Like the Wild, Wild West

Chaos, starvation, corruption--and no security

One year ago, Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels marched into Kampala, ousting Idi Amin Dada's despotic regime. Today Uganda remains mired in chaos, burdened with a shattered economy and facing famine. Last week Tanzania prepared to withdraw half of the 20,000-man army that has been the only reliable security force in the country since Amin's downfall, paving the way for yet more political turmoil. TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief Jack White reports on the crumbling nation that Big Daddy left behind:

At dusk, as the resident flying mammals that give Kampala's Bat Valley Bar and Restaurant its name soar screeching into the sky, customers down their last sip of $20-a-bottle beer and head for the safety of home. Long before the 10 p.m. curfew, when the crackle of machine guns begins to reverberate across the seven hills of Uganda's capital, no sane person is on the streets. Not even hospitalized patients are safe from attack. Last week unidentified gunmen barged into a ward of Kampala's Mulago Hospital and seriously wounded Businessman Gaster Nsubuga, who was being treated for injuries suffered in a previous attack. Says a Western diplomat: "This place is like the wild, wild West."

Apart from safety, the biggest problem facing Ugandans is finding enough to eat. The food shortage is most acute in the rural northeast, where U.N. officials estimate that 136,000 people are on the verge of starvation. Savage Karamojong tribesmen, armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles looted from one of Amin's arsenals, raid villages and harass the missionary outposts where relief food and medicine are distributed. Famine may eventually hit Kampala, where many workers earn 500 shillings ($68) or less a month, barely enough to purchase three bunches of green bananas, the staple of the diet. Complains a Kampala housewife: "Prices were never this high under Amin."

To make ends meet, virtually every Ugandan has resorted to cheating. Cab drivers charge 1,000 shillings for the 21-mile drive from Kampala to Entebbe airport, ten times the fare a year ago. Clerks at government-controlled stores routinely consign salt, sugar and other commodities to the black market, where they sell for many times the official price. Coffee, Uganda's biggest cash crop, is smuggled into neighboring Burundi, which last year exported more than twice the quantity of coffee beans it harvested in its own fields. Says a Ugandan clergyman: "I don't know if our people will ever be honest again."

Despite these difficulties, roly-poly President Godfrey Binaisa boasts that "the country is making a very spectacular recovery. We are making wonderful progress in all areas of human endeavor." In fact, the country is no more secure than Binaisa's own shaky position as Uganda's second post-Amin Head of State. Since taking over from Yusufu Lule, his ousted predecessor, eight months ago, he has barely survived several no-confidence motions brought by his rivals in the country's interim parliament, the 129-member National Consultative Council. The main reason he has stayed in office seems to be that the N.C.C., whose 28 rival political factions range from hardline Marxists to supporters of the deposed Baganda monarchy, has been unable to agree on who should replace him.

Most of the demands for Binaisa's resignation involve charges that he has done little or nothing to root out entrenched government corruption. Last month Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, whose troops did most of the fighting in the war against Amin, dispatched his Foreign Minister, Ben Mkapa, to Kampala with a harsh message: Tanzanians had not shed their blood and emptied their treasury so that Ugandan politicians could line their pockets and fight among themselves. By early March Nyerere had apparently become fed up with the continued political infighting. He was also annoyed that Binaisa's aides put all the blame on his troops for a series of violent clashes between the Tanzanians and Ugandan villagers. He summoned Binaisa to Dar es Salaam and told him bluntly that Tanzania would withdraw half of its troops by the end of the month and the remainder before December. Binaisa is unsure about the loyalty of the new Ugandan army, which placed its first 5,700 troops on active duty last week, and is worried by reports that an armed faction loyal to former President Apolo Milton Obote --Nyerere's next-door neighbor in Dar es Salaam since he was ousted by Amin in a 1971 coup--was massing in the north. Thus Binaisa asked Kenya's President Daniel Arap Moi for troops to replace the departing Tanzanians. But Moi, whose country has been at odds with Tanzania since the breakdown of the East African Community in 1977, turned Binaisa down.

The suddenness of the Tanzanian withdrawal has led to speculation that Nyerere was trying to set the stage for the return to power of his old friend Obote. No sooner had Nyerere announced that his men were leaving than Obote proclaimed that he would return to Uganda to run for re-election as soon as the date of the vote was announced. Said Obote: "The only issue in the election is whether you are pro-or anti-Tanzanian." Obote's threat merely adds to Uganda's uncertain future. Most Western diplomats believe that instability will last until the country has an elected government with a strong mandate. Binaisa said last week that national elections, originally scheduled for June 1981, might be held by November of this year. Until then, Uganda is likely to stumble from crisis to crisis. Says one Westerner in Kampala: "You don't rebuild a national sense of unity after eight years of rule by Idi Amin. This could be a beautiful country once people learn to trust each other again. Until then, all you can do is weep for Uganda."

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