According to witnesses from a BBC article, a man walked into David Kato's home and beat him to death with a hammer yesterday. A year ago, a local newspaper, named Rolling Stone, published a cover story with pictures, names and addresses "of Uganda's Top Homos" with the words "Hang Them" pasted next to the title of the piece. Kato was one of those men.
To exactly no one's surprise, the paper denies culpability in the murder and the Ugandan police are saying that there is no link.
Update: there is already a diary by campionrules with the title I initially used; please see that one, too. It had not been published when I started writing my diary. I slightly adjusted my title for distinguishing purposes.
David Kato was an outspoken activist, who called himself the first "out" Ugandan. From his BBC obituary:
A primary school teacher, he became a prominent campaigner in recent years, especially taking on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which called for the death sentence to be imposed for some homosexual acts.
"David was always proactive and also very authoritative. He seemed to want to be a leader in every way," close friend Poline Kimani, from the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya, told the BBC.
You may have heard of the "Kill the Gays" bill, which is the Anti-Homosexuality Bill referenced above. I'll note here that conservative evangelicals here in the US have a sordid history with that proposed law and gay rights in Uganda generally.
Despite this fact:
[Kato's] Sexual Minorities Uganda (Smug) group said Mr Kato had been receiving death threats since his name, photograph and address were published by Rolling Stone last year.
We hear this:
police have said there is no connection between Mr Kato's activism and his death.
Of course there's no link. We can just trust the Ugandan authorities on that one. While it is entirely possible that it was a domestic assault, a random robbery, or something else, there is no question about the general climate of fear surrounding gays in Uganda, nor the very specific threats that David Kato faced. As Nancy Goldstein over at the Nation blog says, "It worked." She goes on to state what any rational person would conclude:
In short, while only one person is likely to be held responsible for Kato’s murder—and only then if we are very, very, very lucky given the foul history between Uganda’s police and its LGBT community—there’s a long line of people who helped create a climate where the act could be considered a blow for the common good.
And so now we see the voices of hatred running for cover, just as the Palins and Becks do in this country after someone finally takes their words seriously:
Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhame told Reuters news agency he condemned the murder and that the paper had not wanted gays to be attacked.
"There has been a lot of crime, it may not be because he is gay," he said.
"We want the government to hang people who promote homosexuality, not for the public to attack them."
Right. Because that distinction is incredibly important. His newspaper also had the words "National Scandal" above the picture of David Kato. Perhaps the national scandal was that these "homos" weren't being hanged by the government? Maybe the implication was that only way to to restore the national honor was to do it yourself? But that's drawing unwarranted conclusions, I'm sure he would say (as many media stars in this country do about right-wing hate rhetoric). He has plausible deniability. He never explicitly told anyone to go murder other human beings in their homes. So let's just move along until the next beating, the next death.
I'll end with some words from blogger GayUganda, who knew David well:
He was a doer, and, in a difficult environment, he was an achiever. With scanty resources, he did what he could, and did it fairly well.
Of course he was a human being. Cantankerous, devious, quarrelsome.
But, he was a human being, a fighter, going to the police cells to look for those accused of being gay. Going to court to stand up for our rights.
[...]
We need to celebrate his life. Maybe that will take our minds off the desperate vulnerability of ours.... how quickly, how easily we can lose all, in the name of nothing, or something.
But, it is a matter of fact that he lived his life. And, was happy. A gay man in Uganda.