Harriet Ntabazi, State Minister for Trade has said that Uganda will abandon the US market if its participation is hinged on condition that the country accepts homosexuality, arguing that Uganda already has enough markets to sell its products.
“If America insists that we should marry woman to woman, then we shall do away with the market because what we are looking for in that market is political relationships, but real trade volumes, that have shaped Uganda to the Middle-income status, that (United States) is not one of them. We have enough markets for Uganda, we have the East African Community, we have Southern African Development Community (SADC), we have the European Union, we have markets in China and India,” Ntabazi said.
Ntabazi made the remarks during a media interview where she was clarifying on the latest move by President Museveni to send his son-in law, Odrek Rwabwogo to negotiate on Uganda’s behalf following pronouncement by US to drop Uganda out of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), saying that Rwabwogo was chosen because he is the Special Presidential Advisor on Trade and Industry.
“The team was given powers to deliver the message of President Museveni, but of course, they will not push us to the wall because the President has been passionate about homosexuality and you can’t change his mind because that is the voice of Ugandans. Ugandans are saying, you can’t go homosexual and the President can’t come up and break that law because he is part of Ugandans. He is one of the indigenous Ugandans who have shaped it to what it is now,” said Minister Ntabazi.
The Minister also attacked the US Gov’t for mixing issues of trade and human rights, saying Uganda already had complaints about the US demanding Uganda to only export raw materials without adding value, saying such a move is disadvantageous to Uganda, thus calling for the need to conduct more negotiations to have such conditions changed.
“So, what we are waiting for is the US to understand that trade is different from human rights, these are quite divergent matters and the challenge we have is that the US doesn’t want us to add any value on anything. But of course, they brought in other issues to do with security, violation of human rights and they assumed as if Uganda is on fire and there is going to be a coup, there is no coup that is going to be in Uganda,” added Ntabazi.
