Whatever you may think of Qaddafi and the uprising in Libya, external intervention from Western powers is a sensitive issue and brings up issues of sovereignty, race and power.

Ugandan President,Yoweri Museveni has an interesting article in Foreign Policy that speaks to why some African heads of state have been slow to respond to Qaddafi’s reaction to Libyan unrest. All interventions, Museveni points out, are complicated by the West’s long history of exploitation in Africa:

I am totally allergic to foreign, political, and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries. If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world, because we have had the greatest dosages of that: the slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc. But all those foreign-imposed phenomena have been disastrous. It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up, partly because we are rejecting external meddling.

Museveni also warns that this kind of military intervention reinforces the idea that “might is right” and will be a lesson to other countries that the best way to defend their own sovereignty is to arm heavily:

The by-now-entrenched habit of the Western countries over-using their technological superiority to impose war on less developed societies, without impeachable logic, will ignite an arms race in the world. The actions of the Western countries in Iraq and now Libya are emphasizing that might is “right.” I am quite sure that many countries that are able to will scale up their military research, and in a few decades, we may have a more armed world. Weapons science is not magic. A small country like Israel is now a superpower in terms of military technology. Yet 60 years ago, Israel had to buy second-hand Fouga Magister planes from France. There are many countries that can become small Israels if this trend of Western countries overusing military means continues.

Museveni does address mistakes and missteps Qaddafi has made, including his support of Idi Amin and his failure to sufficiently denounce terrorism as a political tool. But he also lists many ways the Libya leader has been good for his country, Africa and developing nations around the world.

Read the full article here.

Is Museveni correct? Does external intervention in Libya simply prove might = right?