Kampala taken but Amin missing —‘ he fled east’

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 1

Kampala taken but Amin missing —‘ he fled east’

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi Tanzanian-led forces seized control of Kampala yesterday after advancing into the centre of the Ugandan capital through sniper fire by remnants of President Idi Amin’s shattered Army.

A Western correspondent who went in with the Tanzanian and Ugandan exile forces reported by telephone from Kampala that the city centre was completely in the hands of the invaders. One of President Amin’s Cabinet Ministers told reporters that the President fled the capital on Tuesday with what was left of his army and had gone to the eastern industrial town of Jinja.

Kampala residents said loudspeaker vans were moving through the capital calling on Army stragglers to surrender and blaring out the message: “The fascist dictator is finished.” Tanzanian troops in the city centre were opening fire on remnants of the disintegrated Ugandan Army and attempting to scare off looters pillaging shops in the main streets, the residents said. In Tanzania, sources close to the Uganda National Liberation Front said its executive council hoped to fly to Kampala this week to begin forming an interim administration.

The front groups some 20 Ugandan exile move-; ments and is led by a

non-political university professor, Yusufu Lule, who is 67. He has recommended a two-year transition period, to restore democracy, after the fall of President Amin, who took power in a 1971 coup. A free-lance journalist, Tony Avirgan, who went into Kampala with Tanzania’s 12th Division, said he saw the bodies of 10 pro-Amin soldiers battered to death by Ugandan civilians out for revenge after eight years of harsh military rule. Jubilant crowds mobbed the Tanzanians and chanted, “Thank you, thank you, Nyerere” (the Tanzanian President, Julius Nyerere). Avirgan said the Tanzanians pushed through the city during the night to capture Kololo Hill, the site of President Amin’s deserted command post, a suburban villa. The Tanzanians met no resistance on Kololo Hill, but they were fired on by snipers earlier in their advance to the city centre. They hit back with tank and heavy machine-gun fire. Avirgan said he counted about 20 dead Ugandan soldiers during the 12th Division’s advance. Tanzanian casu-

alties were two wounded, he reported. The invaders had pushed on Kampala from the south and east, sending a third column to straddle the road out of the city to the north and intercept any pro-Amin troops fleeing by that route. Jinja, the Nile River town in which President Amin was reported to have taken refuge, appeared in a state of panic as the eight-year-old Amin regime tottered towards total collapse. Foreigners in Jinja told reporters by telephone that the town was full of desperate-looking Ugandan troops, many wounded and all virtually without food. Some were looting the shops. Civilians were fleeing the town as more and more soldiers poured in from the Kampala Road. The foreigners said the Ugandan troops were so exhausted and disordered that there was little likelihood of any last stand in Jinja by President Amin. The report that Presw dent Amin had fled to Jinja came from Mr Ralph Nshekanabo, Minister for Public Service and Cabinet Affairs in the Amin Government.