‘Big Daddy’ Amin’s orgy of killing concealed sinister secret

Press, 9 April 1979, Page 1

‘Big Daddy’ Amin’s orgy of killing concealed sinister secret

At 3 p.m. East African time on January 25, 1971, Warrant Officer Wilfred A s w a , speaking in laboured English, began to read an 18-point declaration on Radio Uganda explaining why the Army had just seized power.

It had done so. he said, to ensure that elections were held, to restore democracy, to end political detentions without trial, and to check the vicious crime wave by armed bandits known as “Kondos.” It sounded like a fairly standard African coup d’etat. No mention was made of the name of the coup’s leader in that first broadcast. Thirty minutes later, Aswa went on the air again. The Army had asked its commander. General Idi Amin, to lead the new government. Amin, the announcement continued, had agreed. Few people outside Uganda had heard of Amin at that point. But over the next eight years he was to become a household name receiving more publicity than a film or pop star. T-shirts have been printed with his picture on them, records made with imitations of his voice, he has become a favourite of newspaper cartoonists, and “Punch” magazine in London ran a

column supposedly written by him. Even fewer people tried to analyse why Amin had seized power. The man he had ousted, Dr Milton Obote, was a far from popular figure with the Western press and many Ugandans. He had nationalised foreign firms, spoke of moving Uganda “to the left,” and had been involved in an angry confrontation with Britain’s then Conservative Government over its arms sales to South Africa. Anyway, “Big Daddy,” as the press nicknamed Amin, made better copy with his bizarre quotes and behaviour. But behind the facade lay a very sinister man. Amin had not seized power to ensure that elections were held. They had been scheduled for three months later, anyway. Nor was it to restore democracy or anv other of the grand-sounding pledges in that declaration. The reason was simple. Amin seized power to save

himself from being brought to trial for murder and embezzling vast sums of money.

The chain of events which led directly to the coup began late on December 19, 1969. As Obote walked out of a party meeting, an assassin fired a single shot which smashed through his mouth. He was taken to hospital and rumours spread that he had died. In fact, his wounds were relatively minor and from his hospital bed, unable to speak because of his injuries, he wrote a note asking for a number of people to be called. One of them was Amin. Instead of coming to the bedside of his injured President, Amin fled, apparently believing that the assassination attempt was part of a coup d'etat. He did not reappear until the next day. Some officers treated their commander’s disappearance as a joke thereafter, calling Amin by his father’s

name, Dada, which in Swahili means “sister” and implied that he was a coward. One officer who refused to treat the disappearance as a joke was Amin’s deputy, Brigadier Pierino Okova, who commanded the 2nd Infantry Brigade. On January 17, 1970, during an officers’ meeting, Okoya accused Amin of desertion and cowardice. By running away, he said, Amin had disgraced the Army and encouraged suggestions that some officers were involved in the attempted assassination. As tempers grew heated, Obote adjourned the meeting. When it resumed two hours later with only commanding officers present, Amin admitted he had made an error of judgment. A series of charges were made against him by his fellow officers and it was agreed that these would be dealt with at another. meeting on January 26. The meeting never took place. At 11 p.m. on Janu-

ary 25, Okoya and his wife, Anna, were murdered at their home in Gulu in northern Uganda. The brigadier had planned to drive back to Kampala early the next morning to attend the meeting. The police investigation met a blank wall for months. But on August 21 a group of armed robbers were arrested for holding up a bank van. One of the men named those involved in the Okoya murder, including Patrick Wambuzi, who had shot Okoya and had since adopted the title “the Brigadier.”

Police files show that the men admitted killing Okoya, but, they said, they had been hired to do so by an Air Force officer, Captain Smarts Guweddeko, who had told them he had been assigned to do so by the “major-gen-eral.” Amin was the only major-general in the Army and the killers understood he had given the orders. Amin denied being involved. But the armed robbers picked Guweddeko out on an identification parade as the man who had briefed and paid them. The Air Force officer was detained and it looked as if he would finally tell, the whole story. Obote could not believe Amin was involved. A military board of inquiry chaired by a Brigadier

Hussein was established. Privately Hussein told Obote it was believed that the stand Okoya had taken against Amin had led to his death. Other officers were worried that the same fate would befall them.

As the weeks passed, more and more circumstantial evidence began to point to Amin’s guilt. He arranged for Guweddeko’s wife to visit her husband

in prison where she was overheard to say, “Do not implicate anyone.” She was immediately arrested but refused to say who had given her the message. The case involving the men who had admitted killing Okoya was due to go to court a week after the coup. Amin’s name was bound to have come out. Obote would probably have been forced to sus-

pend him and, if Guweddeko broke, he would have been charged with instigating Okoya’s murder. Amin’s actions after the coup pointed even more definitely to his guilt. He had all the police files destroyed except for one, which was secretly smuggled out of Uganda. The police officers who had investigated the case and Brigadier Hussein were all murdered.

The men accused of killing Okoya were all freed but subsequently killed to silence them. Guweddeko was freed and promoted to commander of the Ugandan Air Force before being dismissed. He, too, may now be dead. Widespread corruption in the Ministry of Defence wa.. a further reason for Amin's seizing of power. Some SSM was missing, ft was said to have been spent buying armaments from Israel, but there were no copies of any documents, invoices, or delivery notes, nor any arms. Corruption was rampant in the Ugandan Army. The Auditor-General’s report for !968-b9 and 1969-70 revealed gross discrepancies. So bad had things become that it was no longer possible to tell with any certainty even how many soldier's were in the Army. Obote had just learned the details of the 1969-70 Auditor-General's report before he left for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conference in Singapore in January, 1971. Before leaving tie called in Amin and the Defence Minister, Felix Onama, and ordered them to have written explanations on his desk when he returned in 10 days.

There was still no really conclusive evidence against Amin as Obote flew’ to Singapore. But Amin could not have failed to see the storm clouds gathering. To survive he had to seize power and in doing so he was aided by the confusion about the Army establishment which had allowed him to bring Southern Sudanese mercenaries into the barracks. They were to prove crucial in the coup d’etat. Israe' had certainly been involved in the coup through its military team in Uganda. Britain's Conservative Government was delighted at Obote’s downfall. Amin immediately announcing that he was denationalising British Firms and spoke of instituting a dialogue uhth South Africa. He met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Twice he visited Israel, a country whose paratroop wings he has always proudly worn. He asked Britain for Harrier jump-jets, significantly adding that he wanted them to invade Tanzania to give Uganda an outlet to the sea. — Copyright, the “Observer," 1979. Tomorrow: Amin death toll as high as 500,000?

The “Observer’s” Africa correspondent, DAVID MARTIN, has reported from East and Central Africa throughout the Amin years and was one of the first to disclose the details of the Ugandan dictator’s increasingly bloody rule. Because of his coverage of the atrocities, Amin put a price on his head. Martin is also the author of the best-selling book, “General Amin.” In this special three-part series he charts Amin’s rise, his years in power, and his expected fall.