The west lays itself a trap over Uganda’s anti-gay laws

Donors should have shown a better grasp of Ugandan politics, writes Michael Holman

Poor Yoweri Museveni. Like a bear in a cage, goaded and provoked by jeering onlookers, he cuts a sorry figure. The ageing African autocrat is stranded by a moral tide that leaves him high and dry alongside fellow homophobe Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Once a favourite of international aid donors, Uganda’s president is the target of western outrage following his decision last week to approve one of the continent’s nastiest anti-homosexual laws...

... Not for the first time donors have been outsmarted by a wily politician whose grasp of African geopolitics is far more acute than theirs. Having failed as the world’s policeman, the west needs to think before becoming a self-appointed monitor of Africa’s morality.

Read the full article on FT.com http://on.ft.com/1cuHbOZ

By Michael Holman, former FT Africa editor.

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