Tag Archives: Muammar al-Gaddafi

Museveni defends Gaddafi while inflation soars in Uganda

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Museveni reiterated his defense of Gaddafi this week in The Daily Monitor:

President Museveni has reiterated his criticism of the West and attacked Nato for disorganising a friend, whose 42-year rule faces a humbling end.

Speaking at the annual Muslims Iftar dinner at State House, Entebbe on Saturday, Mr Museveni addressed himself on two fundamental issues: The economic crisis at home and the battle for Libya. He accused the West of greed and defended Col. Gaddafi’s mistakes even though, he said, the Libyan leader attempted to go behind his back to hijack his chiefs in Kampala.

“Gaddafi had his own mistakes, he came here and organised my chiefs without telling me. We cancelled that meeting and I warned chiefs because it was wrong,” Mr Museveni said. “But Gaddafi built a mosque for us and as a leader, he had his mistakes, but those Europeans have more mistakes and problems. They think the rest of us are fools except themselves. When there are riots in Africa, they call them pro-democracy and in London, they call them, criminals.”

While inflation in Uganda has hit a 20-year high of 21.4%:

Ugandans will be bracing themselves for even harder times ahead as the continued depreciation of the local currency, rising prices for fuel, essential commodities and food combined to push inflation to a new 20-year high, further threatening the economy’s growth.The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics yesterday indicates that inflation rose from a revised rate of 18.8 per cent in July to 21.4 per cent in August.

This represents a 2.6 percentage point rise, which, though lower than the 3.1 percentage point increase registered in July, still dragged the battered economy over another double digit threshold.

The Director for Macro-Economics Statistics at Ubos, Dr Chris Ndatira Mukiza, said food inflation, which rose to 42.9 per cent from 40.7 per cent, remains the main driver of inflation.

Back in May when Museveni was sworn in for another five year term after 25 years in power, Think Africa Press noted “For the first time in decades, inflation has hit the two digit mark to settle at 11%,” and asked “President Museveni:  Africa’s Marie Antoinette?“

One is reminded of Marie-Antoinette of France. Are these leaders in touch with reality? Do they understand the condition of ordinary people of Uganda? And how many Ugandans really depend on land, and how productive is that land? What percentage of farmers are producing for the market? Even for those who have access to land, can they get all that they need from that land? In any case, the root of this inflation can be traced to the colossal amount of money poured into the country during the recent election campaigns. And this was largely by President Museveni himself.

Odinga in Washington; U.S. in Libya; “Kinetic Action” v. MCC

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Here is the link to a multimedia page for Raila Odinga’s speech and Q & A last week at CSIS in Washington.  Nothing newsmaking in itself that I saw, but a good speech of interest to those following governance and democratization issues in Africa and especially Kenya and Ivory Coast.

In the meantime, one of the most telling things I have read about how our actions in participating in the Libyan mission are viewed by others is from Bruce Reidel at Brookings:

The Indians are puzzled that some in the West who had embraced Qaddafi less than a hundred days ago are now so shocked by his cruelty. Qaddafi did not change in 2011. Some former Indian diplomats are quick to suggest that the Libyan war shows America’s “unreliability” and a tendency to over react to the last news broadcast. Who are the rebels in Benghazi, they ask, that are now your allies? Why do you rush to help them, and not the shia protesters in Manama?

As one Indian observer put it, “the U.S. is both promiscuous and flighty” with its relationships.

“A Letter from Agra:  How India Views U.S. Actions in Libya”

These observations on the Indian view were published almost a month ago.  If the NATO effort in Libya bogs down, we may find ourselves asking more rigorously, “why exactly did we decide to do this?” and “what specifically were we trying to accomplish originally and what specifically are we trying to accomplish now?”.  Those same questions that eventually became “known unknowns” in Iraq.

