Not sure how I missed this one, but yesterday Josh Kron reported that one of Martin Ssempa’s poster children for gay change recanted his story saying that Ssempa paid him to claim change.
George Oundo said he had changed orientation and that Uganda’s Parliament should pass David Bahati’s antigay bill at a news conference reported by the Parliament.
However, within a short time, he met with Kron and recanted everything saying Ssempa had paid him well to tell a false story.
“I used to call myself the Queen Mother and Lady of the City,” Mr. Oundo said. “I was recruited into homosexuality many years back, when I was 12.”
“When I joined Mr. Ssempa, I told him all my problems,” he said. “I had to come out and join the struggle.
“Please help us; let the bill pass,” he said.
But an hour later, in a quiet hotel, Mr. Oundo recanted much of what had been said at the meeting.
“David Kato was murdered; it was a plot,” Mr. Oundo said. “I don’t support the bill.”
As for being a “former homosexual,” that, too, was not true.
“I’ve always been gay,” Mr. Oundo said, in a timid but growing voice. “I didn’t choose it.”
“David Kato was the first one who taught me to protect my human right,” Mr. Oundo added.
Mr. Oundo said that his presence alongside Mr. Ssempa at Parliament had been to “protect” himself and that he had been contacted only that morning by Mr. Kagaba about the meeting and offered about $42 to attend. He said Mr. Ssempa had offered him about $2,000 in 2009 to repent and switch sides in the debate, but later reneged. Either way, Mr. Oundo became a poster-child for Mr. Ssempa’s anti-homosexuality movement.
Not sure how Oundo is doing right now, I suspect he may have trouble finding friends at this point. However, whatever is going on, the situation as laid out by the NYT is about what I have been reporting here. After some possible signs of life after the election, the clock will probably run out barring a signal from the govt that they want to move it.