak Hamed, plea agreement, June 25, 2010.

  El-Siddig pled: Case No. 07–00087–06-W-NKL, United States of America v. Abdel Azim El-Siddig, plea agreement, July 9, 2010.

  “spiritual Muslim”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 180.

  “I’m guilty of two things”: Chris Casteel, “Tulsa Republican Claims a Senate Record for Visiting Continent; Inhofe’s Trips to Africa Called ‘A Jesus Thing,’ ” Oklahoman, December 21, 2008.

  “I’m trying to get”: Ibid.

  “3 Gs”: Linda Killian, The Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), xii.

  “I’m really proud”: “Verbatim,” Washington Post, June 8, 2006.

  “a Jesus thing”: Casteel, “Tulsa Republican.”

  He credits the Family: Rev. Rob Schenck, “Senator Takes Love of Jesus to Africa,” February 25, 2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89tb3rBDvoU.

  “I assumed I was a Christian”: “Senator Jim Inhofe: Flying High at 72,” Community Spirit, July 2007.

  “You can’t help who you are”: Bob Hunter, interview by Terry Gross, “A Different Perspective on ‘The Family’ and Uganda,” Fresh Air, WHYY Philadelphia, National Public Radio, December 22, 2009.

  “There was a moment”: Siljander, A Deadly Misunderstanding, 92.

  “Democracy advocates”: Cece Modupé Fadopé, “Nigeria,” Foreign Policy in Focus, January 1, 1997, http://www.fpif.org/reports/nigeria.

  CHAPTER 4: The Kingdom

  Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The text of the bill is available in a report titled Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: The Great Divide, compiled by the Ugandan Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law (Kampala, 2010, 2d ed.). Some opponents of homosexuality, however, in Uganda and in the United States, insist that the text as presented by human rights organizations is an inflammatory fake. A download of the September 25, 2009, edition of the bill printed in the Uganda Gazette, a legislative news service, is available on the blog of Warren Throckmorton, a self-described conservative evangelical scholar who is critical of the bill: “Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill—Full Text with Commentary,” December 18, 2009, http://wthrockmorton.com/2009/12/18/ugandas-anti-homosexuality-bill-full-text-with-commentary/.

  Bahati, the secretary of the Family’s Ugandan branch, calls his bill traditional: Author’s interviews with Bahati. I first spoke with David Bahati when he called in to Voice of America’s Straight Talk Africa (the title of which is misleading in this context; it’s an excellent all-Africa politics program), on which I was a guest on January 13, 2010. Bahati wanted to dispute my assertion that the Family had “thrown him under the bus.” I pledged to report his side of the story if he’d share it with me. I was able to win his trust by doing just that in some initial reporting for broadcast media. Bahati concluded that although I don’t share his views on homosexuality—and, as he told me, would be arrested in Uganda for “promotion” of homosexuality under his proposed law—I was worth talking to because my previous reporting on the Family would allow me to understand the context of his position. I conducted three lengthy phone interviews before traveling to Uganda in April 2010 at Bahati’s invitation, where I interviewed him extensively on three occasions. We subsequently spoke several times by phone.

  Both the disease…: Author’s interview with James Nsaba Buturo, minister of ethics and integrity. There are a number of valuable studies of African perceptions of homosexuality. Two that I found useful for their insights into the perspective expressed by Buturo are Marc Epprecht, Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), and Neville Hoad, African Intimacies: Race, Homosexuality, and Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Also helpful in understanding the status of sexuality issues in East Africa is Helen Epstein, The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). Also valuable, and available online, is Kapya Kaoma, Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia (Political Research Associates, 2009), http://www.publiceye.org/publications/globalizing-the-culture-wars/. In “Ethnohomophobia,” Anglican Theological Review 82, no. 3 (summer 2000): 551–63, Willis Jenkins explains the logic by which many Ugandan church leaders come to view homosexuality as a form of “cultural imperialism.” Sylvia Tamale, dean of Law at Makerere University, provides helpful context in “Law, Sexuality, and Politics in Uganda: Challenges for Women’s Human Rights NGOs,” in Human Rights NGOs in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions, edited by Makau Mutua (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). “A persistent argument against homosexuality from politicians, religious leaders, scholars, and the media,” writes Tamale, “is that homosexuality is ‘un-African.’ ” And yet, she notes, anthropologists and historians have noted the practice of homosexuality in at least fifty-five precolonial African cultures. “In Uganda, for example, among the Langi of northern Uganda, mudoko dako ‘males’ were treated as women and could marry men. Homosexuality was acknowledged among the Iteso, Bahima, Banyoro, and Baganda…. Ironically, it is the dominant [and “un-African”] Judeo-Christian and Arabic religions that most African anti-homosexuality proponents rely on to buttress their attacks on the practice as a foreign import” (58).

