100,000 massacred in Uganda’

Press, 30 January 1984, Page 10

100,000 massacred in Uganda’

NZPA-Reuter Kampala One hundred thousand people have been massacred in Uganda in the last four years, according to the Opposition leader, Paul Ssemogerere, who also accused the Government of turning a blind eye to the situation. Speaking at a meeting of his Democratic Party at the week-end, he said: “A conservative estimate of about 100,000 people have been massacred between 1980 and 1984. “The Government’s attitude in the respect of excesses betrays a wish to have such incidents promptly and permanently forgotten and to depict those who do not forget them as enemies of the country bent on tarnishing Uganda’s good name,” he said. Mr Ssemogerere, who faces a challenge for the party’s leadership, did not say where the alleged massacres had taken place or

who the killers were. However, he made clear he was referring to the general insecurity that has hampered Uganda’s recovery since President Milton Obote’s Ugandan People’s Congress Party won a General Election in 1980. There was no immediate reaction from the Government, which has said such claims were grossly exaggerated. Mr Ssemogerere appealed to the Government to grant an amnesty to guerrillas fighting the Obote Administration. Many opponents took to the bush after the elections, alleging the polls were unfair and would have returned the Democratic Party had they not been rigged. Mr Ssemogerere said many people had been killed in an Army sweep against the rebels that started in February last year and in which 150,000 people have been made homeless.