Retreat from a Collision Course

President Idi Amin Dada was behaving true to bizarre form. First he provoked an international crisis, thereby distracting world attention from the murder and turmoil taking place within Uganda (TIME cover, March 7). Then he quietly backed down.

The crisis, the first of Jimmy Carter's presidency, began when Amin ordered the approximately 200 Americans in Uganda to meet with him early last week in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and then declared that until the meeting, they would not be allowed to leave the country. Washington feared that the lives of the Americans, most of whom are missionaries, might be in danger. But then Amin postponed the meeting, said that the Americans could leave whenever they liked, and told a small group of U.S. citizens who work for Uganda Airlines that they should regard the people of his country as their "brothers and sisters." Just as Washington was beginning to sigh in relief, Amin broadcast a warning that 2,600 American, British and Israeli "mercenaries" were marching through Kenya to invade Uganda--a charge that the Kenya government dismissed as "hallucinations and shadowboxing."

Bags Packed. Practically all the American residents in Uganda had already made their way to Kampala with their possessions packed, as Amin had ordered. They fully expected a last audience with Amin and a quick deportation. When the bulky dictator reversed himself and said they were free to return to their homes in outlying districts, the majority chose to remain in Kampala to await further news.

Nobody ever knows exactly what game Idi Amin is playing. Practically everybody, however, agrees that his threat to the Americans was designed to divert attention from the murders last month of Ugandan Archbishop Janani Luwum and two Cabinet ministers, and from the continuing massacre of Christian Ugandans. Some observers were convinced that Amin, still smarting from the Israeli commando raid on Entebbe airport last July, feared an attack, this time from the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, which was standing by off the Kenya coast. At one point, he is said to have considered putting all the Americans aboard a plane and sending them home. In the end he changed his mind. But, as a leading Ugandan exile in Tanzania noted, "just wait, he's not finished yet. When the Enterprise goes away he'll start up again."

Of the handful of American tourists in Uganda last week, some left the country without incident. But Brian Schwartz, 24, a Yale Law School graduate from New York City, was detained for three days, interrogated by Ugandan police and roughed up; twice he was taken to lonely places by machine gun-toting guards, but each time he was returned to jail. Luckily he managed to throw a piece of paper bearing his name and passport number to a Canadian on the street below. The paper found its way to the West German embassy, which has handled U.S. affairs there since the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Uganda in 1973. Next day Schwartz was expelled to Kenya.

Meanwhile, black refugees from Uganda seeking refuge in Kenya told harrowing new tales of Amin's murderous campaign of repression against members of the Christian Lango and Acholi tribes, whom he regards as his enemies. There were reports of house-to-house searches and sweeping arrests. Among the prominent Ugandans who "disappeared" last week were Byron Kawadwa, who had led the Uganda troupe to the recent Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Nigeria, and Tucker Lwanage, chief librarian at Makerere University. A student who fled after his uncle was seized by police said he had heard that between 1,000 and 1,500 Lango and Acholi soldiers had been killed in recent skirmishes at army barracks in the towns of Mubende and Mbarara. Except for the President's own tiny Kakwa tribe, said another, "I don't think there is a family in Uganda that has not lost someone."

Double Standard. If ever a regime deserved international investigation and condemnation, it would seem to be Amin's. Yet last week, after 4 1/2 days of closed debate in Geneva, the 32-nation Commission on Human Rights, which practically never criticizes repression in any Third World nation, turned down a British proposal for an investigation of the situation in Uganda. Accordingly, the British government announced that it would take the matter to the commission's plenary (and public) session this week, demanding that a five-member subcommittee be named to look into the question of human rights violations in Uganda. The British figure that, if the 19-member Third World majority--with or without help from five Communist-bloc members--scuttle the proposal this time, the commission's double standard would be demonstrated as never before.

Inevitably, the litany of suffering recited by Ugandan refugees provokes the question: How will it all end? Some argue that Amin--who for security reasons may skip this week's summit meeting of African and Arab heads of state in Cairo--will surely be killed one day by some segment of his army or police force, if not by a lone assassin. But that would not necessarily mean the end of Uganda's troubles. The restive Christian majority might then be in a position to settle its own long list of scores and grievances. There could well be a prolonged internecine struggle for power among the Army officers who presumably would succeed Amin. And after six years of Amin's tyranny, in which professional people, civil servants and students have been systematically killed, the country is sorely short of trained manpower. It may be true that Amin must go, and the sooner the better. But he will surely be followed by a period of bloody chaos.

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