  “It’s hard for me to kill”: Author’s interview. See also Jo Sadgrove, “ ‘Keeping Up Appearances’: Sex and Religion Amongst University Students in Uganda,” Journal of Religion in Africa 37 (2007): 116–44. Sadgrove notes that, under the influence of religious movements, Uganda’s once-successful anti-AIDS program, ABC—which stands for abstinence, be faithful, and condoms—has come to be interpreted as meaning “Abstinence the Best Choice” or “Abstinence, Be Faithful, Christ!’ ”

  A Family leader takes credit: Author’s interview with Bob Hunter.

  Uganda… ranked 130th: Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2009, http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table.

  “Corruption is not just an element”: Andrew Mwenda, “Museveni’s Dance with the Donors,” Andrew Mwenda’s Blog, March 2, 2010, http://andrewmwendasblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/musevenis-dance-with-donors.html. Mwenda is not just a blogger but also a founding editor of the Independent, Uganda’s leading politics magazine. All too often Americans dismiss “corruption” as a natural way of life in developing nations such as Uganda without recognizing the role played by the West in its perpetuation. “What is intriguing is that this system has always been partly financed by donors,” notes Mwenda. “Their apparent inability to either recognise what is happening, or, when they do, to do something about it should trouble every Ugandan. Donors are mostly western: they have a general belief in a couple of broad principles such as decentralisation of democracy and strengthening of institutions.

  “However, many donors know that the system in Uganda manipulates these principles to produce a highly personalised and corruption-ridden system of rule. How come that even in the face of this, they remain silent? The answer to this vexing question lies in how donors often structure their relations with governments especially ones that have initially been reform-oriented.

  “In Uganda’s case, donors were anxious to produce a success story in an otherwise distressful African continent. Museveni’s Uganda initially offered the promise of success. On the other hand, Museveni’s success at building this vast neo-patrimonial system was also predicated upon his ability to retain access to large and systematic foreign aid inflows to the treasury.

  “These factors led to the development of mutual dependence between donors and Museveni. Donors need Uganda to remain successful to show the fruits of their engagement; Mu
seveni needs them for legitimacy and for money to service his patronage—until he gets oil.” Quoted with author’s permission.

  the government holds a National Prayer Breakfast: Author’s interviews with organizers David Bahati and James Nsaba Buturo.

  Sen. Jim Inhofe, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and Pastor Rick Warren: Ibid.

  “I’m no homophobic guy”: quoted in John Cloud, “The Problem for Gays with Rick Warren—and Obama,” Time, December 18, 2008, http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1867664,00.html

  equates homosexuality with incest: “Rick Warren Interview: On Gay Marriage and Divorce,” Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com/Video/Beliefnet-Interviews/Rick-Warren/Rick-Warren-Interview-On-Gay-Marriage-And-Divorce.aspx

  gay life had almost flourished in Kampala: I spoke to a number of members of the Uganda LGBT community who described this brief moment of political and personal possibilities. Especially helpful were interviews with activists Val Kalende and “Long Jones.”

  Victor Mukasa and Yvonne Oyoo v. Attorney General: For details on this case and Mukasa’s personal story and activism, see “Trial by Fire,” New Internationalist, May 2007; Juliet Victor Mukasa, “ILGA Panel at 2nd UNCHR Session,” World, October 23, 2006, http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/908; Victor Mukasa, “Victor Mukasa at the UN Speaking on Grave Human Rights Violations Against LGBT People,” International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, December 12, 2009, http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/pressroom/multimediaarchives/1073.html; Katherine Roubos and Val Kalende, “Lesbians Want Protection,” (Ugandan) Saturday Monitor, September 25, 2007.

