Exclusive InterDependent Interview with Salim A. Salim
ID: On another matter, it's been said that your Government, the Government of Tanzania, by sending troops into Uganda to topple the regime of President Amin, has breached a sacred maxim of the Organization of African Unity of not interfering in internal affairs of another country. Do you agree that Tanzania has set a dangerous precedent for the rest of Africa?
Salim: No. I think that all those who are critical, its not fair to say "critical" because even those who raise this argument have not necessarily criticized Tanzania, but I think the argument, frankly, is distorted. Why is it distorted? Tanzania did not send its troops into Uganda for the purpose of toppling Mr. Amin. One has to go back into the history of this question. Who was it that initiated this conflict? When you talk of precedents, the first and foremost precedent is the unprecedented situation that Tanzania was faced with; we had no conflict with Uganda. People talk about conflicts; there have been some differences between Ethiopia and Somalia, but you have to say one thing about the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict and that is historically there has always been this position -- the Somalis from the time of their independence took a position, but there has been a conflict between the Ethiopians and Somalis. [...] You mention any episode in Africa, any conflict situation, you will never see the parallel with the Tanzanian-Ugandan situation. What did we have in this context? We had a situation where one day the Field Marshal (Amin) simply decided to go into Tanzanian territory, occupied 710 square kilometers of our area, boasted about this occupation, told everybody that he annexed Tanzanian territory, committed looting, rampage, murder, pillage and raping our women, committed the most obscene things that you can think of, and for two weeks he was occupying Tanzanian territory. And in this two weeks, what was Tanzania supposed to do? Tanzania did what any African country or any other country in the world would do..."
Source: Seton Hall Interdependent News
