[DEBATE] : (Fwd) MugabeBush and gay/lesbian rights: saying no to NED

[Patrick Bond]

(From Bev in Harare, whose kubatana.net is an invaluable source of 
struggle news and analysis)


I would rather be OUT than in


    Discrimination at the National Endowment for Democracy

There's this small chalkboard outside my office door. I’ve put it there 
to inspire my staff to write their own slogans when they feel like it. 
But even such small actions are considered radical in a country where 
freedom of expression is quickly and efficiently suppressed. For the 
last few days the board has had a heart drawn on it with the number 25 
placed in its centre. On the 12th September, my partner Brenda and I 
celebrated 25 years together. The following day, I received an e-mail 
from the National Endowment for Democracy stating that "as a federally 
funded exchange visitor program, we are ... unable to offer J-2 
sponsorship and health & travel benefits to the same-sex partners of our 
foreign fellows."

I applied for the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program in August 
2005. I liked the fact that this fellowship had a "practitioner" track 
and that they offered support for ‘fellows immediate family’. They did 
not indicate that same-sex partnerships were exempt from support. In my 
application I clearly stated that my partner is a woman and that she 
would more than likely seek an internship in Washington D.C. with a 
filmmaker we know. Keith Goddard, the current director of Gays and 
Lesbians of Zimbabwe, wrote one of my letters of recommendation. In his 
reference he said that "Between 1992 and 1996, we worked together ... 
with Bev’s life partner (Brenda Burrell) ... to raise the profile of 
lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people in Zimbabwe and to strive 
towards ensuring our rightful place in society.” In other words, my 
application was not evasive. I had nothing to hide.

Earlier this year, NED informed me that I had been selected as one of 
the Reagan-Fascell Fellows for 2006/07. Having been a human-rights 
activist in Zimbabwe for over a decade, often working under extremely 
stressful conditions, I was pleased. I felt that some time out in a new 
environment with the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with other 
activists would be an invigorating experience. I hoped it would provide 
me with the necessary energy and commitment as our country heads toward 
another election in 2008. I was proud to have been selected from a field 
of over 300 applicants and I responded immediately, thanking NED for the 
opportunity.

Documentation relating to the fellowship was soon sent to me. Strangely, 
however, Brenda wasn’t mentioned or included in any of the material 
relating to the support of spouse or dependant. I immediately wrote for 
an explanation. It seemed that NED had conveniently phantomised her. 
They replied thanking me “for raising the important issue of supporting 
documentation for your partner Brenda. We are checking with the relevant 
government authorities to determine how best we may proceed in enabling 
her to accompany you to the United States for the duration of your 
fellowship period and will be back in touch as soon as we have an answer.”

During my correspondence with NED, and as early as June 2006, I had 
asked them to clarify their organisational position on same-sex 
relationships with regard to fellowship applications. On the 13th 
September I received a reply from them saying that “we cannot be 
cutting-edge on the same-sex issue” and that my partner would not 
receive health and travel benefits but to “offset some of these costs 
and expenses” they would increase my fellowship stipend. But arriving in 
Washington D.C. through the backdoor with a few extra bucks in my back 
pocket is not acceptable.

Whilst NED has been warm and concerned in all of our correspondence it 
does not alter the fact that I am being discriminated against because of 
my same-sex relationship. Let us be clear – I would not have expected 
fellowship support for my partner if from the outset NED had stated that 
they only offer support to heterosexual partners. In fact I might not 
even have applied. Of course it might not suit NED or the U.S. Federal 
Government to so clearly expose their prejudice but it would certainly 
have let ‘people like me’ know exactly where I stand. But in all of 
NED’s information, both Internet-based as well as written, their 
language appeared inclusive: that is until recently.

