Rejoicing and Revenge in Kampala

The invaders seize the capital, as Amin disappears

The murderous eight-year reign of Uganda's "President-for-Life" Idi Amin Dada apparently came to an end last week. An invading force of Tanzanian soldiers and Ugandan rebels, after two weeks of skirmishing on the outskirts of Kampala, finally captured Uganda's capital city. At week's end Big Daddy had been missing for several days, although he was thought to be holed up with a handful of loyal troops in the vicinity of Jinja, 50 miles east of Kampala, on Lake Victoria.

"The fascist dictator is finished!" the invaders shouted over loudspeakers as they moved slowly through the city. Two nights before, the Tanzanian army unleashed an assault on Kampala: a dozen MiG-21s screamed over the city, strafing military targets, and an eight-hour artillery barrage lit the skyline with almost continuous flashes. Next day the invading force was greeted by jubilant Kampalans who danced in the streets and tossed flowers at the advancing tanks. Accompanying the Tanzanians was TIME'S Tony Avirgan, who observed: "The whole thing took on the air of a victory parade, but at times the revelry got in the way of the soldiers who were trying to disperse pockets of remaining resistance. Every time there was fighting ahead, a Tanzanian colonel would run in front of his troops, and a bugle would sound. The people were cheering wildly."

When the fighting stopped, the streets were littered with the bodies of fallen soldiers. "You get blood on your shoes walking around the city," reported Journalist Joseph Ngala, who visited the city on assignment for TIME, "and people drive right over the corpses." There were reports of widespread recriminations against Ugandan Muslims, who constitute only 6% of the population but were favored by Amin, himself a Muslim. The Ugandans also took revenge on soldiers sent to Amin's aid by Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Continued Ngala: "Near Jinja, there has been indiscriminate killing of Libyans and other Muslim soldiers. Heads of the dead have been hung on sticks and placed by the roadsides; bodies have been hung from trees." One old man, pointing to a Libyan who had been hanged, remarked, "It is difficult to forgive soldiers who came thousands of miles to kill our people."

In Kampala, the celebrating was mixed with the pillaging of shops and government offices. At a five-hour victory rally, many spectators were carrying loot; one woman mounted a typewriter on her head, and another sat on a newly acquired office chair. Asked a speaker: "What are our new Cabinet ministers to think when they arrive at their offices and discover they don't have chairs to sit on?" A Tanzanian soldier sported the best memento of all: Amin's military cap, which Big Daddy apparently left behind in his haste to depart from the capital.

Yusufu Lule, President of the Ugan-ts dan provisional government that was sworn in on Friday, is a former chancellor of Uganda's Makerere University who had been living in exile in London for several years. His government is strongly supported by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, who organized the invasion effort after Amin seized and occupied some 700 sq. mi. of Tanzanian territory six months ago. Since Nyerere's troops did most of the fighting, the fall of Kampala marked the first successful invasion by one African country of another since the end of colonialism.

Declaring that the deposed dictator "deserves the gallows" for his role in killing at least 300,000 of his people, the national radio called on Ugandans "to find him wherever he is." Lule (pronounced Loo-lay), who will hold office until elections can be called, struck a more reflective note when he told his countrymen, "Ugandans from every tribe and every family have suffered from his murders, torture, terror, robbery and plunder. From this day, Ugandans must resolve never to allow a dictator to rule them again."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.