Amin’s army disintegrates

Press, 24 April 1979, Page 8

Amin’s army disintegrates

NZPA-Reuter Jinja (Uganda) Tanzanian and Ugandan troops, fighting the remnants of Idi Amin s army, (are expected to thrust east- ; wards to reopen Uganda's lifeline to the sea after consolidating their hold on the strategic industrial town of Jinja. the uneventful capture of Jinja on Sunday by a force spear-headed by Tanzanian;

tanks puts the soldiers who ousted the former President for life 160 km from the Kenyan border and access to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. The reopening of this road will enable petrol tankers I from Kenya to bring sup- ■ plies into Uganda helping to I alleviate the acute fuel crisis which has been one of the reasons for the slowness of the advance by the forces backing the new provisional Government of President Yusufu Lule.

The lack of any real resistance at Jinja, site of the dam and power station

which supplies most of Uganda’s electrical power, seems to indicate that FieldMarshal Amin’s once powerful army has completely disintegrated. A few of Amin’s soldiers guarded the Owen Falls dam and power station on the

J Nile but they fled as the pro-Government forces ad[vanced under cover of an artillery barrage. Moving cautiously the Tanzanians found no trace of the former President, who once pledged a last >tand at (Jinja. Brigadier Marwa Kant bale, the Tanzanian field commander, said he thought I the fugitive dictator was in his Kakwa tribal home in [north-west Uganda. i The population of Jinja had endured what a Eurojpean businessman described (as "two weeks of hell” as Amin troops roamed the streets, looting, raping, and [killing. : When the people of Jinja [realised the Tanzanians had larrived they mobbed the soldiers and shouted, “We are free, we are free.” They threw petals, laid green branches, a traditional sign of welcome, before the wheels of the soldiers’ lorries, and covered the ve-

hicles with brilliant bougainvillea blossom. Residents said most of the Amin troops had fled days ago after commandeering virtually all the vehicles in Jinja. The Tanzanian-Ugandan forces took the capital of Kampala 12 days ago and are now moving to take control of the north and east.