UGANDAN GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST DAVID KATO, MURDERED!

Icheoku says regrettably this African country has taken its hatred for people who are different and not orthodoxy in their sexual preferences to a new horrific heights. They bludgeon them to death, using mattock, hammer and such other blunt-force objects as would simply disintegrate the human skull. Uganda, the East African country that former guerrilla leader, Yoweri Museveni, has presided over since the early nineties so hate gays, lesbians, transgenders and bisexuals that it is simply a crime punishable by lynching to be so sexually wired differently.

All that is needed to carry out the death sentence is for the country's tabloid, "Rolling Stone" to condemn you as a gay person, publish your picture as a gay person with your address and you are so gone as a once lived human. Icheoku does not know if there is any professional or business relationship of this Uganda anti-gay tabloid with the American Rolling Stone magazine; and says if any, it should be immediately severed. The American RS should also denounce unequivocally this brutal murder of an innocent Ugandan gay man and distance itself from the local Rolling Stone; otherwise the American magazine will similarly share in this heinous crime and peradventure have its hand stained with the blood of the innocent murdered. It is worthy of mention to remind the world that Ugandan Yoweri Museveni is one of those African despots who hopefully should be blown away by the wind of change currently blowing through Africa and which whirlwind originated from Tunisia. Yoweri Museveni has spent the last 25 years in Uganda's seat of power in Kampala without any noticeable difference in the lives of Ugandan people including lack of upward movement in their economic and political status.

Worldly known Ugandan gay activist and the face of gay activism in Uganda, David Kato, 42 was murdered this week in his home in Uganda after being outed and marked for elimination by the country's Rolling Stone tabloid. A school teacher who gave up his teaching career and took up the gay cause in Uganda, following an anti-gay bill which called for death penalty for  homosexual acts/practices? He also successfully enjoined the Ugandan Rolling Stone tabloid from further acts of defamation in publishing names, addresses and pictures of gay persons in Uganda. He had brought a lawsuit against the tabloid for defamation and invasion of privacy for publishing his name, photo and address as a gay man that needed to be dealt with by hanging? He was equally active in the activist group Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG) and actively led effort to develop HIV/Aids polices in Uganda.

Icheoku says it is simply not right for anyone to so hate another person or a people simply on account  of their differences - who they are, their skin color, language, culture or even sexual preferences as to wish that person death. Uganda is the loser here and not David Kato; who has become larger in death than in life that even the president of United States of America Barack Obama as well as his Secretary of State paid tribute to him. Icheoku hereby declare Uganda stained by the blood of the gay martyr, David Kato; and also designates it as a gay-unfriendly, homophobic African country of the world. Icheoku also urge every gay person of this world and their sympathizers alike, to abandon Uganda and henceforth not to spend a dime in that African country or in any project or product that will in any way benefit them. One murdered gay person is just one too many for the community to tolerate and the community must hold Uganda to account for the murder of one of their own, David Kato. It is called being one's brother's keeper; and every gay person should see him/herself as a David Kato and thereby be united in grief as they condemn this senseless murder of DK.

David Kato paid the supreme price for a lifestyle which he sincerely and strongly believed was not a choice; but a natural genomic wiring of gay people. Should he have been murdered for just being who he is, Icheoku does not think so and hereby condemn in unmistakable terms, his brutal murder as a very big black-eye and deficit for the entire people of Uganda. Icheoku hopes and prays that the blood of David Kato has purchased freedom for all gay men and women of Uganda and also that his innocent blood will help water the tree of gay-liberty and allow it to grow into a mighty Sequoia of freedom for every Ugandan including their gay citizens, brothers and sisters. Icheoku also hopes that very soon LGBT lifestyle could be freely and proudly lived and celebrated in Uganda just like any other civilized human-habitation on planet earth, without gay people necessarily looking over their shoulders constantly. Further that Kampala will someday have its own Castro district with a thriving gay community and like San Francisco California, come to accept that just like there are white people who are differently colored from black people and do not look like atypical Ugandans, that there are people who are different in their sexual preferences. People who prefer different orifices and that this behavior is not criminal; and even if a crime, should not be a death-penalty offense; and even if death-penalty, should not be extra-judiciously carried out but allowed to travel through the long winding course of justice. Simply stated, there should not be another David Kato again - not in Uganda, not in Africa and not anywhere else.

Irritably however, the police in Uganda is trying to mislead the world into accepting that David Kato was killed by armed robbers during an armed robbery operations and that they are investigating the incident? But Icheoku says don't believe the fantasy and hereby rebuts that DK, judging from his austere looks, would have something or even anything of value that would interest the armed robbers? The David Kato the world has come to know and embrace as the poster-child for gay-freedom in Uganda does not appear like a man of any meaningful means or who had enough earthly possession as would entice any robbery gang to visit his home at such ungodly hour of the night? Icheoku concludes that Dave Kato was a victim of a society's hatred for people who are simply different from them and that the Ugandan police's weak explanation is a sordid attempt to mask a brutal bludgeoning to death of a man who loved differently and who many Ugandans may consider an unorthodox lover. But hey, at least he died with his convictions and beliefs intact; unlike many turncoats who will take to their heels the moment they are fingered as one of them - remember Apostle Peter and his three-times denial of our Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane.

Icheoku holds Ugandan Rolling Stone tabloid collaterally responsible for the murder of David Kato as they should have known that words whether spoken or written has consequences. When they write derogatory commentary on gay people and how they are corrupting the Ugandan society, with their pictures and home addresses published in toe and urging their hanging on the lamppost; it should have been obvious to these publishers that some people might be persuaded by their argument to act on their urging. But now the tabloid, like Alaska's Sarah Palin did with regards to Tucson Massacre, is denying any manner of responsibility whatsoever for the tragedy that was David Kato's murder.

By his death David Kato has become a gay-rights hero and legend, at least in Africa Uganda and within that context, has joined the annals of other notable heroes for a cause greater than themselves. Admitted in a small scale as serves his Ugandan gay community properly and purposefully. Like Gandhi he was petite. Like Martin Luther King he was an eloquent speaker. Like Mandela he was a freedom fighter. Like Obama he was a leader. And like every known person who have changed the course of history, David Kato was not afraid to speak up, as he was a brave man who charted a course that was both unpopular and derided within the Ugandan community. But he soldiered on until the wicked gay-haters of Uganda, instigated by that country's Rolling Stone tabloid, clobbered him to a painful death and in his home while resting from the day's  work? But will he be ever forgotten; Icheoku says nope, as David Kato has transmuted into history as that Ugandan Harvey Milk, who stood up for gay-rights when others turned tail and when it was deathly and not convenient to so do. The good news is that history never forgets the just who fight for just causes; especially when that leads to their death. Like Harvey Milk did in San Francisco, David Kato has lit a gay-fire in Uganda which will turn into a raging inferno scorching all anti-gay ideology as well as humans in Uganda since one's sexual preferences does not make him or her any less human. To David Kato, Icheoku says to you posthumously that your death has reached all corners of the globe and people paid attention and they knew the reason you were murdered. You died for your conviction, your cause was worthy and your mission was accomplished. Your legacy lives on. Icheoku says, Adieu!