I note that NED has recently altered their position on support for 
dependants of fellows. Indeed, their most recent application pack, 
states: “Fellows who wish to bring family members with them to 
Washington, D.C., will be expected to cover the costs of their 
dependants’ roundtrip travel to and stay within the United States. The 
program does *not* ordinarily cover costs associated with dependants’ 
health insurance or roundtrip travel to the United States”. They now go 
on to say: “Except under extraordinary circumstances, fellows are 
responsible for covering the cost of travel and health insurance for any 
family members they may wish to bring with them”. This differs from the 
NED application form that I completed in 2005 where it was stated that 
they provide “basic health insurance and reimbursement for travel to and 
from Washington, D.C. for each fellow and *up to two* members of his/her 
immediate family who qualify as dependants and who will reside with the 
fellow for the duration of the fellowship.”

//It seems curious how NED’s approach to their fellows’ dependants has 
changed so dramatically since my application less than a year ago; or 
has it really? Might the latest inclusion of the phrase “except under 
extraordinary circumstances” simply be a covert allusion to a policy 
that will vary according to the sexual orientation of the applicant; a 
more sanitised way of maintaining a veneer of respectability, and 
disguising their entrenched discrimination and prejudice.

Who’s zooming whom NED?

Our experience clearly prompts the debate about who “qualifies” as a 
dependent or a spouse. Yet, should there be any debate at all? I speak 
as a committed human rights activist who has been in partnership with 
another woman for 25 years. If the partner police want to investigate, I 
have about a hundred friends and family who can verify that in 2001 we 
had a commitment ceremony to mark our 20th anniversary. (We do indeed 
live in a global village – our celebration that night was tempered by 
9/11, the effects of which we were feeling many thousands of miles away 
in Harare.) But apparently “U.S. federal law defines a spouse as a 
person of the opposite sex”. What does this implicitly convey about the 
NED, its sponsors, and its commitment to human rights and activism?

To us, it seems essential that the NED make it very clear in their 
documentation that the words ‘spouse’ or ‘dependant’ do not include 
same-sex partnerships. Their latest amendments, do not clarify their 
position, but rather cast doubt on their ability to take one. This seems 
a contradiction given their stated objectives to “support freedom around 
the world”. Indeed, if my female partner is deemed inappropriate for 
support, then surely I should be similarly disqualified? Perhaps I am 
culpable of idealism and naivety, but are these values that we as 
activists wish to lose? If NED won’t support my partner’s travel and 
health costs, where and when during my fellowship will it be acceptable 
to NED to introduce Brenda as my partner?

How can I in all good conscience work on a project that relates to 
social justice activism at an organisation that does not treat all 
applicants equally?

I have already had some people question my acceptance of a NED 
fellowship citing NED’s political activities in countries like 
Nicaragua, Angola and Venezuela. In the five years that I’ve managed 
Kubatana.net I have only received one “shame on you!” e-mail. 
Ironically, this was in response to publicising NED’s fellowship 
opportunities for which I myself had applied. Now I understand the 
e-mailer’s position better than I did then. NED’s discriminatory 
attitude toward gays and lesbians cannot go unchallenged because it’s 
become very personal, and it would seem to form part of a larger set of 
double standards.

George Bush and Robert Mugabe may have a lot more in common than they 
think, homosexuality being just one of them. I have striven for gay and 
lesbian equality in a country where our presidents says homosexuals 
“have no rights at all” and calls us “worse than pigs and dogs”. And in 
the United States I find myself and my partner being discriminated 
against on the grounds of sexual orientation by an organisation that 
claims, in its Statement of Principles and Objectives that:

/Democracy involves the right of the people freely to determine their 
own destiny. The exercise of this right requires a system that 
guarantees freedom of expression, belief and association, free and 
competitive elections, respect for the inalienable rights of individuals 
and minorities, free communications media, and the rule of law./

Is NED afraid that it will lose its funding if it challenges George 
Bush’s crude fundamentalism? Do they have members of their committee who 
agree with him, and secretly agree with our president whose attitude is 
only that tiny bit more extreme?

Whatever their principles or reasoning, I find it impossible for me to 
take up the NED fellowship, or the rise in the stipend, to find myself 
co-opted and complicit in my own, and other gay and lesbian peoples 
discrimination.

/
Bev Clark manages www.kubatana.net <http://www.kubatana.net/> Zimbabwe’s 
civic and human rights web site. She also writes at 
//http://firepussy.gnn.tv//