Amin legacy

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 5

Amin legacy

AH Ugandansi—;including the police force—-live in fear of the Army, according to Dr Arlene : Blum, a Californian ; climber who spent six > weeks in Uganda last summer. The violence and expulsion i of Ugandan Asians in past : months does not surprise her. ■ She and her climbing com- : panions were in Uganda when i the first year of General i Amin’s rule was celebrated. “The Army celebrated by I going round shooting people,” ; she said. “Everyone was so : afraid of the Army, even ■ the police, that they were I afraid to remove the bodies, i which were just left in the I streets,” she said in Christi church yesterday. i Dr Blum says that General i Amin does not have the magI netism to attract the heroworship of some dictators. She found the Africans very benign, and disinterested in ! politics. There did not ap- ■ pear to her to be any strong ! feeling against the Asians | among the people, but again the Army controlled' everyone. I While In Uganda Dr Blum | stayed with Canadian friends who were Peace Corps volunteers. “The husband, a doctor, told us horrifying ! stories of the Army coming into the hospital and dragging patients out. People were being shot all the time.” | Kenya, however, was a different story. It was Dr Blum’s favourite country among those she has visited during the past year of climbing expeditions that have 1 taken her to Ethiopia,

Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Iran, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Nepal—following the dry seasons. “Kenya is beautiful, clean —you can drink the water and eat fresh food—and so varied. You can go to the mountains, or the ocean, or the game parks. It’s a very healthy, pleasant place. “I know they have problems, because everyone is concerned about what will happen when Kenyatta dies, but it is a very fine place,” she said. Mountaineering was an almost exclusively European pastime in Kenya. There was a system of huts, and local clubs arranged porters to carry supplies. In no country did she find a shortage of

porters, who considered the SUSI a day pay very good. The greatest challenge of her trips, Dr Blum said, was the organisation. “At home we would spend six months to a year preparing for one expedition and send freezedried food and supplies from home ahead of us.” On arrival in each strange new destination the first thought would be “where’s the kerosene, and where can I find plastic bags, etc.” Language proved less of a problem than might have been expected. “English is surprisingly universal, and most of the countries we were in were Commonwealth or former British territories.” said Dr Blum. At no stage did she find it was considered strange for a woman to be organising expeditions to the mountains. “They obviously didn’t regard European women in the same light as their own,” she said. But if there was some times little evidence of women, in some climbing areas there were signs of over-crowding that Dr Blum found distressing. “Climbing has become fashionable, like ski-ing, which is sad. Particularly in Nepal we were amazed at the crowds.” Dr Blum is looking forward to two months climbing in the Mount Cook region, with a Christchurch climber, Mrs Margaret Clark and a party of New Zealanders. She and Mrs Clark met on the allwomen McKinley expedition in 1970. Last year Dr Blum completed her thesis for her Ph.D. in bio-physical chemistry at Berkeley, and when she returns home she will be engaged in research at the University of Washington. Seattle.