Stephen was a part of the African civil society movement striving for economic justice. He worked for SEATINI Uganda, working on EPAs, on the connection between the environment and human rights, on trade policies…He was smart and funny, and now he is dead. He was found in his locked apartment on Tuesday, dead from multiple stab wounds. His old laptop was missing, and his phone. We don’t know what happened. The police are looking into it, but so far this seems to primarily involve asking the family and work colleagues for payments.
I was in Kampala when they found Stephen. SEATINI had planned with us a regional meeting for groups involved in the Stop EPA movement, to strategize for the rest of 2008. We had to go ahead with the meeting – there were 50 participants already there from 10 countries in the region. Because we took up a lot of SEATINI’s responsibilities for the meeting, I didn’t attend the funeral. So in my mind, Stephen is still Whole.
We miss Stephen. We already miss his contributions to the Stop EPAs campaign, and I know that within Uganda his contributions are being sorely missed among the activist and research communities. I am angry – angry at the killers and primarily at the police. On the whole, though, I and others are very deeply sad to lose Stephen in such a fashion.
# posted by debbyscott @ 3:03 PM