In the meantime, The Hill caries a piece by Paul O’Brian of OxFam America on potentially critical budget cuts for the Millennium Challenge Corporation.  No one at the MCC could afford to make the comparison politically I am sure, but let me make it for them:  look at the cost of the Libya action versus the cost of the MCC.  The MCC would seem to have bipartisan support if any area of development can.  A George W. Bush initiative originally, but very compatible with Democratic “soft power” thinking and led by Obama appointees now.   A relatively small staff and bureaucratic footprint.

In geopolitics, and in longer term development, we need to pay some real attention to states, but if this is a humanitarian effort don’t we need to look also at the numbers of people involved: is this worth the cost relative to the cost of other “kinetic” or “non-kinetic” endeavors?  Ivory Coast, for instance, is a much more populous country.

Enough to drive one to drink . . . Museveni on Gaddafi (and Western company bribes to Gaddafi)

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The obvious question that comes to mind after reading Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s  “The Qaddafi I Know” at Foreign Policy is:  do politically-minded people go to bars?

The Middle Eastern radicals, quite different from the revolutionaries of black Africa, seem to say that any means is acceptable as long as you are fighting the enemy. That is why they hijack planes, use assassinations, plant bombs in bars, etc. Why bomb bars? People who go to bars are normally merry-makers, not politically minded people.

We were together with the Arabs in the anti-colonial struggle. The black African liberation movements, however, developed differently from the Arab ones. .  .  .  .

(you may remember that Gaddafi directed the bombing of a nightclub frequented by American servicemen in West Germany in 1986)

So is Museveni a radical?  If so, a radical for what?  For just a small sample of the rest of the sophistry:

I know Qaddafi has his system of elected committees that convene to form a National People’s Conference. Actually, Qaddafi thinks this is superior to our multi-party systems. Of course, I have never had time to study how truly competitive this system is. Anyway, even if it is competitive, there is now, apparently, a significant number of Libyans who think that there is a problem in their country’s governance. Since there has not been internationally observed elections in Libya, not even by the AU, we cannot know what is correct and what is false. Therefore, a dialogue is the correct way forward.

Museveni, of course, has allowed international observers to the elections that his government has conducted and is thus “too legit to quit” twenty-five years after taking power by force.  And since Libya is on the same continent as Uganda, Museveni is entitled to write in Foreign Policy and  have a large role is solving Libya’s problems without even claiming to know much about the details of the issues, all while stridently denouncing “foreign” meddling.  (And to take lots of American and other Western money to train and otherwise fund his military, and especially to “peacekeep” in Mogadishu–and to operate his government and otherwise meet some of the needs of his constituents while his government funds his re-election).

Pretty sobering to realize that Museveni is, in many ways, our bestest ally in the region .  .  .  .

And of course more information is coming out about Museveni’s mobilization of the Ugandan military in his election.  And now Human Rights Watch finds that a Ugandan “Rapid Response Unit” is using torture and extra-judicial killings.

And reporting by The New York Times discloses some of the massive shakedowns by Gaddafi of Western companies seeking to do business in Libya to fund his payment to the families of Lockerbie bombing victims.

The wealth that Colonel Qaddafi’s family and his government accumulated with the help of international corporations in the years since the lifting of economic sanctions by the West helped fortify his hold on his country. While the outcome of the military intervention under way by the United States and allied countries is uncertain, Colonel Qaddafi’s resources — including a stash of tens of billions of dollars in cash that American officials believe he is using to pay soldiers, mercenaries and supporters — may help him avert, or at least delay, his removal from power.

The government not only exploited corporations eager to do business, but willing governments as well. Libya’s banks apparently collected lucrative fees by helping Iran launder huge sums of money in recent years in violation of international sanctions on Tehran, according to another cable from Tripoli included in a batch of classified documents obtained by WikiLeaks. In 2009, the cable said, American diplomats warned Libyan officials that its dealings with Iran were jeopardizing Libya’s enhanced world standing for the sake of “potential short-term business gains.”

