Human Rights Fraud Says Gays Are not People and Threatens to Burn Down Organization

“I don’t believe gays are people. ….. they should not be respected….. I feel that…” Agenonga Robert, whose LINKEDIN page says he works with LGBT and who purports to lead a Human Rights Group.

By Melanie Nathan, October 19, 2o15.

Human rights donors, grantors and foundations around the world may see requests for funding from a Ugandan named Agenonga Robert.  Agenonga, who runs several Facebook profiles, is seeking funds for an organization called Layoca Youth Music Project as well as other projects he is working on.  This stands for Lake Albert Youth Cabinet (LAYOCA) of which Mr. Agenonga says he is president.   This same man says gays are not people and is threatening to burn down a health foundation, because he alleges they service LGBT people. The same man is also denigrating lesbian and gay activists on social media, and spreading myth and lies about homosexuality.

This is what his Linkedin page notes:

“The Great Lakes Village Projects is a dynamic organization committed to meeting the diverse needs of the military medical communities well as LGBT persons” ( See screenshot below)

And here is his dehumanization of gays and lesbians:

The purpose of this article is caveat emptor – “buyer beware;” and in this case it is donor be aware!  In places like Uganda and other African countries, many organizations have developed, seeking American and international donor funds to operate organizations  and to fund specific projects. While many of these groups do good work, some are frauds, seeing an opportunity to cash in on the crest of the international human rights wave.

The organization’s BLOG has the following description:

“Lake Albert Youth Cabinet (LAYOCA) is a Great Lakes regional network of democracy, human rights, “

To my way of thinking – one cannot profess to be a human rights defender while denigrating core human rights issues.  I believe that calling oneself a human rights leader, activist, defender, or advocate is false and fraudulent unless one embraces every aspect of human rights and able to serve all minorities within one’s organization, or all issues as reflected, at the very least, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  That means if one puts down LGBTI right to exist, spreads myths and lies about homosexuality, threatens to expose someone who is LGBT, threatens violence against a person or group for being lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender, then such person is a fraud and not worthy of the title human rights defender, regardless of their milieu, and hence are unworthy of funding and support.

Unfortunately, according to my assessment, Ugandan Agenonga Robert, the director of LAYOCA, falls short of earning his badge as a legitimate human rights defender because of the following revelations, all at his own hand:

Here is Robert Agenonga threatening to burn down an organization in Mbarara, Uganda:

He continues to spread lies about what homosexuality is and accuses a well known international award winning lesbian Ugandan activist, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, (of Bombastic Magazine and to whom he sent the above threat),  of something that is impossible to do – one cannot recruit people into a sexuality.

He continues to denigrate and disparage LGBT activists and community members on social media:

And so the modus operandi of Robert Agenonga is to write anti-gay posts on his Facebook wall and to tag scores of LGBT activists while doing it! Either he is truly stupid or he is so desperate for attention that the only place he can seek it is to goad and taunt the people who he despises. According to some activists in Uganda Robert is himself a closeted gay and hence thinks exposing others is not only cowardly but also a way to deflect attention from his own homosexuality while making himself a hero among the anti-gay populace.

No Robert Agenonga should not receive human rights designated funding and nor should LAYOCA, certainly for as long as Agenonga has anything to do with the organization. I highly recommend that the organization be investigate for validity, as it is quite clear now that it is being run by someone who is not being forthright and discriminates based on sexuality.   I have so many more screen shots saved to back my assertions. 

I would like to add this alert. All threats are taken very seriously.  One cannot threaten to burn down a place and then expect to get away with such threats.

HERE is his current plea on Facebook asking for funds for his organization:

It has been a while since the last update. So much is going on that we barely have time to stop, take a breath, and thank everyone for their support and enthusiasm.

In short, LAYOCA YOUTH MUSIC PROJECT is a reality. We will go back to Rwanda in two weeks to continue the project together with the inspiring twenty youth leaders and hundreds of children in the program. This time, we will be joined by local musicians that were recruited in May this year by Lake Albert Youth Cabinet (LAYOCA). We will sing, play, drum, and record! One of our new partners is the Kigali Music School, a young institution working to provide music education for children and youth in Rwanda.

