U.K. offers Uganda hand

Press, 19 December 1985, Page 8

U.K. offers Uganda hand

NZPA-Reuter Nairobi

Britain swiftly promised yesterday to help rebuild Uganda after the military rulers of its former colony and rebels signed a peace agreement aimed at ending years of violence. Political analysts said that the prompt British reaction to the long-awaited pact showed that Western nations would rally to Uganda’s aid if peace prevailed.

News of the signing was greeted with joy and relief in Kampala, although few people are confident that the fighting will suddenly stop just because the pact calls for an immediate cease-fire.

The Head of State, Lieu-tenant-General Tito Okello, received a hero’s welcome when he returned to the capital, and security guards were unable to prevent large crowds from blocking his way as he returned from Entebbe airport in an open car.

Under the peace agree-

ment the Ugandan Government will invite four Commonwealth countries — Britain, Canada, Kenya, and Tanzania — to help form and train a new national army to replace the rival factions that make up the country’s fighting forces at present. A British Junior Foreign Office Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, welcomed the accord, and said that if the cease-fire held, Britain would help in economic reconstruction and military training. Britain and other Western countries suspended their aid programmes in Uganda because of internal violence.

The peace agreement noted that the record of the last 20 years had discouraged Western nations from giving aid. “Any continuation of armed conflict, dictatorial rule, denial of human rights and fundamental freedoms prevent development in Uganda as well as positive international co-operation with friendly and brotherly

countries,” it said. Clearly at the National Resistance Army leaders’ insistence, the pact calls for the punishment of soldiers who committed atrocities when Idi Amin ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979 and those guilty of similar crimes since General Okello seized power in July. The rebels say that they are the'only Ugandan fighting group that has not committed, atrocities and have frequently called for such criminals to be brought to trial.

In an apparent compromise the agreement does not explicitly call for punishment of those guilty of torture and other crimes under Milton Obote, the President who was toppled for the second time in July’s coup. Many Ugandans say that even more atrocities were committed under Mr Obote than under Amin.

The N.R.A.’s leader, Yoweri Museveni, said that he had accepted the post of vice-chairman of the ruling

Military Council, a position he has demanded since the peace talks began in August An N.R.A. spokesman also said that the rebels would dismantle their “interim administration” in their stronghold in the south-west once the peace agreement had been implemented. The military Government bad demanded the dissolution of the interim administration as a precondition to signing an agreement, and Kampala television said that the rebels had agreed to do so. The. administration was set up early last month, ostensibly to bring basic social services to the area and keep the local economy functioning. But the military Government saw it as a provocative move and an indication that the N.R.A. planned to split Uganda into two. Twenty-one' passengers from the Ugandan airliner that was hijacked on an internal flight five weeks ago flew into Entebbe air-

port just hours after the settlement was signed. The remaining 18 of the airliner’s passengers and crew, all Ugandans, were expected to fly into Entebbe later. Five West Germans and one Zairean who were aboard the hijacked aircraft were freed early this month.

The aircraft, a Fokker Friendship, was hijacked on November 10 while on a flight from Entebbe to northern Uganda and diverted to Kasese, in western Uganda, a town in the N.R.A.’s hands. The Ugandan Government accused the N.R.A. of being responsible for the hijack. But the rebels disclaimed responsibility, saying that it had been done by a Ugandan Army deserter. The return of the hijacked aircraft from Kasese earlier this month, and of its passengers yesterday, had been delayed because the N.R.A. said the Government was using domestic commercial flights for military purposes.