Shooting the Moon

No one has ever accused Uganda's mercurial President Idi ("Big Daddy") Amin Dada of running a democracy. Until now, though, there has been little solid documentation of just how bad things are in his East African nation. Last week the prestigious International Commission of Jurists issued one of the most scathing reports it has produced in 22 years of investigating official injustice from Turkey to South Africa. After examining evidence for three years the jurists concluded that Uganda has seen "a total breakdown of the rule of law."

The Geneva-based organization accused Amin of allowing his army and special police forces to terrorize the country, violating the constitution with arbitrary decrees and undermining the judiciary by attacking judges. Big Daddy's most publicized atrocity was his draconian expulsion of 50,000 Ugandan Asians in 1972, but that, apparently, was only the beginning. Tens of thousands of blacks have fled to Kenya, Tanzania and Europe since Amin seized power in January 1971. About 50,000 have been killed. Uncounted thousands have vanished and are presumed dead. Relatives file missing-persons reports, but they are often thankful that the perfunctory searches by Amin's men are as poor as the commission says they are. Corpses are all too often found with the genitals mutilated and skulls crushed.

In Kampala, the capital, much of the terror is committed by Big Daddy's personal goon squad, the 3,000-man Public Safety Unit. Like Haiti's feared Tonton Macoute, members of the squad are almost always dressed in sports shirts and wear dark glasses even at night. They are given to cruising Kampala streets in their Peugeots, stopping occasionally to pick up a suspect. The unlucky victim is pushed into the car, driven off and seldom seen again.

The army has been accused of similar arbitrary exercises of power. Wise Kampalans know enough not to argue with rifle-bearing privates and to never, ever, look at a soldier's girl friend. The army is now so far beyond the law that it is believed responsible for thousands of killings that Amin never ordered. The sound of small-arms fire is a feature of Kampala evenings. "The army is machine-gunning the moon to save Uganda from invasion," say Kampalans bitterly. Outwardly one of Africa's most placidly beautiful capitals, the city is gripped by fear.

Wry Joke. Victims of the terror include some of Uganda's best-known political figures. In March, Michael Ondoga was snatched off the street shortly after Big Daddy dismissed him as Foreign Minister. His body was later found floating in the Victoria Nile. In September 1972, six gunmen barged into the nation's high court and dragged off the Chief Justice, Benedicto Kiwanuka. He disappeared without a trace, as did George Kamba, a former Ambassador to West Germany who vanished from a reception that Amin was giving in his honor. Ugandans explain the missing with a wry joke that reflects Big Daddy's bizarre brand of propaganda: "They have been confused by the Zionists and imperialists and run away."

Effects of the commission's report were soon felt in Kampala. There was little that Amin could do about the Geneva-based jurists, but he was not at a loss for convenient targets. Accusing the British of instigating the report (the commission's secretary-general is London Barrister Niall MacDermot), Amin first threatened to expel Uganda's 1,500 Britons on 48 hours notice, then backed down from the deadline at the behest of Kenya's President Jomo Kenyatta. But he warned that "drastic action" would still be taken if Britain's "vicious anti-Uganda campaign does not stop."

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