Credit: U.S. Department of State   / United States Ambassador Daniel Lewis Foote

By Gary Raynaldo     /    DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

The State Department has withdrawn the U.S. ambassador to Zambia after he strongly criticized the south African country for jailing a gay couple for having sex.   The U.S recalled diplomat Daniel Foote after it was told Zambian President Edgar Lungu would no longer work with him.  Ambassador Foote said he was “horrified” that a judge had sentenced the men to 15 years in prison after they were caught having sex in 2017, according to BBC News.  The government accused him of trying to dictate policy, and President Edgar Lungu declared him persona non grata. 

Zambia Is a Deeply Conservative society where Homosexual acts are Illegal.

Last month, a High Court in the capital, Lusaka, sentenced Japhet Chataba and Steven Samba to 15 years in jail. The couple had booked into a lodge, and a worker peeped through an open window and saw them having sex, the court heard.

President Of Zambia Requested U.S. Ambassador Leave the Southern African Nation

Credit: Wikipedia Commons /  Zambia President  Edgar Lunga

A U.S. embassy source told Reuters that Zambian President Lungu no longer wanted to work with Foote as a result of his comments.

“You cannot ask a government to make a decision at gun point – ‘because we are giving you aid, we want you to do this’ – you can’t,” Zambia’s Foreign Minister Joseph Malanji told the BBC last week.

Foote was appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Zambia on November 20, 2017. At the time of his appointment, Foote was the Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs at the Department of State, where he had served as Deputy Assistant Secretary since 2015   A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, Mr. Foote has served as Coordinating Director, Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, and Deputy Chief of Mission at both Embassy Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and Embassy Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He was Narcotics Affairs Counselor in Bogota, Colombia; Team Leader, U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team to Maysan Province, Iraq; Management Counselor in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Management Officer, U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Team to Erbil Province, Iraq. Other overseas diplomatic postings include Luxembourg, London, and Gadalajara. In Washington, he served in the Operations Center and the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.  Foote earned a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University in the City of New York, where he played varsity football and track & field.