  “I can’t say this in America”: Kapya Kaoma quoted in Kathryn Joyce, “The Anti-Gay Highway,” Religion Dispatches, November 8, 2009, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/2046/.

  “from the ashes of Nazi Germany”: Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party. There are four editions of this book, with an unclear publishing history, but the first edition appeared in 1994, and the fourth, from which I’ve quoted (275), is available in its entirety as a free download at the anti-gay website Defend the Family, http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/books/pinkswastika/.

  “monster” to “super-macho”: Jim Burroway, “BTB Videos: Scott Lively Delivers His ‘Nuclear Bomb’ to Uganda,” Box Turtle Bulletin, January 6, 2010, http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/01/06/19081.

  “in Africa,” observes Rev. Kapya Kaoma: Kaoma, Globalizing the Culture Wars, 6.

  at least $90,000: Warren Throckmorton, “Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill: Prologue,” WarrenThrockmorton.com, June 30, 2010. In a 2007 op-ed, Ssempa declared that his church had never received any PEPFAR funding, a point he has used to win nationalist support in Uganda and conservative evangelical support in the United States (“Homosexuality Is Against Our Culture,” New Vision, September 4, 2007). But Throckmorton, a conservative evangelical scholar who has been at the forefront of the fight against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, proved otherwise, beginning with a September 30, 2005, letter from Bruce Baltas, agreement officer for USAID, to Anita Smith, president and CEO of the Children’s AIDS Fund, in which one of Ssempa’s projects, Campus Alliance to Wipe Out AIDS, is identified as being funded, http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/UgandaPEPFARPrevention_Grant.pdf. The following year, an article sympathetic to Ssempa in a Christian conservative magazine identified a different 2004 grant of $40,000 (Mindy Belz, “Taking Pride in Purity,” World, November 18, 2006). Finally, Throckmorton located a 2007 PEPFAR document (http://www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/103943.pdf) identifying another $50,000 in funding; notable, too, is the fact that the documentation for this grant says that Ssempa’s Campus Alliance is not a new grantee, raising the possibility of more funding yet to be discovered.

  “You are my brother”: Max Blumenthal, “Rick Warren’s Africa Problem,” Daily Beast, January 7, 2009, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-07/the-truth-about-rick-warren-in-africa/full/.

  iPods. Also, laptops and cell phones: As absurd as Bahati’s notion sounds, it reflects, through a distorted lens, a different reality documented by Sadgrove in “ ‘Keeping Up Appearances,’ ” in which she notes that many young Ugandan women, especially middle-class ones, engage in a process of “de-toothing” older and more affluent men, trading sex or simply companionship for gifts. “The most common gift at the outset is mobile phone credit” (123).

  British import: Alok Gupta, “This Alien Legacy: The Origins of ‘Sodomy’ Laws in British Colonialism,” Human Rights Watch, 2008.

  five hundred thousand homosexuals: Joshua Mmali, “Uganda Fear over Gay Death-Penalty Plans,” BBC News, December 22, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8412962.stm.

  According to the Los Angeles Times: William Lobdell, “Ex-Worker Accusing TBN Pastor Says He Had Sex to Keep His Job,” Los Angeles Times, September 22, 2004.

  September 11, 2009: Maria Burnett, “A Media Minefield: Increased Threats to Freedom of Expression in Uganda,” Human Rights Watch, 2010.

  “I SODOMISED CATHOLIC PRIEST”: Red Pepper, June 16, 2009.

  Pastor Tom brought them four gospels, a Ugandan reporter was told: Author’s interview.

  “I know of no one”: Bob Hunter to Terry Gross, circa November 2009.

  “the world’s Christian capital”: Unknown author to Abraham Vereide, December 25, 1945, folder 4, box 168, collection 459, BGCA.

  the Family called in media allies: Cal Thomas: Author’s interview with Bob Hunter. one of Rick Warren’s top PR men: Emily Belz, “Unmoved,” World, December 19, 2009.

