On his return from Mecca he was met by his faithful jeep unit, which escorted him to parliament. Uganda’s numerous Muslims now received Amin as a holy man, preventing his arrest. He has often participated in Muslim religious ceremonies, and he has a special announcer read verses from the Koran over Uganda Television every evening.
Amin loves movies. His palace contains a collection of about thirty or forty films about World War II, which he sees over and over again. He never could learn to operate a simple projector, and it was one of my duties to project kamikaze-style films for him.
When Amin went to the Soviet Union he took a camera I gave him. Amin took many pictures but on his return, when the films were developed, they were all blank.
Amin loves women; any woman he likes becomes his wife. His wives live around his palace. He is reputed to have 18 children.
Nothing can weaken his position, his pride, or his self-love more than a defeat at Entebbe. This is why it must be supposed President Amin will turn more dangerous than ever before.
The answer to the question whether Big Daddy Amin was collaborating with the hijackers came early Friday. Intelligence from Uganda, supplied by special agents and through the released hostages, established the Ugandan army’s part in the fate of Flight 139. Amin’s credibility as a mediator was proved baseless for those few persons among the Israeli leadership who still hoped that he could be influenced by past connections or by his phone conversations with the little Tel Aviv shopkeeper. Amin permitted additional terrorists who were present in Uganda or in neighboring Somalia to reinforce the hijackers. An Israeli reconnaissance plane reported a special flight from Libya that, “to judge by radio traffic, brought a special advisory team.” Six additional armed men joined the terror group at the old terminal building in Entebbe where they conducted talks with Amin.
Most of the passengers in the second batch of hostages released from Entebbe possessed French citizenship and this reinforced an Israeli view that Uganda and PFLP propaganda attacking “French military imperialism” was taking second place to a new drive to exploit the plight of the Jews.
One of the released captives, Murray Schwartz, an American television producer, boarded the plane at the stopover in Athens. He related that, after the plane landed in Entebbe, the hijackers were joined by several persons who looked like Arabs.
Two released Flight 139 passengers alleged that everything had been prepared in Entebbe to receive the hijacked plane. They believed that the Ugandan authorities had prior information about the hijacking. The systematic segregation of Jews reflected a modification of terrorist plans.
Jean Choquette, from Montreal, Canada, got the impression that Idi Amin is “very sympathetic toward the hijackers.” According to Choquette—and the other released hostages—their captors had not treated them badly. “Aside, of course, from the psychological pressure they applied.” Choquette also related that the hijackers were joined by several additional persons, with guns. He also reported that a box had been brought to the plane at Entebbe—it contained, said the hijackers, dynamite to blow up the plane “whenever necessary.”
Reports from Paris related how the Israelis looked while the released hostages left for the evacuation planes. The men waved their arms goodbye and the women held handkerchiefs to their eyes and held their children up.
President Amin seemed to be responding to the pressures of the terrorist PFLP political strategists rather than to Western diplomats or eccentric approaches like that of Bar-Lev. An Israeli Phantom was detailed to shadow Big Daddy’s private jet on the flight to Mauritius for the African summit conference. Events during his two days’ absence from Uganda were reported hourly by informants working through a Kampala-Nairobi-Jerusalem, route. The watch on Big Daddy was maintained by round-the-clock air missions, backed up by a Reshef (Flame)-class Israeli missile ship, dispatched to a station off the East African coast on the previous Tuesday. The naval vessel carried, in place of a new advanced version of the Gabriel sea-to-sea missile, electronic gear necessary to handle all communications. The task force had decided it could not rely on foreign help in these preparations, for fear of leaks that would tip off the terrorists.
“We were haunted in the final hours by fear of hitting Entebbe to find the hostages gone,” said a commander of the 35th Airborne Brigade, which was standing by. “Naturally we thought we might conduct a raid, as early as Tuesday. We remembered how American rescue missions struck into North Vietnam only to find nothing in place of the prisoners they hoped to release.