AU selects Museveni to Negotiate on Libya Crisis Resolution with Gaddafi

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From Monday’s Daily Monitor via AllAfrica.com:

Addis Ababa/Kampala — President Museveni has been named by the African Union (AU) alongside South African President Jacob Zuma to negotiate a resolution to the mounting crisis in Libya.

AU chairperson Jean Ping made the announcement at a Peace and Security Council meeting in Addis Ababa at the weekend. Mr Museveni and Mr Zuma will work alongside presidents Mr Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, Mr Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali and Mr Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania. The team is expected to travel to Tripoli this week to assess the situation on the ground and meet all parties involved in the ongoing conflict.

Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi is facing the strongest challenge to his 42-year rule, after demonstrations demanding he step down last month escalated into civil unrest across the country. Rebel forces have since taken control of most of western Libya and the situation has now been described as a full-fledged civil war.

However, rebels continued to lose ground this week, and international consensus remains elusive on extending economic sanctions, as well as establishing a no-fly zone – some observers say is essential to preventing government air strikes on rebel territory.

President Museveni is known to be an old ally of the defiant Libyan leader. But the President’s press secretary, Mr Tamale Mirundi, said the President “cannot refuse” helping in the face of such a crisis, citing his past involvements in neighbouring Kenya and Rwanda, among others. “The president believes that African problems can easily be solved by Africans using regional and continental approaches,” Mr Mirundi said yesterday.

Links to Start the Week

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Qaddafi demise helps African Union at Africa Works by G. Pascal Zachary:

The collapse of Qaddafi’s dictatorial regime in Africa has concrete benefits for the African Union, whose international standing has repeatedly been undermined by the Libyan leader’s eccentric Pan-Africanism and past embrace of terrorism. . . . . Qaddafi and Libyan cronies invested in African real estate but they never provided either finance or expertise to promote industrial enterprises. Should Qaddafi vanish permanently from the club of African leaders, the African Union will be the beneficiary. The AU struggles with legitimacy and effectiveness; Qaddafi made the tests of pragmatism and idealism much more difficult. His absence from the AU governing body will make the renovation of this disappointing regional body easier, though even without the burden of Qaddafi, the task facing reformers of the AU remains daunting.

In Uganda, a new inflation–in the price of votes, Jina Moore

Martha Karua, running for the Kenyan presidency next year, says Kibaki administration has increased extrajudicial killings from the level of the Moi administration.

Sixth Fleet Frigate USS Stephen W. Groves is  spending roughly two weeks at Dar Es Salaam for African Partnership Station program training East African sailors, along with some community relations.

“Real Conservatives Don’t Slash Foreign Aid:  What House Republicans Can Learn From David Cameron and the Tories” Thomas Carothers in The New Republic.

“Wako reserves his most potent sting for Kibaki” Emeka-Mayaka Gekara in the Daily Nation. A good example of how things really work in Kenyan politics.

“Somalia:  The Transition Government on Life Support” International Crisis Group report, February 21.  Says the international community has continued to fail to appreciate the reality that attempts to create a European-style centralized national government are doomed to failure.  The TFG is further hampered by corruption and irresponsibility.  Without serious progress and reform by August, the attention of the international support should shift:

Yet, the situation is not as bleak as it may seem. Some parts of Somalia, most notably Somaliland and Puntland in the north, are relatively stable, and as the ill-fated Union of Islamic Courts demonstrated in 2006, it is possible to rapidly reestablish peace and stability in central and south Somalia if the right conditions exist. Contrary to what is often assumed, there is little anarchy in the country. Local authorities administer most areas and maintain a modicum of law and order. Somalis and humanitarian agencies and NGOs on the ground know who is in charge and what the rules are and get on with their work. The way forward needs to be a more devolved political and security structure and far greater international support for local administrations.  Furthermore, if by August, the TFG has not made meaningful progress in coping with its internal problems and shown itself genuinely willing to work and share power with these local authorities, the international community should shift all its aid to them.