Museveni: Dictators Must Negotiate

by AfroAmerica Network on March 24, 2011

In a statement received by AfroAmerica Network (see statement here ), President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has made public his position that dictators must negotiate is they care about their people and would like to bring peace in their country. According to President Museveni of Uganda, Colonel Muamar Gaddafi of Libya needs to hold a dialogue with his opposition.
Museveni said in the public statement also published in public media in Uganda:

A legitimate internal insurrection, if that is the strategy chosen by the leaders of that effort, can succeed. The Shah of Iran was defeated by an internal insurrection; the Russian Revolution in 1917 was an internal insurrection; the Revolution in Zanzibar in 1964 was an internal insurrection; the changes in Ukraine, Georgia, etc., all were internal insurrections.  It should be for the leaders of the Resistance in that country to decide their to sponsor insurrection groups in sovereign countries. I am totally allergic to foreign, political and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries.

All this notwithstanding, Col. Gaddafi should be ready to sit down with the opposition, through the mediation of the AU, with the opposition cluster of groups which now includes individuals well known to us – Ambassador Abdalla, Dr. Zubeda, etc.

know Gaddafi has his system of elected committees that end up in a National People’s Conference. Actually Gaddafi thinks this is superior to our multi-party systems. Of course, I have never had time to know how truly competitive this system is.   Anyway, even if it is competitive, there is now, apparently, a significant number of Libyans that think that there is a problem in Libya in terms of 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 wrong. Therefore, a dialogue is the correct way forward.”

One may wonder whether this applies also to himself. In fact he is faced by two rebellions: teh Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Defense Forces (ADF-NALU).