Photo: Daily Monitor
Defusing tensions. Following tensions between Uganda
and Tanzania 1972, OAU secretary general approached Kenya to mediate.
However the Jomo Kenyatta government declined. With Kenya refusing to
mediate, three other heads of state agreed to take on the task, but it
was Somali president Siad Barre who succeeded and came up with a
five-point peace plan.
Somalia
could be categorised as a failed state today, but 44 years ago it
mediated in a peace deal to prevent Uganda and her southern neighbour
Tanzania from going to war.
Then Somalia president Siad Barre brokered a regional peace deal that delayed the war from breaking out, by about five years.
Then president Idi
Amin was responding to the invasion by pro-Milton Obote forces who had
bases in Tanzania. The invasion was short lived as the invaders were
pushed out of Uganda.
Background
The Uganda Argus
newspaper of September 17, 1972, reported that at least 1,000 'Tanzanian
troops' had invaded the country, reaching 100 miles away from the
capital, Kampala. They overran Kyotera, Kakuto and Kalisizo towns.
A strong response
from the Amin government followed the attack. It started off by blaming
the British government of supporting the invaders, before arresting a
number of British nationals in Uganda.
According to The
Keesing's Contemporary Archives volume 18 of November 1972, "After
arresting a number of British nationals by police, the government
appealed to both the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and to Dr Kurt
Waldheim, the UN Secretary General, to intervene against unprovoked
aggression."
The same
publication goes on to state that on the same day, September 17, 1972,
in Tanzania an official statement was issued by government saying,
"forces of a people's army inside Uganda had taken over a military camp
at Kisenyi and seized a large quantity of arms."
However, in the
same statement the commander of the Tanzanian People's Defence Forces
(TPDF), Maj Gen Mrisho Sarakikya, denied that Tanzanian troops were
involved in the operations. Though there were reports in Tanzania that a
group of Ugandan dissidents fighting against the Ugandan Army had taken
a military garrison.
A day after the invasion, government troops managed to retake the towns lost to the invaders.
On September 18,
1972, Radio Uganda announced that among those arrested during the
invasion included three former Ugandan Army officers and two civilians.
Among those captured were Wilfred Odong, Picho Ali and another only
identified as Capt Oyile.
Having suspected
British involvement in the raid, a Ugandan Defence Council meeting
resolved that Amin removes all Asians and Europeans from the security
forces with immediate effect, for they could not be trusted.
The Time newspaper
of London reported the next day that "Nine British nationals, including
nine journalists have been arrested by the police. Among those arrested
include children and women".
The Keesing's
Contemporary Archives further says while meeting diplomats from the
Organisation of African Union to brief them about the invasion, Amin
said: "Uganda had been attacked by 1,500 men, including Tanzanian
soldiers, supporters of ex-president Obote and Israeli mercenaries."
"Captain Oyile had
admitted that there were guerrilla camps at Bukoba and Tabora (in
Tanzania), where between 1,000 and 1,500 men were being trained."
Despite having
retaken the towns from the invaders, the Ugandan Air Force continued
bombing Bukoba in Tanzania, prompting the Tanzanian government to move
its 4th battalion from Tabora, supported by a mortar company from
Musoma, towards the Uganda boarder to stop Ugandan troops from crossing
into their country.
After the Bukoba
air attacks, Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere sent a telegram to King
Hassan of Morocco, then chairman of the OAU, protesting against the
attacks.
According to the
Daily Telegraph newspaper of September 17, 1972, the British government
reacted to Amin's allegation through the junior minister for foreign and
Commonwealth affairs, Lady Priscilla Tweedsmuir, who told the House of
Lords that: "The allegation that Britain was deeply involved in the
situation in Uganda had been repeated in an indirect message from the
Ugandan Foreign ministry."
She reiterated that
the British government "had no prior knowledge of operations then
taking place in southwest Uganda, was not involved in any way in their
planning or execution, and certainly had no plans of invading Uganda".
Towards the end of
the month, the Sudanese government intercepted five Libyan Air Force
planes carrying officers, arms and ammunition to Uganda. They were
forced to land at Khartoum airport.
It should be
remembered that Obote had just left Sudan three months earlier to go to
Tanzania. Tripoli tricked Khartoum that they had recalled their planes
back home but they instead flew to Entebbe.
The Keesing's
Contemporary Archives says Sudanese president Gaafar Nemery declared
"that he supported Uganda's right to defend her sovereignty but hoped
that this would be done without armed conflict."
