Feeding the hand that bites you

In a controversial move, earlier this month Melbourne-born British gay activist Peter Tatchell called for a halt to aid to countries that criminalise and persecute their sexual minorities.

Speaking at San Diego Pride, Tatchell told a gathered crowd, foreign aid and trade [should be] conditional on the recipient countries agreeing to respect human rights, including the human rights of LGBT people. Tyrannies should not be rewarded.

Tatchell singled out Jamaica, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, Iraq and Nigeria for special mention.
Such a call from a respected figure in the international Left will cause great feelings of conflictedness among many with deep sympathy for both GLBT people and the plight of poorer nations. For people in Australia, the UK and the United States (at whom Tatchell’s words were aimed) there will be an even greater sense of conflictedness, with all three countries having sent troops to Afghanistan and participated in an illegal war in Iraq, giving us pressing obligations to put things right there.

Yet at the same time, Islamist death squads stalk the streets of Iraq murdering gays, with many of these militiamen moonlighting from day jobs in Iraq’s security forces, and under current Iraqi law, killing gay or lesbian relatives for the sake of family honour may be considered justifiable homicide.
And there is a world of difference between tying aid to respect for human rights and the sort of crippling sanctions levelled on pre-war Iraq.

Few would object to the withdrawal of aid from a state like Sudan where its government supports militias in a war of ethnic cleansing against racial and religious minorities -” why not so when the minority is a sexual one?

Re-prioritising aid could also be a boon to those poorer countries that do not persecute their GLBT minorities, giving them a badly needed boost in lifting their peoples out of poverty and stabilising their societies.

Countries need only change their laws and ensure human rights are protected for the tap to be turned back on. And there is already one government internationally with plans in this direction in motion.

Beginning last year the Dutch government, one of the largest aid donors per capita in the world, began closely monitoring the treatment of sexual minorities with a view to using this information in deciding where it directs aid. Eighteen of the 36 nations it sponsors criminalise homosexuality. Their leaders will be watching very closely.