Slaughter in Uganda goes on in Idi Amin’s gaol

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 11

Slaughter in Uganda goes on in Idi Amin’s gaol

< By

DAVID MARTIN.

for the Observer Foreign News Service)

At Naguru Barracks in Kampala, headquarters of Uganda’s Public Safety Unit, prisoners have been forced to smash in the heads of inmates with a car axle.

This grim story? has been independently? corroborated by three Ugandans who were prisoners at Naguru and who have now fled to neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania. Their horrendous accounts of conditions in Naguru show that thei slaughter, which began when Field Marshal Idi Amin came to power in January, 1971, is continuing. The three former Naguru inmates, all released in recent weeks, cannot be identified because they have relatives inside Uganda who would face reprisals. But one told me: “When I was in Naguru I used to pray for death. I wanted it to come quickly and peacefully.” - But at Naguru, he said, death never came peacefully. The most feared man in the grim prison, an armoury in the centre of the camp, is a corporal from the Acholi tribe named Oola. One former prisoner said that during his 44 days in Naguru, Corporal Oola shot 22 prisoners.

“He used to be delighted when there was killing to be done. First he would drink a lot of waragi (a Ugandan gin) and tell us, ‘There is work to be done today.’ Then prisoners would be called out into the yard and shot.” SMASH HEADS Next, prisoners would be assigned to smash in the victims’ heads with a car axle so that they would be unidentifiable. Then the bodies were loaded into a Landrover and taken away and “the next day we had to pick up the teeth, eyes and bits of bone, bury them behind the latrine and cover up all the blood.” The guards at Naguru favour two methods of torture. The first is flogging with a kiboko, a whip made from dried hippopotamus hide, which bares the flesh to the bone. Medical treatment is not allowed afterwards and wounds go septic.

The second is to force a prisoner to put his head into a lorry wheel rim. While one guard flogs the prisoner with a kiboko, a second stands on his head hitting

the rim with a metal bar so that the deafening noise reverberates through the victim’s head.

Former prisoners and Ugandan exiles estimate that as many as 600 people have been killed at Naguru since Field Marshal Amin became chairman of the Organisation of African Unity last July. Prisoners say that of every? 10 people taken to Naguru, only three survive. REASONS VARY The reasons for the arrests, torture and killings [vary greatly. On December 117, a former employee of i Casements Africa, Limited, i Mohamed Mukasa, was shot Iby Corporal Oola. He had [been arrested after being found with a toy pistol. In spite of being handcuffed, Mukasa had broken away from his captors, raised his hands to the sky and shouted before he was shot:

“Allah, I am coming where you are.”

Jamada Katera was executed the same day. He had returned to his house and found one of Amin's soldiers in bed with his wife. The soldier had ordered him to leave and Katera had bought a can of petrol and set fire to his home. His wife had died in the blaze. Another young man was tortured for writing a letter to South Africa. A Fort Portal bicycle repairer named Kisembo was killed on December 22 for allegedly being in possession of a human skull. On December 24, two Zairois, one named Kasongo, w?ere killed for allegedly being in possession of hand grenades they were trying to sell. Many of those killed were shot soon after arrival at the prison. One, Christopher Lubega, a senior official in Amin’s State research unit, was told to report to Naguru on January 8 with the file of one of the prisoners. He was detained and shot three hours later. Apparently the dreaded Number Two in State research, Major Farouk, feared that Lubega was becoming too powerful. VICTIMS UNKNOWN Unlike the slaughter in 1971 and 1972, the victims today are unknown except to friends and relatives. But Naguru prisoners are convinced that the executions are personally ordered by Amin through the Naguru commandant, Police Deputy Commissioner Odura. They believe Amin personally vis-

ited the prison in December. Daily life in the prison is grim. First the prisoners clean up the gore from the previous night’s slaughter. Then they are forced to do exercises and frequently beaten with a kiboko by laughing guards. Between 30 and 50 prisoners are kept in two 10ft by 9ft cells. It is not until 10 p.m., when the night guards come on duty “that we can relax and sleep knowing the killing is over for the day.”

Occasionally? relatives are allowed to take food to the prison. But even this is hazardous. One prisoner’s sister, a former nun, was blindfolded and raped by a guard. She is now pregnant. The very courageous wife of one prisoner continuously badgered army officers to help save her ~ husband. She was threatened and the guards stole some of the food she took to Naguru. DRESSED IN RAGS She dressed in rags and went to Naguru unwashed. “If they see you are attractive they will rape you. I was always very careful not to be smart.” Accounts of life outside in Uganda are little better. One old man from Karamoja in eastern Uganda told me that hundreds of people from his area had fled across the border into Kenya this year.

The Ugandan army 2nd Battalion, stationed at the town of Moroto, he said, had no food. So they were stealing cattle from the civilian population. Anyone who resisted was shot.

Food in the arid Karamoja region, on the eastern end of the Sahel drought belt, has been desperately short for months. The old man said that people in the Sebei area were pawning their children, particularly girls, for a cow or £2.50. They hoped to redeem them later when they could repay the debt. Shortages are particularly serious in the urban centres. In Kampala a chicken, which used to cost 30p, is now £1.50. Salt has increased eightfold to 70p per kg and sugar has more than quadrupled to 65p per kg. And most of the time these items are available only on the black market. PAYING PRICE

Today Uganda is paying the price of debt servicing on military over-expenditure during Amin’s first three years in power, coupled with gross mismanagement and a

collapse in productivity. Industrial output is down to only 20 per cent of the 1970 level, cotton by two-thirds, coffee by 50 per cent and copper output has stopped altogether. The soldiers have plenty of money, but nothing to spend it on. One story, which Ugandans insist is not apocryphal, says that an officer demanded the arrest of “this Mr Foreign Exchange” whom he believed was responsible for the lack of foreign currency a..d import restrictions. Yet, despite defections and clear signs of discontent within the 22,000-man army, lone informed Uganda warned: "Amin could survive for another 20 years. He still has the keys to the armouries and the soldiers’ survival and his remain closely identified.” — O.F.N.S. Copyright.