Foreign mediation
As Amin was looking
for support, the OAU started a diplomatic solution to prevent the
conflict from escalating into a full-blown war. The Organisation's
secretary general, Nzo Ekangaki, and the Somalia government led the
quest for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
Ekangaki first
approached then Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta to mediate. According to
Kenyan Newspaper Daily Nation of September 22, 1972, then Kenyan
minister for power and communication Ronald Ngala announced, "We are
friendly to both nations. Whatever is going on between them, Kenya will
not get involved."
With Kenya refusing
to mediate, three other heads of state, included Emperor Haile Selassie
of Ethiopia, presidents Houari Boumedienne and Sekou Toure of Algeria
and Guinea respectively all expressed readiness to be associated with
the initiative.
Egyptian president
at the time Anwar Sadat met Tanzanian foreign minister John Malecela,
who requested him to send a diplomatic delegation to Uganda to seek a
peaceful resolution to the conflict.
It was, however,
reported in Kenyan media that presidents Amin and Nyerere had agreed to
an interim cease-fire, with Uganda promising to stop bombing Tanzanian
towns and Tanzania undertaking to withdraw its forces from the border.
Then Somali
president Siad Barre drafted a five-point peace plan which was presented
to the two presidents by the Somali foreign minister Omar Arteh Ghalib.
American newspaper
New York Times of September 24, 1972, reported that the plan had the
following questions, "Would Uganda halt its bombing and land attacks if
it were assured by Tanzania that it would not be attacked by Tanzanian
troops or pro-Obote guerrillas? Would Tanzania, given an assurance that
the Ugandan Army would not attack it, undertake not to attack Uganda? If
so, would Tanzania withdraw its troops from the frontier? Would
Tanzania also withdraw the pro-Obote fighters from the border? Would
Tanzania oppose subversive activities threatening a neighbouring state?"
After receiving the
draft plan, Amin warned the guerrillas in the border towns of Mutukula
and Kikagati to withdraw. Despite agreeing on the peace plan, the threat
and accusation of aggression against each other persisted.
Just two days after Amin had agreed on the peace plan, he accused Zambia, Tanzania and India of planning to attack Uganda.
The Keesing's
Contemporary Archives says Amin's comments followed the visit of
presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Varahagiri Venkata Giri of Zambia and
India respectively to Tanzania.
The Cape Times
newspaper of South Africa on September 28, 1972, quoted the Indian
government spokesperson saying "that Indian involvement is a mischievous
and fantastic rumour without any foundation whatsoever".
In a presidential
press statement aired on Radio Uganda on September 28, 1972, Amin
accused Tanzanian of carrying out another invasion in which a number of
attackers were arrested in Mutukula.
Among those captured was Alex Ojera who was a former minister of Information and Broadcasting.
The following day,
Ojera was paraded before diplomats, including OAU secretary general
Ekangaki who had come to Kampala on a peace mission.
Mogadishu peace accord
The talks in
Mogadishu, the Somali capital, were scheduled to start on September 27.
It involved foreign minister of Uganda Wanume Kibedi, his Tanzanian
counterpart John Malecela, Somalia's Omar Arteh Ghalib, the OAU
secretary general, among others.
However, they were
delayed until October 2, 1972. The Ugandan and Tanzanian foreign
ministers met the Somali president who told them that the conflict
between their two countries was nothing but a colonialist conspiracy
aimed at weakening African unity.
On October 5, 1972,
after two days of talks, Kibedi, Malecela and Arteh in the presence of
Ekangaki, signed an agreement which was published simultaneously in
Dar-es-Salaam, Kampala and Mogadishu on October 7, 1972.
Previously Siad Barre had paid a visit to Dar-es-Salaam on October 6, 1972, and Kampala the following day.
During the visit to
Uganda, Amin named a road after Siad Barre in honour of his efforts to
end the conflict between Uganda and Tanzania.
The peace agreement required the two countries to withdraw their forces at least six miles away from their borders.
This was supposed
to come into effect by October 9, 1972. A team of Somali peace observers
would be deployed on the borders of the two countries to observe the
withdrawal.
The peace accord
also required both countries to stop harbouring subversive elements on
their areas that cross into the other's territory and to end all
hostilities. Both countries were also required to return all the
properties they captured from each other during the conflict.
On October 11,
1972, Amin announced that his troops had withdrawn six miles from the
border and that fighting had ceased. A day later the Tanzanian Defence
minister Edward Sokoine announced the withdrawal of the TPDF from the
border area.
The Obote loyalists who had participated in the invasion were relocated deep inside northern Tanzania.
A former member of
the Kikosi Maalum says they concentrated in the areas of Tabora where
they went into Tobacco growing and charcoal burning from 1972 until 1978
when they were mobilised for the final battle that deposed Amin.
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