bashing
Mail & Guardian Reporter
GAY-BASHING has spread to Namibia with Swapo and President Sam Nujoma saying homosexuals are white and perverts.
Two years ago human rights organisations were horrified when Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said homosexuals were worse than pigs and dogs.
Now Nujoma has slammed gays and the ruling party Swapo has come out in support of him with a two-page statement which concludes gays should be “uprooted”. Swapo’s statement said: “Most of the ardent supporters of these perverts are Europeans who imagine themselves to be the bulwark of civilisation and enlightenment … we made sacrifices for the liberation of this country and we are not going to allow individuals with alien practices such as homosexuality to destroy the social fabric of our society.
“We are convinced that homosexuality is not a natural and objective form of moral history but a hideous deviation of decrepit and inhuman sordid behaviour. In reality lessons learned from the morals of our Namibian culture demonstrate that our morals are far more superior and acceptable to the vast majority of our people who adhered to Christitanity … Homosexuality deserves a severe contempt and disdain from the Namibian people and should be uprooted totally as a practice.”
The National Society for Human Rightsin Windhoek described the attacks on gays as a further indication of emerging totalitarianism in Namibia. “The move appears to be a tip of an insidious, much wider and protracted strategy spearheaded by and or run from State House and such campaigns are apparantly aimed at stemming the tide of a rapidly growing civil society in Namibia,” the society said.