……..   We have launched a fund-raiser for the music school, which is struggling to survive. Please donate if you can:

Lake Albert Youth Cabinet (LAYOCA uganda) is a registered community based organization which arose out of the desire to improve the livelihoods of local young people, children and women. We aim to inspire young people to take charge of their own affairs; we extend opportunities to them and provide them with information resources, and social services. We also aim to connect rural communities to the outside world, drawing on global initiatives to scale down the HIV/AIDS epidemic as well as to improve the livelihoods among the youthful generations in previously under-served communities of Uganda. LAYOCA is an independent and equal opportunities CBO dedicated to empower the youth

Agenonga says on the LAYOCA Blog:

 Democracy and Human Rights Projects

Through schools and community outreach programs, we do engage the students and the community in the democratization process through empowering them with the knowledge and fundamental principles of human rights and democracy. It is imperative that, youth population in Uganda, which comprise of 64%, are aware of their rights, roles and are, empowered to make informed decisions. To this program, we engage them in debates, participatory discussions, public dialogue, essay writing, conferences, workshops, seminars and training on the electoral process, constitutionalism, civic education, civil rights, and join the grand effort in delivering knowledge on the democratic elections, the importance of youths participation in public policy and decision making.

Now unfortunately, and yes, by his own mouth, this statement is flagrantly hypocritical.  In my opinion, one cannot exclude the most abused and persecuted of minorities from one’s human rights work or call them unhuman and expect to be funded by the West.   From Agenonga’s displayed anger toward LGBT Ugandans it seems young LGBT people will be harmed and not helped or certainly excluded and…. – well – ….

You be the judge! This man’s words reflect the type of rhetoric that has caused severe harm – such as mob attacks, assaults, blackmail, evictions, banishment and more,  to Uganda’s LGBT community and others in Africa where he purports to do his work.

And now to add insult to injury –  in an even more shocking twist – it seems that this vehemently anti-gay person “uses” LGBT when it suits him.  On his LinkedIN page he pretends that his organization’s work includes LGBT: “The Great Lakes Village Projects is a dynamic organization committed to meeting the diverse needs of the military medical community as well as LGBT persons- see screenshot:”

Before writing this I contacted Agenonga and gave him an opportunity to retract his anti-gay rant. But instead he just got deeper and deeper into the animosity. He boatsed that he has contacts in the U.S. embassy in Uganda and that he was above reproach. He also boasts of receiving USAID funding.

Of course I will be forwarding this article to all concerned.

Here are parts of my conversation with him:

At the end of the day, how does one reconcile the work this man purports to be doing with this organization and the anti human rights comments he has made?  One cannot-  threaten to “burn down” an HIV/ AIDS organization because they are providing health care to gays. This is absolutely inexcusable, especially coming from someone who preached about human rights and hence ought to know better!

I have a recommendation for Mr. Agenonga – in light of your comments which go contrary to basic standards for human rights leadership, I highly recommend your immediate resignation from LAYOCA, so that the organization, once investigated, still stands a chance of receiving funding.  Your resignation will ensure that the organization, if it is indeed viable, stands a chance of receiving future funding.

If you wold like to discuss this story please comment below or email Melanie Nathan, [email protected]

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UPDATED Oct 20, 2015.
Agenonga is now threatening LGBT people associated with Melanie Nathan. People on Facebook who are openly gay have been receiving threats in their private message boxes and he posted this to his Facebook page, trying to re-invoke the violence against LGBT Ugandans by re-exposing them. What he forgets is that the man who exposed gays and called for their hanging  in the Tabloid Rolling Stone, Giles Muhame, was successfully sued by Uganda’s LGBT community and went out of business as a result.  It seems Agenonga wants to place himself in the category of instigating murder against LGBT people.  We recall that David kato was murdered as a result of this war against gays through tabloids. I believe this will backfire against him.  Here is the proof:

HERE IS GILES MUHAME, Rolling Stone Editor who is seen bragging about the publication that caused the death and severe persecution of Ugandan LGBT people or some perceived as LGBT.  Muhame is a friend of Agenonga and they are still conspiring, according to Agenonga.

Here is his threat to San Francisco Pride Parade Chief of Operations for the parade.  She is a famed American LGBT activist and a founder of Inter Pride. She is not in the least bit concerned about exposure as she tells him off after the threat to her FB in Box.