90 Minutes at Entebbe

by William Stevenson

  “A highly placed French source said that President Amin had refused to allow Pierre Renard, the French Ambassador to Uganda, or a special French envoy to deal with the hijackers directly. . . .

  “They also noted that during the first 24 hours after the aircraft reached Entebbe, the hijackers withdrew to rest and Ugandans guarded the hostages.

  “Other evidence pointing to the Ugandan President’s involvement with the terrorists was included in comments by French diplomats and the reports of hostages freed earlier by the terrorists. . . .

  “Among the passengers released last week were Michel Cojot and his 12-year-old son, Oliver. Mr. Cojot, a French management consultant, served as interpreter for the hostages, and negotiated on their behalf for small conveniences during the ordeal.

  “Mr. Cojot said that he had ‘not a shadow of a doubt’ that Uganda knew of the hijack plan in advance and had prepared for action. . . .

  “Mr. Cojot said that after landing at Entebbe, Kampala’s international airport, everyone remained on the plane for several hours.

  “‘The terrorists packed up their grenades and put them back in the sacks they had carried aboard. They put the 7.65 Czech automatic pistols, which had never left their hands for a second during the flight, into their belts and sat down together in the front of the plane,’ he said. ‘Until then there had always been at least one in front and one in back to cover us.’

  “Mr. Cojot said that at that point he managed to talk with one of the crew members and suggested that it would be possible to overcome the four hijackers, who were grouped together without weapons in their hands, and for someone to ship out of the exit and summon help.

  “‘We agreed, though, that the hijackers were acting as though they felt completely at home. The sudden relaxation of their previously thorough discipline showed they considered themselves on friendly ground’. . . .

  “‘. . . The whole time we felt we were being guarded by both the hijackers and the Ugandans.’

  “Friends of the hijackers who joined them at the airport appeared to be Palestinians, Mr. Cojot said. ‘They came and went freely in a Datsun with local license plates and a diplomatic plate, carrying weapons,’ he added.

  “The Ugandan civilian manager at the airport had food and drink ready for the hostages not longer after their arrival. ‘But nonetheless I had to talk to him,’ Mr. Cojot said, ‘because there weren’t enough plates at one time and then not enough glasses. I was joking and said, “Well, it must be hard to look after 263 unexpected guests” ’.

  “‘The manager replied, “Oh, but I was expecting you,”’ Mr. Cojot said.”

  The Washington Post of 5 July similarly carried a detailed indictment of President Amin:

  “The accounts of the 148 non-Jewish hostages released earlier in the week supported the Israelis’ view.

  “The freed hostages spoke of Amin’s embracing the leader of the hijack gang and of the four hijackers then leaving the hostages to be guarded by Ugandan troops for 24 hours.

  “Afterward, the two Arabs and two Germans who hijacked the Air France plane over Greece returned, looking refreshed after a night’s sleep and a bath.

  “The four hijackers were later joined by at least three Palestinians, and the gang was supplied with additional automatic weapons, according to French and Greek hostages.

  “A Greek ship mechanic, Christos Sarantis, speaking for the seven Greeks freed earlier in the week, said, ‘We were guarded by black soldiers and by about a hundred persons in civilian dress, who had excellent relations and co-operated with the hijackers. There was full co-operation between Amin, his men and the hijackers.’”

  I am fully aware of the statement made by Captain Bacos, as reported in The New York Times of 6 July and quoted here by the Foreign Minister of Mauritius. However, the overwhelming body of evidence corroborated by the majority of the hostages that were released—as was, indeed, reported many times in the press—proves that indeed Ugandan troops participated together with the terrorists in guard duty over the 260-odd innocent passengers and crew. I regret that the Foreign Minister of Mauritius chose to ignore the extensive evidence available, which proves Uganda’s collusion with the terrorists.

  I have already, in my statement of Friday last, referred to the fact that the terrorists, always aided by the Ugandans, interrogated some Israelis, at times using force and even threats of death. The New York Times of Sunday, 11 July, carried a vivid description of one such interrogation conducted by both the terrorists and the Ugandans:

  “During one period of questioning by the terrorists about what he really knew about Israel, Mr. Dahan was slapped in the face, punched in the back and his fingers were twisted backwards. He was told to write long reports about Israel and he proceeded to turn in documents dealing with kibbutz life and how he picked grapefruit.

  “After one of these exercises, a Ugandan tore the paper out of his hand and threw it on the floor, saying:

  “‘This is not what we want. . . . We want to know about the army. We want to know where the bases are. We want the name of your general.’

  “A tall Palestinian carrying a gun and another called ‘George’ joined four Ugandan officers in the questioning. At one point, George put a gun to Mr, Dahan’s chest.”

  In view of the overwhelming body of evidence corroborated by most of the 260 passengers and crew of the hijacked plane, I am left with no other choice but to call the two statements of the Foreign Minister of Uganda nothing but the most formidable collection of distortions, half-truths, deliberate omissions and outright falsehoods this Council has heard in a long time.

  I shall not tire the Council by listing each and every distortion. They are too numerous to count, and it would prove very time consuming. However, there is one abominable lie which my country cannot pass over in silence, and it is incumbent upon me to show the true faces of the President of Uganda and his Foreign Minister for what they are.

  The Foreign Minister of Uganda has stated before this Security Council that

  “When she”—Mrs. Bloch—“got better in the evening of Saturday, 3 July, she was returned by the medical authorities to the old Entebbe airport to join the other hostages. . . .

  “The Israelis committed a naked act of aggression by invading Entebbe airport where the hostages, including Mrs. Dora Bloch, were being held by the hijackers. . . . The members of the invading force took away all the hostages—dead, injured or otherwise. . . .

