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Uganda close to claiming UN General Assembly Presidency

by KPFA Evening News, 06.08.2014
Despite corruption, foreign aggression, and homophobia finally codified in Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, the Ugandan Foreign Minister is about to become President of the UN General Assembly. Even if elected on Wednesday, June 11th, however, he can be recalled.
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Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa and UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon

KPFA EVENING NEWS ANCHOR GLENN REEDER: The United Nations General Assembly has been expected to elect Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa to be its next President this coming Wednesday, June 11th. In April, however, Ugandan American Newspaper Editor Milton Allimadi began a campaign to stop Kutesa's election, which has gained the support of Ugandan opposition leaders, and Western leaders. Press has also spread from Allimadi’s own Black Star News to the London Guardian, the Huffington Post, and Think Progress. Kutesa is best known for supporting LGBT persecution in Uganda, including the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Act finally signed into law by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni earlier this year. But at the start of his campaign to stop Kutesa, Milton Allimadi told the KPFA Morning Mix that the anti-gay legislation was one of many reasons Kutesa should not become President of the UN General Assembly. Here's Milton Allimadi.

MILTON ALLIMADI: of course, as many listeners know, Uganda, at this time, is the least deserving country to have its candidate become President of the General Assembly. In addition to the president signing the detestable anti-gay law on February 24, Uganda has committed numerous violations of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and most recently South Sudan. And of course, the United Nation is based on that cardinal principal of respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty. Now, how can a country, whose army has violated this cardinal principle so many times, then have its Foreign Affairs Minister become president of the UN General Assembly? It is almost preposterous actually.

And it also then raises the other question, what is really happening in the background when we have yet to get the official response from the Obama administration to the signing into law of the anti-gay bill. We were told that the administration was weighing its options and they will come out with the formal reaction that is yet to happen. In fact, what we saw happen was that the US sent additional forces to supposedly help the Uganda army in the search for Joseph Kony. If you go to Uganda and you ask Ugandans right now, what is the number one priority? I think Joseph Kony might come up number ten on that list and I think the first item on the agenda for Ugandans would be the removal of the 30-year dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni.

KPFA: And that was Ugandan American Newspaper Editor Milton Allimadi on why Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa should NOT become President of the UN General Assembly this Wednesday. Since making that statement, Allimadi has said that even if Kutesa is elected, he can still be recalled. Allimadi has a petition to stop Kutesa's election can be found by searching the Web for "Vote Against Sam Kutesa for UN General Assembly Presidency."
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