Uganda is facing significant external pressure due to its anti-LGBT legislation, pastor and activist Martin Ssempa told RT in an exclusive interview on Saturday. He claimed the US in particular was deploying economic measures in an attempt to force the African nation to change its stance.
Ssempa, the founder of Straight Nation, an organization dedicated to protecting and promoting African culture and faith, stated that the West is attempting to impose “immorality, obscenity, and indecency” on his country.
In particular, Uganda is “under tremendous pressure because they [the US] have instructed the World Bank to deny us financial services,” after the African nation passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act earlier this year, Ssempa told RT.
Washington has “instructed the African Growth and Opportunity Act not to do business with Uganda because Uganda has come up with a law to stop the promotion of homosexuality,” he added.
The pastor claimed the US wants to ban the East African country’s coffee, cotton, and copper trade if officials do not reverse their stance on homosexuality.
Such actions are “continuing to create the diminishing of the credibility and the respectability of the American empire, the European empire, because we increasingly are seeing it as decadent, as in need of great moral change,” Ssempa insisted.
Washington announced an expansion of its travel ban on Ugandan officials on December 4. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the government in Kampala to “make concerted efforts to uphold democracy and respect and protect human rights.”
In May, Uganda enacted the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, a law that allows capital punishment for “aggravated homosexuality” and offenses such as the transmission of HIV through gay sex. Consensual same-sex relationships are also subject to penalties of up to life in prison.
The US State Department imposed visa restrictions in June for those supporting the anti-LGBT legislation, claiming that anyone behind human rights violations in Uganda must be held to account. In addition, Washington has excluded Uganda from its major trade program, the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has repeatedly stated that his country will not surrender its principles and independence due to intimidation.