“This was a major problem in gathering intelligence and in conducting variations of a raid on Entebbe: this danger of arriving to find the hostages gone. None of us, reading the briefs on Amin, had illusions about his cunning and ruthlessness.”
This was why Bar-Lev’s dialogue with Big Daddy was vital. It kept alive some hope that he would not move the hostages.
During these preparations, the young medical student Moshe Peretz continued to keep his diary of a hostage.
Friday, July 2. 0600—Rising after a night of sleeplessness. Everybody’s possessions are packed, and we await notification when we move off.
0700—Idi Amin comes in, with a wide-brimmed hat, accompanied by a beautiful wife in a green dress and the son Gamal Abdel Nasser Jwami. He shocks us by telling us that Israel has not accepted the hijackers’ demands, and that our position was very grave, for the building is surrounded by TNT and would be blown up if the terrorists’ demands were not met. He announces that he is setting out for Mauritius where he will discuss our situation. He will return this evening or tomorrow morning. He also advises us to send a letter to be published in the press and radio asking Israel to accept the terrorists’ demands.
0800—Stormy debates between those who favor writing the letter and those opposed. Most of the family men, and the crew members, except for the [Air France] captain, are in favor. Others are against it. What will happen? I don’t care. The ebb and flow of feelings is breaking people, and bringing them to the threshold of collapse. It hurts to think of the family at home.
1100—We continue the daily routine. Jean-Jacques Maimoni, 19 years old, exudes good spirits. He brings everyone tea and coffee, gives out food, and makes sure no one is left without his portion, and that no one is deprived. He demands nothing for himself. The women are doing their laundry, hanging it on lines. A boring lunch and a nap.
2030—A letter is given to the Palestinians expressing thanks to Amin for his fair attitude and encouraging Israel to release the captives. The letter was written by a number of Israelis. The terrorists are satisfied with its contents, for it does not appear to have been written under pressure. It is Saturday; fellows are making up parodies of the editorials dealing with the situation. How a religious paper might describe it, or a sports journal. Somebody says we should not feel so bad; after all, Herzl did once propose to establish a Jewish state in Uganda. We sang Shabbat songs, quietly, because those outside were nervy, especially in the evening.
The possibility of intercepting President Amin’s personal jet and forcing it down where Israeli agents might grab him was considered. Since Israel built the plane, its technical specifications were known—so well indeed that an earlier proposal had been put forward to tamper with the fuel tanks at Entebbe, causing the pilot to make an emergency landing at Nairobi.
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* See transcripts of three of five telephone conversations between Bar-Lev and Amin, p. 209.
11
AMIN: THE PLO PUPPET
A visitor from Nairobi on Wednesday, June 30, was of inestimable help. A confidant of President Jomo Kenyatta, he was a highly intelligent Kikuyu who had been put in editorial control of Kenya’s Daily Nation, a newspaper established in 1961 as part of a chain financed by the Aga Khan in the hope of exercising a moderate influence on East Africa as it approached Uhuru—independence from British colonialism. There had been a Daily Nation of Uganda and a Daily Nation of Tanganyika working in concert. But Britain’s
with drawal saw the collapse of an embryo East African federation and the countries and the newspapers separated. The Englishman who had edited the papers was replaced by Africans, and in Kenya this was now George Githii.
Githii reached Israel from Teheran as a guest of the Israeli government. There was no publicity. There was no specific role he was expected to play. He knew a great deal about Uganda under Amin, however, and about communications—which are the essence of a newspaper’s life.
Those who talked with George Githii were enclosed in a small intelligence cell. They had no more concept of why he was important than another group knew why it was studying President Amin’s attachment to the Palestinian cause. It was this secret alliance between Uganda and the PLO that offended and finally frightened some of Kenya’s leaders.
Amin’s support for the Palestinians began long before Flight 139 landed in Entebbe. Three hundred commandos from the Palestinian terrorist organizations protected the president. These Palestinians were trained in Libya, as were six sturdy muscular women, armed with revolvers, members of Amin’s own tribe, who joined them.
