His world collapsed around himthe last days of Africa’s Hitler

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 25

His world collapsed around him—the last days of Africa’s Hitler

In this third and final special feature, DAVID MARTIN, the “Observer’s” Africa correspondent, describes how Idi Amin finally sealed his doom when he attacked Tanzania last October.

The only really predictable thing about Idi Amin is his total unpredictability. This was especially so when he ordered his Army to invade and occupy part of Tanzania on October 30 last year. Ever since he seized power in January, 1971, Amin had laid claim to Tanzania’s north-western Kagera Salient, of 710 square miles lying immediately south of the Ugandan border with Lake Victoria to the east.

Strategically it is very significant. The Kagera River to the south of the Salient provides a more natural boundary, and better defensive line, than the arbitrarily-drawn colonial frontier between Tanzania and Uganda. Twice in 1971 Amin’s armour tried to cross into the Kagera Salient. On both occasions it was beaten back. But President Julius Nyrere, of anzania, did not expect Amin to try again because, as he has since ruefully admitted, he regarded Amin as a “madman” whose threats were empty.

When Amin invaded last October the Tanzanian Army had only one tiny forward patrol in the Salient. The occupation of the area may have taken longer than the 25 minutes Amin boasted it took, but it was probably not much longer.

Amin immediately announced that he was annexing the Kagera Salient and that in future it would be administered as part of Uganda. His troops looted everything they could move, including the tin roofs of peasant houses, and what they could not move they destroyed. It was a fateful mistake. The aggression gave Nyerere the determination and justification which he had hitherto lacked to teach Amin a lesson. Since the abortive 1972 attempt to oust Amin with Obote's troops from Tanzania, Nyerere’s hands had been tied by the Mogadishu Agreement under which he agreed to cease all hostile acts against Amin. But as far as he was concerned, Amin’s invasion of Tanzania had

the effect of tearing up that agreement. Just how far the Tanzanian leader was initially prepared to go to teach Amin a lesson is in doubt. Certainly

he ordered a limited military operation with the initial aim of driving Amin’s troops out of Tanzania and wiping out his barracks in southern Uganda.

At the same time he no longer felt inhibited about supporting Ugandan exiles against Amin. Four separate Ugandan groups are known to have received military training and armaments from the Tanzanians since November.

Why Amin invaded Tanzania is still a matter of speculation. He has often tried to distract attention from internal problems with diversionary actions. In September there were said to have been mutinies in some of his barracks and he was becoming desperately short of foreign currency to buy the consumer goods to keep the Army happy. At the outset, looking at the respective sizes of the two armies and their equipment, it appeared that there was little to choose between them. But the Ugandan Army during the last five months has

put up remarkably little resistance against the Tanzanians. Several factors are believed to have proved crucial. Amin had killed the bulk of his best-trained officers and non-commis-sioned officers in his early bloodlettings. Men who had been taxi-drivers at the time of the 1971 coup became colonels commanding battalions because they were related to Amin or were Nubians. Second, discipline was virtually non-existent in the Army which had been given impunity to murder and loot. Man for man, the Tanzanians certainly proved far superior. A further point is that the Ugandan Army tends to be a mechanised force whereas the Tanzanian Army is more infantrybased. Thus when it came to fighting along the single road leading north through swamps to Kampala the Ugandan armour was trapped while the Tanzanians had greater space to work in. Third,, and probably decisive, has been the

quality of the Tanzanian artillery. Ugandan officers who have deserted say that it was used with devastating effect ahead of the advancing foot soldiers. Amin’s behaviour throughout, deserters say, has been reminiscent of the last days of Hitler as the Third Reich collapsed around him. He has been moody, at times totally irrational, refusing to listen to advice, taking decisions alone, and blaming everyone else for the imminent collapse. Early in the war, sources say, he personally executed his wife, Sarah, whom he apparently suspected of being in touch with Tanzanians. When senior officers tried to persuade him that they must open negotiations before it was too late he refused to see them. His movements have been as erratic as his behaviour. He has been moving from house to house, rarely even spending the whole of one night in one place. Senior officers trying to see him to get important military

decisions have not even been able to find him. During the conflict he is reported to have shipped the surviving members of his family out to Libya. Other senior officers have also been sending their families out of the country or home to the comparative safety of their villages. Inevitably this has become known and Army morale, which x has already been falling as a result of military reversals, plummeted further with mass desertions. In addition, with the exception of Libya, Amin faced a hostile world which had decided that, whatever the propriety of Tanzania’s military action, it would be more than happy to see the end of him. In the end he had very few troops he could really count up. His own Kakwa tribe, which numbers little more than 50,000, was generally bound to him because it feared reprisaals for what Amin had done. His southern Sudanese mercenaries had profited greatly from the spoils

during his years. But even with this group there were reports that some deserted him early, making their way home with whatever loot they could carry. Among the Arabs who had supported Amin, only Colonel Qadhafi finally came to his aid. apparently in the mistaken belief that it was a holy war to defend Islam. The’ Libyan commitment was too small, its troops untried in African terrain, and its equipment insufficient to turn the tide. The Soviet Union, which had armed Amin’s Army, had also finally become too embarrassed to try to save him. East Germany and Bulgaria, in fact, both sent armaments to help the Tanzanians and it seems unlikely that that occurred without Moscow’s appropval. No African country was willing to go directly to Amin’s aid, although some did try to mediate. Algeria and Ethiopia also gave the Tanzanians arms while Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia publicly took the Tanzanian side. As Amin finally stood almost alone, one factor above all others told against him. The Ugandan people whom he had brutalised for eight years were totally against him. Anyone fighting Amin was

their liberator. 7 When the antl-Amin forces were moving towards Kampala after cutting off Entebbe, villagers came out to warn them that the Libyans had set up a heavy ambush half a mile ahead. The anti-Amin forces simply left the road, coming in behind the Libyans and overrunning their position. Soldiers within his own Army joined the forces against Amin, fled to neighbouring countries, or look their families home to their villages and did not come back. Underground groups began to carry out sabotage. With his heady mix of brotherhood and brimstone, Amin both shocked and amused the word for eight years. He was a Jekyll and Hyde figure. One moment you could be his “best friend,” the next he would order your murder. A London newspaper once asked of Amin: “A latter-day Hitler or simple soldier out of his depth in international politics?” There was something of both in his schizophrenic personality; and his demise leaves Ugandans with an onerous task in trying to restore their country to what Winston Churchill once justifiably' described as “the Pearl of Africa.” — Copyright, the “Observer,” 1979.