[Commentary]
Why Biden Shouldn't Have Invited Ugandan Thief Gen. Museveni to U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit
By Milton Allimadi
The Biden administration has invited one of Africa's most brutal and corrupt dictators, Uganda's Gen. Yoweri Museveni, who once praised Hitler and said people captured into slavery were "stupid," to attend a summit in the United States.
Billed as the "U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit," the event will be hosted by President Biden in Washington from December 13 to 15. African leaders will discuss a range of issues with administration officials and U.S. business executives seeking investment opportunities.
It's hard to imagine who's bone-headed decision it was to include Gen. Museveni on the invitation list. Museveni has held power since Ronald Reagan was in office. His tyranny in Uganda and regional militarism—invading Rwanda, Congo, and South Sudan—has spread death and destruction. His conduct repudiates all the ideals the Biden summit claims to support. According to the announcement on the State Department's website the summit's goal is to build on "shared values" between the U.S. and Africa—"Advance peace, security, and good governance," and to "Reinforce commitment to democracy, human rights, and civil society."
This must be a cruel joke, considering that Museveni remains in power by force of arms and by rigging elections. The 2021 vote was so brutal that Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement declaring the election as "neither free, nor fair." In other words, Gen. Museveni isn't even Uganda's legitimate president.
In November 2020, two months before the Jan. 14, 2021 election security forces massacred Ugandan supporters of the main opposition candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, a.k.a. Bobi Wine, whom many believe is the actual winner of the election. Dictator Museveni himself admitted that 54 people were killed--its believed the true number is well over 100.
Secretary Blinken in his statement announced sanctions including travel restrictions against unnamed Ugandan officials responsible for the violence before, during, and after the election. Since Gen. Museveni is in charge of Uganda's security forces, and bears direct responsibility, shouldn't he be on the Blinken list of sanctioned officials? How then is he invited to the Biden summit?
The atrocities continued after the vote, with a campaign of kidnapping, torture, and killings of Bobi Wine supporters.
Separately, in December 2021 the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions, including asset seizure, against Gen. Museveni's internal intelligence chief, Gen. Abel Kandiho, for the continued campaign of terror. According to Treasury Gen. Kandiho personally participated in the abuses, including sexual torture.
Museveni thumbed his nose at the Biden administration by transferring Kandiho to the Police force and promoting him to another command position.
Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son to Museveni and potential successor has been delegated more torturing responsibilities. One of Gen. Kainerugaba's high profile victims was Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, the 2021 PEN Pinter prize International Writer of Courage awardee, and a columnist for my publication Black Star News. Pliers were used to pluck off skin from his legs, thighs and buttocks; he was whipped so brutally that lacerations on his back recalls the iconic image of a formerly-enslaved African in the United States. Rukirabashaija fled to exile in Germany.
Even though Gen. Museveni is one of Africa's most corrupt rulers, and his officials embezzle aid money, the U.S. bankrolls his regime to the tune of almost $1 billion annually in American taxpayers' money.
Museveni's corruption is legendary. In December 2018, a U.S. Court convicted Chi Ping Patrick Ho, a Chinese wheeler-dealer of bribing Gen. Museveni and his foreign minister Sam Kutesa $1 million for concessions in Uganda's emerging oil industry and other businesses on behalf of a Chinese conglomerate. The payment was disguised as contributions to a "charity." When an FBI agent went to Uganda he found no such charity existed.
The U.S. gained jurisdiction because Ho, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment, wired some payments via a New York-based bank. Ho delivered $500,000 in cash, wrapped Mafia-style as a "gift," when he visited Museveni in Uganda in 2016 to ink business deals.
If all of these crimes don't faze President Biden—who claimed his foreign policy would be anchored on human rights and democracy— then what about Museveni's comments about Hitler and slavery?
He's held power so long his outrageous date over decades. In April 1998, a Ugandan weekly, The Shariat, published these comments by Gen. Museveni: "As Hitler did to bring Germany together, we should also do it here. Hitler was a smart guy, but I think he went a bit too far by wanting to conquer the world." A "bit too far" eh? No mention of the six million Jews exterminated.
If Kanye West can be taken for task for anti-semitic statements why is it okay for President Biden to invite Museveni the Hitler admirer? Ironically Kanye and Kim Kardashian were guests of Museveni in 2018.
With regard to slavery, Museveni told The Atlantic magazine in September 1994: "I have never blamed the whites for colonizing Africa: I have never blamed these whites for taking slaves. If you are stupid, you should be taken a slave."
David Duke, the notorious racist, would be condemned for such a statement. Yet Biden invites Museveni who uttered these ugly words to a "leaders" summit?
Why is Biden so blind to Gen. Museveni's brutality, corruption, and other outrages?
It's true the U.S. is desperate to line up the rest of the world--including African countries--against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. In August, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations even visited with Museveni to try and get him to condemn Russia.
Greenfield-Thomas extended an invitation to Biden's summit to dictator Museveni, according to media reports. Coming from an African American, this is even more chilling considering Museveni's slavery statement. Where is the shame?
While Museveni hasn't condemned the Russian invasion yet, perhaps there's a quid-pro-quo and he'll do so after the summit. At the end of the day what's clear is that the Biden administration is double-mouthed; preaching democracy and human rights for Africa, while providing succor, comfort, and $1 billion annually to Museveni, one of Africa's most notorious dictators.
This sends the wrong message to emerging young leaders in Africa like Bobi Wine who risk their lives by standing up to dictators like Gen. Museveni.
