{UAH} Politics: When Is Someone A Dictator?

Allow me raise an interesting topic that I was alerted to yesterday.
One Ugandan citizen was pleading to our journalists that Idi Amin shouldn't be called dictator.
"Military ruler would be the correct term" he added.
His argument was basically that though the word dictator could be factually correct, it had ulterior negative political undertones.
During his swearing-in ceremony in 1971, then General Amin never said he was a democrat or an elected leader. He swore before God and the people of Uganda to be a "Military Head Of State".
He then ended with the plea: "So help me God".
His official description as in official Uganda state records is therefore "Military Head of State" and that would therefore be the appropriate diplomatic description of him.
In fact if you check the picture here and zoom closer enough, those are the very words written on the back of the folder that is being held for him by the Chief Justice who swore him in.
Meanwhile, the reasoning behind the word dictator is considered more derogatory than honest. For example there isn't a single time the African or international press will identify Burkina Faso's Capt. Thomas Sankara as a military dictator. Yet if we go by the literal definition, wasn't he one?
We will choose to identify him as the former President of Burkina Faso. I myself call him Africa's hero.
Another example is Col. Ghaddafi. To many Africans he is also their murdered champion of African unity, yet to the western media he is "The Libyan dictator".
Some Africans refer to him as dictator when they want to compare him with their own sitting president.
For example, one will regularly hear an African lamenting about America killing our hero Ghadaffi. Five minutes later, the same person will be warning Mr. Museveni or Yayah Jammeh that, "Remember what happened to dictator Ghaddafi who thought he could rule forever."
So the term dictator is subject to how, when, and why someone is using it.
In Uganda, Mr. Yoweri Museveni was clearly a military ruler by the words crudest definition for a whole 10 years (1986-1996). He came by the gun and ruled exclusively by the gun until 1996 when held some election. But during those first ten years (which by the way were already longer by two years than Idi Amin's entire reign) nobody ever referred to Mr. Museven as military dictator at the time.
Surprisingly it is only now that he is being branded as one. Including by the western press. Yet there are polls in Uganda today, albeit stolen elections where he is a "sole candidate", and at the same time he appoints those who run the electoral commission. He only therefore wins by hook plus crook, plus heavy military deployments. The reason why City square in Kampala remains restricted militarized area ever since Egypt's Tahrir square revolution.
As for lyrical snake Obote, no matter how much he tries to comb his hair sideways like a mzungu, he will remain a black man from Africa. And deposing the legitimate sitting president the first time (1966), plus organizing deadly fake polls so as to become president the second time (1980), doesn't make him the Dalai Lama.
In fact we are looking at dictator Milton.
If I continued on Uganda , I'd have to mention dictator Yusuf Lule, dictator Godfrey Binaisa and dictator Tito Okello as well. None were elected by the people.
There are therefore civilian dictators in Africa. These include Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi, Kwame Nkrumah, Houphouet Boigny, Borguiba, Omar Bongo among many others.
Why for example have I never heard the media refer to Nyerere as dictator Julius?
Isn't that ample proof that there is politics to the use of the word dictator? When did the Tanzanian people elect him?
I respect a person who declares upfront that "I am not a politician. I am a professional soldier." That is what Idi Amin said himself.
I even respect someone like Muhamudu Buhari who was a military dictator and now a popularly elected leader.
I give even more respect to those African leaders who were genuinely voted by their uncoerced people: Leopold Sedar Senghor, Nelson Mandela or all the quietly but cleanly elected leaders of Botswana for example.
But I have a different view when it comes to greedy, corrupt Ugandan conmen masquerading as democratic intellectuals.

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