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Uganda’s First Lady Janet Museveni was on Wednesday July 13 mentioned in a homophobic smear campaign against an evangelical Christian pastor, Robert Kayanja.
Mrs Museveni was referred to in evidence and referred to as backing the smear campaign by two witnesses during a case before the Kampala magistrate’s court. Mr Kayanja has been charged with sodomy.
The witnesses told a fully packed court room that Mr David Mukalazi, an agent for three homophobic clerics namely, Martin Sempa, Solomon Male and Bob Kyazze offered to pay them Sh50million (US$19,000) to tell police detectives that Mr. Kayanja had sodomised them.
This was heard during the hearing of the criminal case in which the three leading Kampala evangelists have accused their colleague, Kayanja of sodomising his followers. Mr. Kayanja is the lead pastor of the Miracle Centre Cathedral, Lubaga an up-market evangelical Christian church in Kampala.
The accused pastors, their lawyers, Henry Ddungu and David Kaggwa, together with David Mukalazi and Deborah Kyomuhendo (agents of the accused) face charges of conspiring to injure Pastor Kayanja’s reputation. The two lawyers were included for allegedly commissioning false affidavits.
“Mr David Mukalazi told me he would pay us Sh50million to say I am a victim of Kayanja’s sodomy practices,” Mr Ivan Akansiima, one of the witnesses told Magistrate John Patrick Wekesa.
Another witness, Mr Kalema said he was approached by Mr Mukalazi to say that Kayanja had sodomised him. Both witnesses are orphans and are in the choir at Kayanja’s Church, the Miracle Centre, Lubaga. He said he was also told that the accusations were supported by “big people” in State House, including Mrs Museveni.
Mr Akansiima said he was made to, “falsely accuse Kayanja of sodomy. I then talked to my pastor Mr Martin Wampamba [and said] that I had been made to record a false statement against a man of God (Kayanja) at the Central Police Station in Kampala.”
He claimed that while recording his statement, a Criminal Investigation Officer briefly left the room and peeped at an earlier statement by Mr Mukalazi, accusing Kayanja of sodomising his followers. “But he (Mukalazi) had stated that Kayanja had tried to sodomise him. This was contrary to what I had been made to state [which was] that all of us were Kayanja’s sodomy victims,” Mr Akansiima said.
Kayanja was seen as one of the senior serving pastors among his contemporaries for keeping a clear track record, something other churches disagreed with. His tormentors had ealier accused him of smuggling wines and spirits and evading taxes, but was later exenorated after establishing that the drinks were not his ( Kayanja’s).
Four earlier sodomy files opened against Kayanja at Central Police Station in Kampala were closed for lack of enough evidence to warrant prosecution. During that time the alleged sodomy victims were medically examined but no evidence of anal penetration was found.
The landmark case is seen in some quarters as part of an on-going power struggle among evangelical Christian pastors to win over the support of the born-again Mrs Museveni, which could lead to the church being considered the top born-again congregations in Uganda. Churches for the born-again in Uganda are divided on who the titular head of the evangelical movement should be. Currently the churches subscribe to various coordinating entities that rarely see eye to eye.
Many of the pastors are thought to have accumulated sudden wealth from their ministries and some observers feel they are unable to manage their success leading to in-fighting as the various pastors accuse each other of using witch-craft, human sacrifices and high energy electronic gadgets on their followers to produce “miracles” and pull crowds to their churches.
In 2007, Uganda Police interrogated a Ghanaian-born Kampala pastor, after his colleagues accused him of wiring himself with electronic gadgets to appear to have performed miracles.
This is not the first time fellow born-again pastors have accused each other of homosexuality and other crimes. The accusations against Kayanja came at the height of the controversy with the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 in Uganda’s Parliament.
The accused pastors are linked to The Family, a US group linked to sponsoring the Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009, which was tabled by Mr David Bahati, a Ugandan legislator.
The bill was tabled in the 8th Parliament, but expired when the 9th Parliament was sworn in after elections early this year. However, some anti-gay legislators intend to push for its introduction in the current Parliament. The pastors are also members of a loose coalition of churches against homosexuality rights in Uganda.
By Kikonyogo Kivumbi, Arcus Correspondent
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 9:43 am and is filed under Breaking News, Uganda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
