STATEMENT

BY

H.E YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA

AT THE
REGIONAL SUMMIT ON COUNTER TERRORISM
HELD AT

ENTEBBE STATE HOUSE

4TH JULY, 2016

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Your Excellencies, the African Heads of State present,

The Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Israel,
The Honourable Heads of Delegations,
Ladies and gentlemen.

I most warmly welcome Your Excellencies for having

positively responded to my invitation, at short notice, to
attend this occasion. I also thank the Rt. Hon. Prime
Minister Netanyahu for turning this sad story of 40 years
ago, into yet another instrument of bonding the Holy land
(Israel-Palestine) with the heartland of Uganda in
particular and Africa in general. I say that this is yet
another bond between Africa and (Isreal-Palestine), because
there were earlier bonding events. The story Joseph and
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Moses (between 1886 and 1446 BC); and the story of Baby
Jesus being hidden in Egypt around the year 4 BC (in the
Gospel
of Mathew: Chapter 2 verses 13-23): It says: When they
had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a
dream Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and
escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going
to search for the child to kill him.
Even for the Moslem religion, in the year 622AD, Prophet
Mohammed had to flee from Arabia to Ethiopia. Then there
is the famous story of the Queen of Sheba which is found
in the Book of 1 Kings: Chapter 10 verses 1-13: It says:
when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon
and his relationship with the Lord, she came to test Solomon
with hard questions. Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great
caravan with camels carrying spices, large quantities of
gold and precious stones she came to Solomon and talked
with him about all that she had on her mind. When the
queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon she was
overwhelmed. She said to the king, the report I had heard
in my country about your achievements and your wisdom is
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true but I did not believe these things until I came and saw
with my own eyes.
The Entebbe rescue operation of 1976 is yet another bond
between the two areas growing out of adversity. Your
brother Jonathan, some Israeli hostages and some
Ugandan soldiers were killed here on that night of the 4th of
July, 1976.

Fortunately, the rescue mission succeeded and the

innocent civilians were rescued. As you all know, our
Movement of NRM, is a Liberation Movement. Liberation
Movements only fight for just causes and never use
terrorist methods. Therefore, for us, when it comes to
which war to fight, it is both about the cause and the
method. Even if a fighter has a just cause to fight for, he or
she should distil his/her methods. Indiscriminate use of
violence is criminal. Why target civilians and non4

combatants? Even soldiers, when they are not armed,

should not be attacked. It is cowardice and criminal to do
so. Targeting non-combatants, marks the boundary
between freedom fighters and terrorists even when the
cause is justified.

In the matter of the Israel-Palestine area, we in Uganda are

guided by the Bible. In chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis
verse 31: Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot and
his daughter in-law, Sarai, wife of his son, Abram and
together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to
Canaan but when they came to Haraan, they settled there.
Abraham came from Ur (Mesopotamia) and settled in
Harran Canaan. This is estimated to have been in the
year 2081BC.
There were other tribes in that area such as: Kenites,
Kenizzites, Kadmonites, etc. Besides, there is the story of
the two wives of Abraham: Shaara and Hagara in the
Book of Genesis: Chapter 21 and verses 9-13: It says: and
Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had
born unto Abraham, mocking wherefore she said unto
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Abraham, cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son
of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with
Isaac and the thing was very grievous in Abrahams sight
because of his son; and God said unto Abraham, let it not be
grievous in thy sight because of thy bondwoman; in all that
Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in
Isaac shall thy seed be called; and also the son of the
bondwoman will I make a nation, because He is thy seed.
We hear that Jews came from Shaara and Arabs came from
Hagara. Therefore, we in Uganda cannot accept the bigotry
that holds that either of you does not belong to that area.
The Romans upset the equilibrium by dispersing the Jews
in the year 70AD. Thereafter, the Jews suffered endless
privations being victims of all sorts of hoodlums such as
Hitler, until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
The Jewish leaders wisely avoided the British nonsense of
proposing to bring you to Uganda because you had no
historical claim here. You went to where you had a
historical claim Israel-Palestine. Therefore, rationally,
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historically and legitimately, the two of you belong to that

area. The only way for you and for the world is for the two
of you to agree to live side by side in two States one
Jewish and the other one Arab in peace and with
recognized borders. Alot of time has been lost and alot of
trouble has been kicked up, but I do not see any other way.

By the time the Israelis came to rescue the hostages, we

had been fighting Idi Amin for six years. We had opposed
Amin right from the beginning because, as patriots, we
knew that Amin would head in the wrong direction. It is
actually Israel and the western countries that had
supported Idi Amin. Therefore, Amins hobnobbing with
the terrorists was a crime in itself. Fortunately, his
illiterate Army had no discipline to deploy properly.

Otherwise, it could have been impossible for the lightly

armed rescue force to successfully extract the hostages.
Amin was wrong to keep the hostages and the Israelis were
right to use the incapacity of that army to rescue the
innocent hostages. The Palestinians were wrong to target
soft-targets, non-combatants, in their fight.

Terrorist methods are wrong, unnecessary and a

complicating factor even when the cause is just. I salute
the memory of those who died on that occasion on account
of the cascades of mistakes by the different actors. I praise
the Lord for the lives of those that were rescued. 40 years
from the sad events of 1976, that bonding through
adversity should be turned into opportunity. Owing to the
constant hostility by neighbours, Israel has developed into
a high-technology centre. The huge and increasingly
populous African continent of 1.25billon people today, 980
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million of them living in sub-Sahara Africa, through

mutually beneficial arrangements, can take advantage of
those scientific achievements for rapid growth. Israeli
companies should invest in Africa. Trade between Israeli,
Africa and third party markets is also potentially beneficial.
Then tourism. In summary, the key words are:
investments, trade, tourism, technological co-operation and
security (ITTTS). All of us would benefit.

Down with terrorism, long live the freedom of all the

peoples of the world and justice to all the peoples.

4th July, 2016

Entebbe State House

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