Johannesburg - Israeli Prime Minister's historic visit to Uganda, as part of a comprehensive visit to East Africa, was marred on Monday when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni repeatedly referred to Israel as Palestine during a speech.
“The president was talking about Operation Entebbe, in which Israeli commandos rescued hostages from Uganda's Entebbe International Airport in July 1976 after an Air France flight was hijacked by Palestinian militants,” reported the Voice of America (VOA).
“The sad event, 40 years ago, turned into another bond linking Palestine to Africa,” said Museveni.
“I said this is yet another bond between Africa and Palestine because there were earlier bonding events.” Museveni's mistake was not a deliberate political dig but rather a reflection of his less than stellar knowledge of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The relationship between Israel and Uganda has been good following the Entebbe raid with Israel advising Uganda on security, as economic and business ties continue to grow, culminating in Netanyahu's visit to Africa, the first by an Israeli premier in decades.
However, many politically-savvy Ugandans are critical of the Israeli occupation, and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and Twitter was afire with sarcasm and humour with some referring to Museveni's mix-up as “gaffestastic” reported VOA. Others debated whether Museveni's speech writers had referred to Israel as Palestine deliberately and wondered whether heads would be rolling after the Israeli premier departed from Uganda on the other legs of his African journey, incorporating Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Israelis, however, lashed out on Twitter labelling Museveni's speech as rambling and incohesive.
It was further reported that Israel's public radio broadcaster cut Museveni's speech off before it even ended.
Meanwhile, as Netanyahu eulogised the death of his brother Jonathan, an Israeli commando who died during the Entebbe raid as they freed Israeli hostages, a son of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin who was president at the time of the raid, challenged Israel's version of events.
“Netanyahu described his country's clinical mission to rescue the 103 nationals who had been held hostage at Entebbe airport in 1976 as a 'watershed moment' that taught his people a lesson of fighting back and protecting themselves,” reported Uganda's Daily Monitor.
But in a 3 900-word missive circulated to the media, Hussein Lumumba Amin, who is also the secretary for the “Amin Family Committee” says President Amin's role was limited to “connecting the two sides (Palestine and Israel) to negotiate and providing for the hostages' immediate needs,” reported the Monitor.
“Had Amin taken sides, the hostages would have probably been taken to Uganda's Luzira Maximum Security Prison or possibly to the much dreaded State Research Bureau where chances for an escape would be almost zero,” said Lumamba.
Furthermore, in an interview with the Daily Monitor last week, Uganda's First Deputy Premier, Gen Moses Ali, who was a finance minister at the time of the raid questioned the logic of Ugandans participating in the commemorations.
African News Agency