WikiLeaks: Museveni dreaded assassination by Gaddafi

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is understood to have told the US Government that he feared long time ally and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would shoot down his plane as he travelled over international airspace.

The damning revelation is contained in one of two classified memos on Uganda in which the private observations of top US diplomats are made public by controversial whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

President Museveni’s fears of a possible assassination were expressed to America’s former top ambassador on Africa, Ms Jendayi Frazer, at a meeting on June 13, 2008.

According to the classified memo, President Museveni reported to the US that he feared Col. Gaddafi would eliminate him because he had opposed the Libyan leader’s push for the creation of a United States of Africa.

“President Museveni said Libyan President Qadhafi ‘is a problem’ for the continent and is pushing for the creation of a ‘United States of Africa’ to be governed by one president,” Ms Frazer is quoted in the classified memo, which was first published in The Guardian newspaper in the UK Wednesday.

President Museveni told Ms Frazer that he thought Col. Gaddafi’s plan was “neither feasible nor desirable”, a matter which seemed to piss-off the Libyan leader.

While flying

“Museveni noted that tensions with Qadhafi are growing as a result, and he worries that Qadhafi will attack his plane while flying over international airspace,” Ms Frazer said.

The memo went on to say that President Museveni asked the US Government to provide additional air radar information whenever he flies over international waters. The memo documents private conversations between President Museveni and Ms Frazer, then US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, when the NRM leader was attending the graduation ceremony of his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, from the US Military Academy at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Barely seven months after that meeting, Mr Museveni purchased a new luxury Gulf Stream V presidential jet and replaced his old Gulfstream IV jet.  The new jet, said to be outfitted with enhanced anti-terror capabilities, was reportedly one of its kind known to be owned by either an African head of state or anybody else on the continent. It is still not clear whether the purchase of a new and faster jet had anything to do with the President’s security concerns.

In the leaked memos, President Museveni spoke about his frustrations with the Democratic Republic of Congo leader Joseph Kabila--who he described as “not serious” and “not capable”, in joining forces with Uganda to launch a military offensive against the Lords Resistance Army rebels, who were then encamped in the Garamaba Forest.

Congolese civilians

In December 2008, six months after the Frazer conversation, the UPDF, with aid of logistical support from the US Government, launched an offensive against the LRA in Congo, driving the rebel outfit to the Central African Republic. But there have been mixed reactions over the success or failures of Operation Lightning Thunder, with reports awash about the deaths of several hundred Congolese civilians.

In one of the leaked memos, President Museveni is shown speaking indifferently about Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe. President Museveni suggested that President Mugabe was a disgrace to his fellow liberation leaders and told of how the Zimbabwe leader was unwilling to take calls from most African leaders because they were not his age-mates.

President Museveni told Ms Frazer that “Zimbabwe’s faltering economy and Mr Mugabe’s poor understanding of the private sector were at the root of Zimbabwe’s political problems”, the memo stated.

The President went on to state that a discussion of the economy would provide “an entry point” to tell President Mugabe that “he has failed and is embarrassing liberation leaders”.