Fleeing Amin men ‘butchering civilians’

Press, 20 April 1979, Page 5

Fleeing Amin men ‘butchering civilians’

' NZPA Kampala , A week after taking Kara-, Ipala. Ugandan and Tan-; jzanian forces have begun a! I methodical offensive to extend their control over| anarchic areas where troops loyal to Idi Amin are re-1 ported to have massacred! civilians. Refugees fleeing to Kenya] spoke of gangs of soldiers! from Field-Marshal Amin’s; broken army running wild in| the eastern town of Tororo dragging people from their homes and butchering them. “They are killing everybody in Tororo,” said Miss Kabogoza, the town’s assistant district commissioner w’ho fled to Kenya. Two columns of Tanzanian and Ugandan National Liber-1 I ation Front troops advanced! I slowly and methodically,! short of transport. They; seemed in no hurry. One column led by a So-; viet-built T 54 tank with its] gunner strumming a guitar.; expected to take until early today' to reach Jinja, 80km to the east after leaving ! Kampala at dawn on I ! Wednesday.

At that rate, even if it continues to meet no opposition, it could be 14 days before the column has swept' right around the north of Uganda’s Lake Kioga on its mission to destroy the remnants of Field-Marshal Amin’s Army. According to a Ugandan officer it is to join a second column which is moving due north from Kampala to Lira. He said the reunited Army then planned to hit the far north-west tribal stronghold

of Idi Amin's Nubian people, who formed most of his Army across the Albert Nile.: , Some travellers said they! saw him there last week-end' and that guns and food were being stockpiled. But his whereabouts are not known and other unconfirmed reports have had him fleeing to Libya. Iraq, or Zaire. A Reuter correspondent. Michael Hughes, with the [column going east from Kampala to Jinja on Wednesday, said 2000 troops advanced on foot along the road with three tanks and artillery. There was no fighting and the soldiers chewed sugar cane and bananas and listened to pop music on radios. j “We are not going in a hurry. We expect to reach (Jinja on Friday.” Major Cyril Okido of Tanzania’s 7th Battalion told Hughes, explaining that his men had [to flush out stray bands of j Amin soldiers from thick (forest bordering the road. ! The refugee reports of [massacre in Tororo followed (incidents last week when the .men of the routed Amin [army looted Jinja, then [scrambled north — many in [stolen cars —to pillage another town, Mbale. Some headed for the bush with their loot and were slaughtered by villagers with bows and arrows, a Ugandan journalist who fled to Kenya said. A witness at the Kenya frontier on Wednesday night said he saw four people shot down by Amin loyalists as they fled for the crossing point.

, The new Foreign Minister (Mr Otema Ahmadi) has told diplomats in Kampala that Uganda needed international 'help with the task of recon.struction, [ The country has potentially rich food and coffee resources to help a revival | but order must first be reI stored, the Jinja power stallion held, and the vital supjPly route further east to Kenya secured. I In neighbouring Kenya, j the British-born business.man. Bob Astles. a senior I aide of Idi Amin, is being held for questioning by Kenyan authorities, reliable sources have said. Earlier reports said that Astles. called "the second most hated man in Uganda” by foes of the Amin regime* died during the fall of Kampala a week ago. The sources said nearly 1000 Ugandans had reached Kenva since Idi Amin was toppled. Kenyan authorities wanted to house them in a refugee camp in Kakamega. western Kenya, the sources said, and some were being questioned • ' The refugees have included provincial governors, soldiers and — in high heels, dark glasses, and wellcut suits — agents of the State Research Bureau, the secret police organisation which butchered thousands of Ugandans under FieldMarshal Amin. In Tel Aviv, a millionaire Israeli Parliament member has said he has hired 12 private detectives around the world to hunt for Field-Mar-shal Amin.