U.S. Ambassador Loses Post After Critiquing Zambian Corruption, Harsh Anti-LGBTQ Policies

News sources report that the United States ambassador to Zambia, Daniel Foote, was essentially declared "persona non grata" by the Zambian government and recalled home after expressing shock and outrage both at what he claimed was corruption in the government there, and also at the harsh manner in which a same-sex male couple was prosecuted and sentenced simply for being gay.

Foote's critique of the Zambian government - issued on Dec. 2 in the form of a press statement - was unusually strong, noted CNN.

The statement was made on the occasion of World AIDS Day. In the course of the statement, Foote wrote that:

The American people have provided more than $4 billion in HIV/AIDS support in the last 15 years. Working closely with the Ministry of Health, we currently have well over 1 million Zambians on life-changing anti-retroviral medicine, touching close to half of the families in the country. By knowing your HIV status and being on treatment, which prevents transmission, the only difference between HIV-negative and HIV-positive today is the medicine.

However, Foote's statement went on to say:

Unfortunately, stigma and discrimination remain our biggest mutual challenges in eradicating the AIDS epidemic. Discriminatory and homophobic laws, under the false flags of Christianity and culture, continue to kill innocent Zambians, many of whom were born with the virus. Your citizens are terrified of being outed as HIV-positive, because of the inaccurate and archaic associations between HIV and homosexuality.

Lamentably, I will be unable to attend tomorrow's AIDS Day events because of threats made against me, via various media, over my comments on the harsh sentencing of homosexuals.

The gay couple in question was sentenced to 15-year jail terms for the "crime" of not being heterosexual.

Said Foote in his statement:

I read with interest Honorable Minister Malanji's reaction to my opinion regarding the harsh sentencing of a homosexual couple and the hundreds of other comments made by Zambian citizens on social media.

I was shocked at the venom and hate directed at me and my country, largely in the name of "Christian" values, by a small minority of Zambians. I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that Christianity meant trying to live like our Lord, Jesus Christ. I am not qualified to sermonize, but I cannot imagine Jesus would have used bestiality comparisons or referred to his fellow human beings as "dogs," or "worse than animals;" allusions made repeatedly by your countrymen and women about homosexuals. Targeting and marginalizing minorities, especially homosexuals, has been a warning signal of future atrocities by governments in many countries.

Even as Zambia and other nations in Africa and around the world clamp down on LGBTQ people, non-heterosexuals and trans people in the United States face an unprecedented threat to the fragile gains they have made toward full legal equality in recent years. The president of the United States announced with a tweet in July 2017, that transgender Americans would no longer be welcome to in the armed forces; one justice from the Supreme Court has signaled an invitation for challenges to same-sex marriage equality to be brought once more before the court now that it has been reshaped in a much more conservative way; and Trump's White House has argued that federal anti-discrimination laws do not apply to LGBTQ workers.

On the international scene, the U.S. has sent deeply mixed messages about LGBTQ people. Noted CNN:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sent messages supporting LGBTQ individuals as the top US diplomat, with statements celebrating LGBTQ pride month. But he has also restricted embassies from hoisting gay pride flags. Pompeo also supports organizations like the Family Research Council, which is opposed to gay marriage.

The New York Times reports that Foote's characterization of the draconian prosecution and sentencing of the gay couple as "horrifying" drew condemnation, but an even larger protest on Foote's part was the alleged corruption of the Zambian government, which Foote accused of "misappropriating" millions of dollars from its people.

The U.S. ambassador critiqued what he characterized as Zambia's wish for the United States to treat it with open-handed generosity in spite of the purported misdeeds of its ruling class, saying that Zambia "wants foreign diplomats to be compliant, with open pocketbooks and closed mouths."

The U.S. State Department said it was recalling Foote because his posting in Zambia had become "untenable" and the Zambian government's comments about him amounted to a declaration that Foote is "persona non grata" in Zambia.

Zambian president Edgar Lungu invited the United States to withdraw the $500 million in aid money that it funnels to Zambia every year.

"If that is how you are going to bring your aid, then I'm afraid the West can leave us alone in our poverty. And we'll continue scrounging and struggling," Lungu said.