Libyans slow attack on almost-deserted Kampala

Press, 2 April 1979, Page 8

Libyans slow attack on almost-deserted Kampala

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi Libyan troops who are reported to have taken over the defence of Kampala from the Ugandan Army apparently slowed down the rebels’ advance on the almost deserted capital yesterday. The French Ambassador to Kampala (Mr Pierre Renard) told Agence France-Presse he believed that the Ugandan President (Field-Marshal Idi Amin was still in the Ugandan capital. No details of President Amin’s movements have been available for several days but the ambassador, denying reports that he had met the President on Friday might, said he had gained the impression from talks with Ugandan officials that FieldMarshal Amin was in Kampala. President Amin had inspected Ugandan troops “who had returned from the front” and had found their morale to be high. Radio Uganda said yesterday. Field-Marshal Amin had called on the population again “not to panic,” affirming that the situation was “under control,” the radio station said in a broadcast monitored in Nairobi. Transmitting normally from the capital, Radio Uganda has referred to a victorious attack by the Ugandan armed forces against the enemy’s positions. Diplomatic sources have confirmed that the town’s defenders mounted a limited action which was sufficient to weaken the grip of the Tanzanian-backed Ugandan National Liberation Front which has been besieging the capital for several days. People living in Kampala said that there was calm at the week-end after 48 hours of intermittent shelling and reports of artillery duels. Civilian casualites from shelling of the city centre on Thursday and Friday were estimated at 15 dead. Buildings several kilometres

from the centre were said to have been totally destroyed. Thousands of people are reported to have fled the capital amid scenes of murder, rape and theft, and European refugees in Nairobi have described Kampala as a ghost city. According to diplomats. President Amin’s army virtually disintegrated as the exile forces headed for the capital. In Dar-es-Salaam, the Tanzanian capital, The Uganda National Liberation Front announced that President Amin’s Minister of State for Defence (Brigadier Emilio Mondo) had changed sides and was now fighting against the Libyans defending Kampala. Diplomatic sources said the Libyan presence in Uganda had probably increased from about 600 to 1500 troops last week. The Tanzanian Government announced that a l.ib-

yan Soviet-built Tupolev 22 supersonic bomber had streaked across Lake Victoria on Thursday to bomb the Tanzanian town of Mwanza. | The bomber —one of two mow believed to be based at the Israeli-built Makasongola ‘airbase north of Kampala — i missed fuel tanks vital to |the Tanzanian offensive with ifive bombs, but wounded Jone person and killed six gaIzelles in a nearby game reserve. A senior Ugandan official who defected in Kenya said President Amin was dressing three men of similar build in Field-Marshal’s uniforms and sending them to various towns to reduce his chances of assassination and to confuse the invaders. The U.N.L.F. appealed to Kenya to halt the transhipment of a shipload of Libyan weapons from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Uganda.