Posted on 09/10/2001 10:10:24 AM PDT by HAL9000
KAMPALA, Sept 10 (AFP) -Ugandan church leaders have urged the government to charge former dictator Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada should he decide to return to Uganda, reports said here Monday.
Amin, who has been living in Saudi Arabia since his overthrow by a combined force of Ugandan exiles and Tanzanian troops 22 years ago, is said to be homesick and has been sending signals indicating he wanted to return home.
The reports, persistently published here, say that Amin is longing for a chance to return home and live with his family like other former Ugandan presidents, who chose to return and lived quietly.
Amin is reported to have started investing in his Ugandan homeland, where he and his security agencies butchered thousands of people during an eight-year reign of terror.
Most prominent among his victims was Uganda's former Anglican archbishop Janan Luwum, who was killed in barbaric syle in 1976.
Reports from his hometown of Arua, about 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of the capital Kampala, indicate that Amin has erected a family house there, where he wants his 40-plus children to live under one roof.
Church leaders who spoke to AFP here have ruled out the idea of an amnesty for Amin, saying the former dictator should answer for the suffering his regime inflicted on Uganda.
Anglican Church of Uganda's communications secretary, Reverend Jackson Turyagenda, whose leader Luwum was murdered along with two cabinet ministers on orders of Amin, told AFP by telephone that like any other citizen, "Amin should be subjected to the laws of the land."
"The government has a way of handling ex-leaders, some of whom have returned home, but anybody coming should answer for what was done during their regimes because that is what justice demands," Turyagenda said.
He insisted that he was not talking for the church, but as an individual, adding: "Ugandans would like some answers to the many questions asked about Amin."
The state-owned Sunday Vision meanwhile talked to one of Amin's many wives, Medina, who now lives in Uganda.
Medina Amin narrated the lifestyle of her 75-year-old husband, now exiled in Saudi Arabia, who ruled Uganda with the iron fist that earned him the name of "Butcher of Africa."
The paper describes Amin's reign as that of a "love-hate affair" because of his weird nationalism.
"Sometimes everybody agrees that this was a love-hate affair, that Amin did love his country in his topsy-turvy kind of way," the Sunday Vision wrote.
"He is encouraging his children to come back to Uganda to learn their roots," the paper quoted one of Amin's former wives as saying, adding that Amin does not believe that most of his children were still in Uganda, where he is still referred to as a "monster."
At the height of his insular nationalism, Amin embarked on a programme to Africanise the country's economy that was then dominated by Asians, mainly Indians, whom he gave 90 days to leave the country or be flushed out.
He confiscated all their properties, which he distributed to his cronies, who later ran them down. The economy collapsed, triggering blackmarket trade since all essential commodities like soap, sugar, fuel, became scarce.
A whole generation of Ugandan intellectuals were either killed for questioning the high-handedness of the regime or fled into exile and many never returned. Idi Amin was overthrown in April 1979.
If Idi can sneak into this country before Bush grants Amnesty to illegals, then he could team up with Al as a political advisor. Kind of a black James Carvell.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.