Tanzanians move slowly as massacre stories multiply

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 8

Tanzanians move slowly as massacre stories multiply

NZPA-Reuter

Kampala

Tanzanian and Ugandan forces are today expected to consolidate their hold on the key eastern Uganda town of Jinja, site of the huge dam which provides the country’s electrical power.

Officers of the mixed force which toppled the former President for life, Idi Amin, said their infantrymen were due in Jinja. Uganda’s second city, today (N.Z. time).

The Power and Communications Minister of the new provisional Government (Mr Akena P’ojok) said three days ago that a motorised flying column of troops had already secured the Owen Falls dam and power station just west of Jinja. Sabotage of the hydroelectric plant, on the Lake Victoria source of the River Nile, would add immensely to the staggering problems already faced by the Government of President Yusufu Lule after Idi Amin’s eight years of chaotic military rule. Forces loyal to Field-Mar-shal Amin are reported to be carrying out a frenzied slaughter of civilians in the northern and eastern areas not yet reached by the antiAmih forces.

A Roman Catholic priest who would not disclose his name arrived in Kampala from the northern town of Lira on Thursday and said hundreds of bodies of the victims of the State Research Bureau secret police lay rotting in fields and beside roads.

The priest said that anyone who tried to. bury the corpses was also killed. He

(said one of the victims was a parish priest in Lira, the Rev. Ananiya Oryang, who was killed while trying to bury one of his parishioners. Refugees arriving in Kenya from east Uganda had reported that the remnants of the deposed Preident’s Army, many of them from his northern Kakwa tribe, were indiscriminately mowing down civilians with machine-gun fire. The advance from Kampala, which was taken a week ago, began two days ago. One force is pushing east towards the Kenya border while the other is moving north. They plan to link up at Lira for the assault on the West Nile region in north-west Uganda where most of Field-Marshall Amin’s followers originate. If this hard core decides to make a last, stand against the Tanzanian-Ugandan forces, it is expected to be in this region, where arms! and food have been stock-! piled. Some analysts are surprised at the slow pace of the advance in the face of the ;nass killings, but Tanzanian sources say the forces are worried about over-extending their supply lines. The sources also point out the success and relatively low loss of life of their campaign so far. The departure of the vanguard of the Tanzanian-led task force has brought some

relief to the people of Kampala. They are now sweeping away the mountains of debris left after the orgy of looting which followed the capital’s liberation. Residents say most shops and offices were wrecked by mobs of civilians immediately after the Tanzanians arrived in the city unopposed a week ago.

But the soldiers aided and abetted the looters to some degree and have since developed an appetite for wrist watches, transistor radios, and other portable property, residents added.

Most of Kampala’s banks have been broken into and emptied and many uniforms found on the road to the north and east bulge with Ugandan banknotes. But the rearguard which has moved up into Kampala to take their place is quieter and less acquisitive, residents say.

' Though the nightclub at the International Hotel still often closes down abruptly with a gunfight, Tanzanian soldiers usually manage to dance happily with each other, or with one of the few Ugandan girls — their AK47 rifles and loaded rocket launchers strapped across their backs. There are virtually no shops open. Food is scarce and petrol costs <s32 a gallon, but everywhere there is an immense sense of relief.