The building which used to serve Israel in Kampala had been placed at the disposal of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Palestinian flag hoisted to the top of the flagpole which once displayed the Star of David.
Since Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi promised Amin tens of millions of dollars in economic assistance (a promise never kept) Amin had permitted the PLO to build training camps in his territory, invited a PLO delegation to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit conference held in Kampala on July 28, 1975, and went so far as to permit Palestinian terrorists to train on his Russian Mig jets.
“The harder the training, the easier the mission,” Amin assured the Al Fatah terrorists who learned to fly the Migs. In October 1975 Radio Uganda described the “rigorous training” undertaken by the squadron of “Palestinian and Ugandan suicide fliers” in southern Uganda, Civil aircraft were warned not to approach the training area till further notice.
The standard of the Palestinian pilots’ operational performance—and possibly, that of their Ugandan instructors—could be deduced from reports of accidents. During 1975-76 reports were published of planes crashing in which Arab student-pilots were killed. A Palestinian pilot, born in Hebron, who was killed when his plane crashed in Uganda on October 29, 1975, was not untypical. His code name was George; his real name, Yusuf Bragit. He joined Al Fatah in 1967 and was appointed to command the Palestinian volunteers’ squadron after training in China and Algeria during 1968-70. While he was on a training flight, his plane collided with two other planes piloted by Ugandans and Palestinians in northern Uganda. A Ugandan delegation—headed by Amin Maka, President Amin’s personal representative, and Ahmed Daudi, representing the Ugandan air force—escorted George’s coffin to Damascus, and from there to Amman. Amin seized the opportunity to send a message of condolence to Yasir Arafat, “in his own name and in the name of the soldiers of the Ugandan army.”
It was not ideological reasons that persuaded Amin to aid the Palestinian cause. In April 1976 Amin sent a message to the Arab League requesting urgent economic aid. The Arab League honored him with a cold official reply, stating only that his request had been circulated among governments of the league. In his fury Amin criticized the Arab states and, according to the Nairobi Daily Nation, proclaimed that all Uganda’s problems “stem from my firm support for the Palestinians.”
Two months earlier an official PLO statement published in Beirut confirmed that Uganda was training Palestinian fliers. In return, “the PLO is extending military assistance to Uganda.” The statement did not reveal what this assistance was. The truth is concealed in the enthusiastic words of Amin’s thanks to Arafat: “This assistance has contributed to strengthening Uganda’s capacity, and her ability to take part in the liberation of Palestine and of South Africa from Zionism and racism.” He entertained the Palestinian pilots in his palace and announced that Yasir Arafat had placed them under his command; “and as your commander, I have the authority to send you on missions connected with Palestine, and Arab or African problems. As long as you are here, consider yourselves as though you were in your own country, among your brethren who serve in the Ugandan air force. It is your duty to prepare here for your principal task in Palestine.
“However, you are not the only ones who must prepare to fight the enemy—but all the states which wish to liberate Palestine, among which, of course, is Uganda,” Amin concluded. His words were given prominence in the PLO organ Falastin a-Thura, published in Beirut.
Why did the terrorists need Amin’s services in training their pilots? The answer was supplied not long ago by one of the terrorist commanders, “Abu Jara,” when he offered public praise to the Ugandan president: “You, general, have done things for the Palestinians which their Arab brethren in other Arab states have refused to do. We need an air force.”
How did Field Marshal Idi Amin arrive at such a violent hatred of Israel, if Israel helped him to take power? He even owed his life to an Israeli officer, Ze’ev (“Zonik”) Shaham.
It happened in 1965. Zonik was head of the Israeli military mission in Kampala, while Amin was deputy commander in chief of the Ugandan army. In the course of his duties Amin frequently inspected the units under his command; a Dakota, acquired from the Israeli air force and flown by an Israeli pilot, was placed at his disposal. One day Amin took off for a routine inspection of one of the units of the West Nile tribe. While the plane was slowly making its way to its destination, Zonik in Kampala learned that officers of the West Nile unit had resolved to assassinate Amin. The officers were waiting for their distinguished visitor on the runway, intending to open fire at Amin when he stood in the exit. Zonik ordered the Israeli pilot of the Dakota to turn back and the mutinous officers waited in vain.
