How Amin smuggled his family from Entebbe fire to Libya

Under the line of fire. April 11 marked 34 years since Idi Amin was overthrown by a combined force of Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) and Ugandan exiles. In this fourth part of our series – Idi Amin: The Last Days – as told by his son Jaffar Remo Amin, we reveal how a panicking Amin executed a daring mission to evacuate his family out of Entebbe to Libya as mortar bombs were falling on the runway.

Upon arriving in Kampala, we were tentatively enrolled at Buganda Road Primary School by the chief presidential protocol officer Nasr Ondoga, who was responsible for all the president’s personal affairs, for the final duration of our childhood stay in our beloved country.

All the children who had left Kabale Preparatory School (apart from Mwanga Alemi who went to reside with his mother at Command Post Kololo and Asha Mbabazi who went to reside with her mother in Kololo as well), were resident with Mama Sarah Kyolaba at the present day Kampala State House, Nakasero (formerly Nakasero Lodge).

During this time, no one was residing at Entebbe State House and it was only used for State Functions as Entebbe was near the war front and constant infiltration from the porous “Masaka, Mpigi shoreline” rendered it unsafe to stay there. This was mostly in March 1979 and Kampala was taken in April 1979.

Dad’s bombastic propaganda statements continued on radio. On March 26, 1979 Radio Uganda announced that the President was “cut off at Entebbe.” We would go so much as to affirm dad’s victory announced by the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation on March 26, 1979 when it announced that “the President was cut off at Entebbe but managed to repel the enemy forces with the support of loyal troops”.

Announcements through the radio
The announcement by the radio station might have had some truth in it since this was the exact time dad was negotiating with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to receive his immediate family into Tripoli, and he needed the still useful Entebbe International Airport. The invading troops were still more than 70 miles away from Kampala when dad was negotiating with Gaddafi to receive us. Since vanguards of the so-called liberation forces had possibly already infiltrated some parts of the route to Entebbe by the time dad was frantically trying to get us out of Uganda, he addressed the nation asking “Ugandans who believe in God to pray day and night.”

The liberators intensified their efforts because they were hell-bent on overthrowing dad. On March 27, 1979, the “liberation” bombs commonly referred to as “Saba-Saba”, landed on the compounds of the Republic House at Mengo (Bulange building) and the Army Shop nearby in the evening. Meanwhile, a cabinet in waiting had been formed by the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) in Moshi on March 24 and 25, 1979. This cabinet had been formed out of 22 political groups that had emerged in opposition to dad’s regime.

On March 28, 1979, at about 9am, Lt. Col. Pangarasio Onek, the CO (commanding officer) of General Headquarters, Mbuya, instructed his troops to commandeer any available means of transport: matatus, trucks, tractors, cars, taxis, etc, to take their families “home.” My avatar [my cousin with whom I have done a lot of research on our family], Yuga Juma Onziga, knew there and then that it was “a game over” for dad’s regime. Dad’s army was in total disarray and now fighting to “save their skins.”

The war ended at Lukaya when most of the soldiers and Secret Service Personnel either said “Congo na gawa” or “Sudan na gawa” or high tailed it out of the country. Some even said let him fight this out with his favorite Air Force and Marines – a reminder of the dangers of favouring particular units in the military over others.

As dad’s army continued to disintegrate, his bombastic propaganda statements continued on state controlled radio but by now dad knew better. On March 28, 1979, Radio Uganda claimed that dad had “smashed through the Tanzanian forces and reopened the road to Entebbe” which had been closed by the invading forces. The bluff and the bombast that had served him well for eight years were rapidly losing its effect. As a consolation, dad was now fighting a private war to evacuate some 80 members of his family and close associates to safety in Libya.

Commissioner urges people to work
Meanwhile the district commissioner of Kampala, Muhammad, addressed a rally in Kampala where he urged people to turn up for work and business as usual, yet the rebels were actually 20 miles outside Entebbe at the time.
On March 28, 1979 at about 4pm, Yuga Juma Onziga along with his wife and a two-week-old baby girl, his father and brother, fled to Arua. Between Kiryandongo Hospital and Karuma Falls, the car, a Toyota matatu they had rented, overturned and some people were injured but none seriously. The matatu was totally written off and Juma lost his JVC radio and stereo cassette in this accident.

Fortunately, his younger brother, who was driving later from Kampala also to Arua, stopped by and conveyed his wife and child along to Arua. The rest of them transferred to a nearby lorry and arrived in Arua early in the morning of March 29. They finally converged at their clan village of Rugbuza later that afternoon. The rest is history!

The same day March 28, 1979,Tanzanian long-range artillery began bombing Kampala. At about 11:20pm, Radio Uganda broadcast a news flash saying the attack was close by. “Tonight ... is the first time when the Tanzanian aggressors with mercenaries and traitors, using long-range artillery, have bombarded Kampala...” said a newscaster. This admission of truth by the national radio made Ugandans realise how close dad’s fall was.

At that time the truth about dad’s impending downfall remained concealed by the Kampala authorities. However, BBC World Service regularly intercepted Radio Uganda broadcasts from their monitoring station at Caversham Park in England. Ugandans who were brave and bold enough to follow the events at the risk of being discovered by the notorious State Research Bureau intelligence agents continued to quietly keep track of BBC broadcasts and the truth about dad’s impending defeat. They had begun to do so early in the war.

How we flew to Libya
The day my family flew out of Entebbe to Libya we could hear the artillery shells in the distance getting closer. It was amazing and there was a sense of disbelief. Dad was having 60 to 80 seats installed in a cargo plane for all of us. He was talking to Gaddafi on the phone, telling him, “My children are coming”. Dad sent us ahead because he wanted to stay on to make his last stand, even though he knew that the war was lost.