Steven Monjenza, 26, and “wife” Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20
As freaks and doppelganger anticitizens jeered by mob at a court appearance
Guilty of buggery, gross indecency and unnatural acts
Today, Steven Monjenza, 26, and his “wife” Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were found guilty as charged on counts of buggery, gross indecency and unnatural acts in a Magistrate Court in Blantyre, Malawi. They face up to 14 years of hard labor. They will be sentenced this Thursday, May 20. They have been held without bail since December 27, 2009, “a day after they performed” the Chinkhoswe, “a public traditional engagement, the first by a Malawian same sex couple.”
During their imprisonment, Steven Monjenza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga faced violence from other prison inmates, were jeered by the public at each court appearance with the encouragement of the police, were subjected to medical anal examinations to ascertain anal penetration, and in one court appearance, Chimbalanga, “who was sick with malaria, was forced to return to the court room to mop up his vomit.”
Blantyre Court Magistrate (judge) Nyakwawa Usiwa Usiwa, who sentenced convicted the two lovers, claimed that homosexuality was “against the order of nature.” Claim with which concurred Chief Prosecutor Dickens Mwambazi: “I think 90 per cent of the crowd here agrees with the ruling.”
As I’ve been saying all along, there’s only one way that Western donors, who fund these African feudal and obscurantist governments, can rein in this madness spreading throughout Africa like bushfire: cut off aid to these banana republics... NOW!
1 comments:
If...
- Cutting off aid doesn't have an adverse effect on the regular people in the country
- Such manipulation of aid is not seen as a new form of colonialism, where the developed world uses its economic resources to bend other countries to its desired social policies and cultural norms
- Cutting off aid succeeds in putting pressure, both politically and financially, on the government that directly leads to a change of these homophobic policies
- The general public of these countries is able to accept such changes
...then I fully agree with you.
I agree that what is going on in Malawi is horrific and is an abuse that should not continue. I also recognize that it feels uncomfortable that developed countries are financially propping up the government that is committing such acts. But I feel like the real drivers of such homophobic policies, and the ensuing challenges in changing them, are likely much more complex.
Surely, cutting off aid could force the government to change its policies, but it also would likely harm the neediest residents of the country. Furthermore, these homophobic policies have wide public support in the country, and cutting off aid would do very little to change this. I’d worry there would be retaliation to such policies against the government, foreign donors, or gay people themselves. The rise of vigilante “justice” when such homophobia stopped being protected by the law could potentially make the situation even worse.
But if these turn out to be non-issues – that is, if aid withholding is an effective way of confronting legally endorsed discrimination and homophobia (which, of course, it very well might be) – I’m all for the strategy. I’d just want to make sure it works before we make a rash move.
Post a Comment