Amin thanked Zonik warmly. So did President Milton Obote, inviting the head of the Israeli military delegation to his office to praise him. Years later, when Amin had deposed Obote, Zonik wondered how the former president would have behaved at the time of the assassination attempt had he known the fate that awaited him.
The first links with leaders and parties in Uganda were established by Asher Naïm, of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, from his post in Kenya. With quiet persistence, avoiding the attentions of British security and the considerable forces of regular troops and operational intelligence units deployed in the war against the Mau Mau, Naïm established contact with Dr. Obote, who was to become the first president of Uganda after its independence.
Shortly after Uganda became independent, Shimon Peres, then director general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, came to Uganda on a visit. His hosts asked him to help establish their army and air force. Peres gave his consent and in April 1963 then Foreign Minister Golda Meir signed an agreement for assistance and cooperation with Kampala.
Colonel Shaham arrived in Uganda as head of the delegation of the Israeli army and defense ministry that followed the agreement. A superficial inspection showed him there was much to do. The Ugandan army consisted of one infantry battalion, numbering 700 to 800 men. The commander of the battalion was British, as were the officers, senior and junior. The infantry battalion excelled, above all, in parade-ground drill. It was a largely ceremonial battalion, which served for festive parades. To Zonik and the Israeli officers who accompanied him, this was a comic opera battalion that should be converted into an effective fighting force.
They began on a small scale, training only one company in an attempt to convert it into a combat rifle unit. Ugandan soldiers were sent to train in the Israeli army’s central officers’ school, and in the air force pilots’ school. The Israeli officers’ success in training the infantry company induced President Obote to ask the Israeli delegation to undertake the training of the Ugandan special police. Using Fouga-Magistas and Dakotas sent from Israel, Israeli air force instructors established the Ugandan air force, starting from the ground up, even establishing a technical
school. On Uganda’s second independence day, six Fuga-Magista jets flew past in an aerial display, pleasing Israeli observers, who were in those days still convinced that only British colonial rule prevented Africans from developing an independent, responsible, and powerful fighting capability. Idi Amin cultivated special relations with the Israeli group in Kampala, perhaps because these fellows from Tel Aviv treated him as an equal. He visited Israel often and each time returned full of admiration. His praise for Israeli diligence knew no bounds. When the first jet trainers reached Uganda, broken down into sections for shipment by sea and land, he was astounded to see how the Israelis converted these “bits of metal” into jet planes. He volunteered to fly in the first flight of the first assembled Fuga-Magista and returned excited as never before. Later he acquired a rare award from the Israelis: paratrooper’s wings, which he continued to wear with unconcealed pride even on his July 2 flight to Mauritius.
Relations were so close that one day Amin presented to Colonel Shaham, who was acting as Israeli military attache in Kampala, a request that Israel should help sell an enormous quantity of gold stolen from the Congo. Amin told Zonik that Israel must carry out his request. The Israeli government turned down Amin’s offer to share in the booty, but bankers arranged for disposal of the gold without feeling any compulsion to look into the source.
When Israel turned down Amin’s demand to help attack neighboring Tanzania, he grew furious. Israel’s foreign ministry in Jerusalem still believed that deterioration in the relationships between the two countries would not go so far as a complete severance of ties. But President Amin—ever more unstable, rash, and impulsive in his decisions—soon smashed this last illusion. In February 1972, in a festive statement issued by Amin and Libyan ruler Muammar al-Qaddafi, the two men undertook to support the struggle of the Arab peoples against Zionism and imperialism, for the liberation of all the occupied Arab lands, for restoration of Palestinian rights, and for the Palestinians’ return to their lands.
90 Minutes at Entebbe Page 8
