‘Hundreds murdered at barracks’

Press, 25 February 1977, Page 7

‘Hundreds murdered at barracks’

NZPA-Reuter Dar-es-Salaam 1 Several hundred prisoners; at a Ugandan military bar-1 racks were executed on Tues-i day night, according to! Ugandan sources. The sources said all thej dead were members of the I

Acholi or Lango tribes earlier reported to be victims of repression in the army, air force, police, and prison services.

The latest executions took place at Makindye barracks in the capital, Kampala, where the prisoners were awaiting transport to other militarv posts at Mubende and Kabamba, 160 km (100 miles) away, the sources say.

Ugandan refugees who tied to Tanzania earlier this week have described the militarv installations in the country as execution centres where the military regime of President Idi .Amin was liquidating people who might stage a coup.

‘Maybe they thought it was easier to kill them at Makindye than to take them to Mubende,” one source said in Kampala. In Nairobi, Agence France-

Presse said several members ■ ■of the family of Lieute.iant■lColonel Orinayo Oryema, the jlate Ugandan Minister of ij National Resources, had been j missing for several days, ac- • cording to Ugandan refugees I in Kenya. (Ugandan refugees in Kenya. I They said that the Minister’s daughter and three isons were among the missing. ! The Minister was one of I two said by President Amin . to have died in a car acci- . dent with the Anglican Arch- : bishop of Uganda, Dr Janani • Luwum, after thev had been ■ accused of plotting against 1 the Amin Government. President Amin has sent I word to London that he in- : tends visiting Britain for the ' Commonwealth conference in ; June, plunging the British • Government into an acute ; diplomatic crisis. ji The message received by ilthe Commonwealth Secretariat said President Amin, be- ; sides attending the 35-State ■ summit conference, would i also appear at the celebrai tions of the Queen’s silver jubilee. The message discomforted

British Government officials, who have been under heavy political and public pressure to bar President Amin from Britain, after widespread anger at the killings in Uganda. A spokesman for the Lon-don-based secretariat said there was no formal way of barring a Commonwealth Head of Government from the summit.

The message received by question of whether President Amin or any other Head of Government is to come must now be for each Head of Government to decide, taking into account all relevant factors.”

But the spokesman stressed that attendance at the Queen’s silver jubilee celebrations was nothing to do with the Commonwealth Secretariat. British officials said no invitations overseas for jubilee celebrations had vet been issued

Britain is expected to bring the deaths of the archbishop and the Ministers before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in Geneva.