Robert Mugabe to United Nations: We Are Not Gays

We will give you an in-depth analysis of President Mugabe’s speech in which he denounced gays while extending an olive branch to the West. Ironically, gay activist Chesterfield Samba was receiving a courage award for fighting for the rights of gays and lesbians in Zimbabwe. But he later went on to that he wasn’t interested in granting rights to everyone. Buzz Feed reports this statement earned Mugabe a few light applause and a few laughter from the diplomats. Cooperation and respect for each other will advance the cause of human rights worldwide. “Confrontation, vilification, and double-standards will not”.

Read the full speech here.

Mugabe has a history of making homophobic remarks and as such his comments at the United Nations were met from the crowd with a few bemused chuckles rather than swift negative backlash.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe sits before speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on September 28, 2015.

He castigated the West for punishing Kampala with aid cuts after President Yoweri Museveni signed into law a bill that banned homosexuality in the east African country.

The long-time leader of Zimbabwe has frequently used anti-LGBT rhetoric, including past year when he referred to same-sex relationships as “inhuman” and threatened to kick-out any diplomats who spoke of LGBT rights.

“The human right you have as a man is to marry another woman not to get another man to marry, we refuse that”, said Mugabe at his daughter, Bona’s wedding reception. In 2013 he described homosexuals as “worse than pigs, goats and birds”.