  Tony Hall proposed: Author’s interview with Hunter.

  Coe held the line: Belz.

  Doug Coe made a bet: I first heard this story from Coe himself in 2002, but it can also be found across the Internet in even more distorted versions that fail to acknowledge basic facts of Ugandan history, as if Africa were little more than a setting for a fable. Among them, there’s “Doug Coe Testimony,” http://www.skywriting.net/inspirational/messages/testimony.html; “A Story About Doug Coe, Founder of the Fellowship, and Moving Mountains,” http://theoxfordchristian.blogspot.com/2010/04/story-about-doug-coe-founder-of.html; and, perhaps most egregious, http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/16/uganda-bet-and-prayer/, on Eternal Perspective Ministries, the website of author Randy Alcorn, where, on February 16, 2010, blogger Doug Nichols identified the heartwarming and almost totally false tale as an antidote to “troubles within the nation.”

  He submitted two memos: Bob Hunter, “A Trip to East Africa—Fall 1986” and “Re: Organizing the Invisible,” circa 1986, folder 1, box 166, collection 459, BGCA.

  Grassley was by then an old Family hand: “The people in Somalia are really looking forward to seeing you again,” a Family organizer wrote Grassley, on May 23, 1984, planning a trip for the senator. “The main purpose here is fellowship with our friend [President] Siad Barre…. Another important point would be meeting with President arap Moi of Kenya. This can be of great importance as far as relations to Ethiopia are concerned…. Efforts of reconciliation have a very practical aspect in this part of the world and a very political as well [sic],” folder 21, box 254, collection 459, BGCA.

  NPR’s “Fresh Air”: “The Secret Political Reach of ‘The Family,’ ” November 24, 2009.

  He attributes his changes of position: Warren Throckmorton, interview with Tony Hall. Hall’s liberal reputation is based largely on his advocacy for the hungry, but that’s problematic. In 2001, President Bush appointed Hall ambassador to the United Nations for food issues, a position he used on behalf of biotech giant Monsanto, urging the overthrow of African trade barriers to genetically modified products. An NGO called Food First criticizes Hall’s work as “ ‘poor washing’—an attempt to confer legitimacy and prevent debate over a policy by making the spurious claim that the poor will benefit from it.” “Pretending to Help the Poor,” Food First, December 9, 2003. http://www.foodfirst.org/media/display.phpid384.


  “The Pentagon has the list”: “Siad Barre’s Somalia and the USA: Very Confidential,” undated, folder 21, box 254, collection 459, BGCA. Decker is proud of the fact that he never uttered an unkind word about any of his friends, such as the late Mobutu of Zaire, for whom the term “kleptocrat” was invented, and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2010 for genocide (“hunger and rape are his weapons,” said the prosecutor). But only Barre can claim to have murdered a country. He got his guns, but instead of fighting Cubans, he waged war on his own country, until he was driven out, refuge arranged with another Family friend, Kenyan dictator Daniel arap Moi. Wolfgang Kohrt, “God’s Ambassador,” Atlantic Times, April 2005, http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID=171. Howard French, “Mobutu Sese Seko, 66, Longtime Dictator of Zaire,” New York Times, September 8, 1997. Stephen Robinson, “Dictator Called to Account: Omar al-Bashir,” National, February 5, 2010, http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100206/WEEKENDER/702059799/1306.

  Museveni let it languish: Andrew Rice, The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009), 13.

  Orombi wants the gays out: “In April 2009, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi said, ‘I am appalled to learn that the rumours we have heard for a long time about homosexual recruiting in our schools and amongst our youth are true. I am even more concerned that the practice is more widespread than we originally thought. It is the duty of the church and the government to be watchmen on the wall and to warn and protect our people from harmful and deceitful agendas.’ ” Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, Provincial Secretary, Church of Uganda, “The Church of Uganda and the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill,’ ” November 6, 2009, available at Thinking Anglicans, http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/004049.html.

  “It is in the interest”: Author’s interview.