Troops free Jinja

Press, 23 April 1979, Page 1

Troops free Jinja

NZPA Jinja (Uganda) Tanzanian troops marched into Jinja yesterday to secure Uganda’s source of electrical power. They were mobbed by dancing crowds waving flowers and shouting “We are free, we are free.” The final push began at dawn. The only resistance came from a group of soldiers belonging to the fugitive dictator Idi Amin’s army, who delayed the tank-led Tanzanian column at the entrance to the huge Owen Falls dam, the source of all Uganda’s electricity and 20 per cent of neighbouring Kenya’s. The pro-Amin troops were quickly driven off. They fled across the Ikm road which crosses the Nile River on top of the dam. After capturing Jinja, its dam, power station, and factories, the Tanzanian Army has only one more important strategic task — control of 160 km of road from Jinja to the Kenya border. The Tanzanians were told that few of Amin’s troops had been in Jinja, and most had fled into the bush or towards Kenya. Local people discounted reports that the fugitive dictator had been in Jinja and had tried to organise a last-ditch defence of the city.