Amin’s home, looted, deserted, reveals secrets of regime
NZPA-Reuter Kampala Idi Amin’s Kampala home, the “Command Post,” lies deserted and looted with its owner a fugitive as Ugandan end Tanzanian commando squads continue to seek him for trial on charges of mass murder.
The new Ugandan President (Mr Yusufu Lule) said yesterday that his forces were advancing steadily into areas of the country still not officially under the control of his Government after the overthrow of Field-Marshal Amin. As the drive went on reporters went over the splitlevel bungalow in a leafy Kampala suburb from which Field-Marshal Amin ruled his country by terror for eight years. ’ Everything of value has gone. The floors are littered with broken pictures of the field-marshal, live bullets, medicines, school reports for his 35 children, dress patterns, and confidential files. Many of the dossiers list names of Ugandans who were allocated businesses seized from the country’s Asian community when it was expelled in 1972. A 1974 report marked “secret” said the director of training of Iraq’s Air Force agreed to train 10 Ugandan pilots and 50 technicians a year.
The residence has nothing to distinguish it from other suburban homes. Outside a sign gives the address, 12A Prince Charles Drive.
By the garage is an idealised portrait of the fugitive former President with the inscription, “Oh God keep President Idi Amin Dada — unity, peace and justice.” The whereabouts of the former leader were still a mystery. Some reports said he had fled to Zaire or Iraq, paring to make a last stand in his native north-west Uganda.
Commandos from the Tan-zanian-led force of returned Ugandan exiles who captured Kampala on Wednesday have been =ent by the new Government to find him and bring him back to face trial on accusations of mass murder. The full horror of FieldMarshal Amin’s rule was seen by reporters at the week-end during a tour of underground cells of his secret police, the State Research Bureau. It was in these cells that people suspected of opposing the Amin Government were taken to be tortured and frequently slaughtered, sometimes with sledgehammers.
Seven decomposing bodies were slumped around the walls of one cell. The new authorities said those prisoners who had not died of starvation during the final siege of Kampala were shot or killed with grenades tossed into the cells by their captors.
Ugandans flicked through files which had been scattered on the ground in an attempt to find a clue to
what happened to their missing family and friends. Ugandans in the capital went to church on Easter Sunday to celebrate their new freedom.
A worshipper told reporters, “We are welcoming the new Government. It is the resurrection of Uganda.” Outside Kampala All Saints Cathedral, Christopher Kamanda, an accountant, said, “I thought God had forgotten Uganda. I am starting to go to church again. Why should we go before when God had forgotten us?”
At one service in Rubaga Cathedral, Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga pleaded with residents of Kampala to stop looting the city. He said in a sermon that Ugandans had destroyed their own capital, leaving it looking like Jerusalem after it had been sacked by the Romans.
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers who helped capture the capital patrolled the town and occasional bursts of gunfire could be heard. Britain, which at the week-end became the first non-African country to recognise the new Government of its former colony, sent a senior diplomat with a message for President Lule. A Foreign Office envoy, Richard Posnett, had told the Ugandan Foreign Minister (Mr Otema Alimadi) that Britain wanted a swift resumption of diplomatic relations broken with the Amin regime in 1976, Uganda Radio reported.
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Press, 17 April 1979, Page 9
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611Amin’s home, looted, deserted, reveals secrets of regime Press, 17 April 1979, Page 9
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