The Qaddafi I know

Yoweri Museveni is president of Uganda. By the time Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a third-year university student at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We welcomed his rise because he was a leader in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position. Soon, however, ...

MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images
MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images
MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images

Yoweri Museveni is president of Uganda.

Yoweri Museveni is president of Uganda.

By the time Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a third-year university student at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We welcomed his rise because he was a leader in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position.

Soon, however, problems cropped up with Qaddafi as far as Uganda and black Africa were concerned:

Backing Idi Amin: Idi Amin came to power in 1971 with the support of Britain and Israel because they thought he was uneducated enough to be used by them. Amin, however, turned against his sponsors when they refused to sell him guns to fight Tanzania. Unfortunately, Qaddafi, without first getting enough information about Uganda, jumped in to support Idi Amin. He did this because Amin was a "Moslem" and Uganda was a "Moslem country," where Moslems were being "oppressed" by Christians. Amin killed a lot of people extra-judicially, and Qaddafi was identified with these mistakes.

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<p> Yoweri Museveni is president of the Republic of Uganda. </p>
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