  “The press reports and diplomatic sources according to which one diplomat saw Mrs. Dora Bloch in hospital on Sunday are false. There is no concrete information about it.” (1939th meeting, p. 112)

  So much for the statement of the Foreign Minister of Uganda before this Council.

  I repeat that that is a damnable lie. Mrs. Bloch was visited in the hospital by a British diplomat on Sunday, 4 July, after Israel’s rescue operation at Entebbe Airport, as was clearly stated to this Council by the representative of the United Kingdom. The diplomat reported that she was being guarded by two men, and when he returned an hour later he was not allowed to see her. That diplomat, we were informed yesterday by the representative of the United Kingdom, is to be expelled from Uganda today.

  And we now have the ominous news that the Government of Uganda is applying the threat of blackmail to foreign nationals in Uganda in connexion with the current proceedings in the Security Council. In other words, for the first time in history, a direct attempt is being made by threats of blackmail of the most ominous character to influence the proceedings in this Council.

  How can this Council pass over this in silence? How can it ignore a blatant attempt to influence this body? How can the members of this Council ignore this flagrant attempt to interfere with their national sovereignty? This whole sordid affair condemns not only the Government of Uganda but all the countries which have spoken out against the Israeli rescue mission during this debate. They have ignored the basic cause of this issue, namely the hijacking of the plane, and, for re
asons of political expediency, they have not even had the good grace to say one word about the fate of an old lady of 75 dragged out of the hospital, in all probability to the horrible fate that has been meted out to tens of thousands of Ugandans, a fate the nature of which has been described by the Foreign Minister of Kenya in the letter he addressed to you today, Mr. President.

  With all due respect to the Foreign Minister of Mauritius and to other members who have joined him in condemning Israel, the fact that they did not see fit even to mention in passing the fate of Mrs. Bloch and did not see fit to address an appeal to the Ugandan authorities in respect to her whereabouts removes from them the moral right to any standing in this debate.

  The case of Mrs. Bloch only emphasizes in a most tragic manner the scope of the complicity of the Ugandans. And let me quote from a statement by Mr. Yigal Allon, our Foreign Minister, in the Knesset yesterday:

  “The disappearance of Mrs. Bloch constitutes an inseparable part of the whole hijacking incident. The fate which befell her gives vivid substance to the awful danger which threatened the lives of all the hijacked passengers at Entebbe until they were freed in the magnificent rescue operation conducted by the Israel defence forces. It also proves once and forever how empty and devoid of contempt, human, moral and legal alike, were those voices which rushed to condemn Israel in the international arena for carrying out the elementary duty towards its citizens and saving them from this awful danger.”

  Again I wish to draw the attention of this Council to a fact conveniently ignored—namely, that to date, 10 days after the release of the hostages, the French Air France plant has not yet been released. Again, this is a significant factor, though perhaps a minor one against the background of the bloodshed, terror, human misery and suffering which that operation has entailed.

  I do not wish to refute many of the speeches made at this table, because in certain circumstances they have been made by countries whose regimes have so much in common with the regime in Uganda that there is no point in addressing myself to their remarks on a legal or moral basis. One of those countries is Somalia, which, as I have mentioned before, has become a centre for terrorist operations and a threat to its neighbouring State. The representative of Somalia furthermore went out of his way to misquote some of my remarks, a fact which does not surprise me. However, I should like to refer to some of the statements that have been made.

  As for the Mexican letter, document S/12135, of 9 July 1976, addressed to you, Mr. President, we have always followed with understanding the very active campaign that Mexico is conducting against the terrorism which affects it. We are therefore all the more surprised that Mexico is unable to reveal a similar measure of understanding when action is taken designed to combat terror in cases where the victims are not Mexicans. It is utterly incredible and beyond the realm of comprehension that political expediency should dictate to the Government of Mexico and lead it to attack a small State defending itself against a common enemy of Mexico and Israel, namely international terror.

  I cannot hide my amazement at the fact that the representative of Yugoslavia saw fit this time too, as in cases in the past, to intervene in a debate on the side of those condemning Israel, in his anxious desire to demonstrate his loyal alignment with the remarks of the so-called non-aligned countries. If any country in the world should be interested today in a move against terror, if any country in the world should have had a word of condolence to say for the victims of the hijacking and terror, then it should have been Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav delegate, let it be noted, had words of condolence for Uganda. Innocent Israeli hostages were killed too in this operation. Why had Yugoslavia not one word to say for them? It is sad indeed to see the Yugoslav Government, on each occasion in this forum, rushing to the head of the line in order to condemn Israel, regardless of the issue, blinded apparently by an extreme anti-Israel attitude and by an espousal of the cause of the new anti-Semitism in the world today. Yugoslavia, like many other countries which spoke at this debate, does not realize that international terrorism—from which it suffers no less than do others—will yet make them eat the words expressed by their representative on this occasion at this Council table.

  Frankly, I regret perhaps more than many of the other interventions that of the representative of Tanzania. I regret it because of the personal high regard in which I hold him and because of the very great respect in which I, together with many others in Israel, regard his great mu’allim, teacher, the President of Tanzania, whose guest I have had the honour to be. In his legal arguments he conveniently forgets that the legal authorities which he quotes do justify, in international law, such actions as we are discussing, on the grounds of individual self-defence or collective self-defence, as I believe I pointed out when quoting at great length from authorities on international law in my speech last Friday. He and others quoted Article 2, paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter, obligating countries to settle their disputes by peaceful means. Let me again quote O’Connell in International Law, second edition, page 303:

  Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter should be interpreted as prohibiting acts of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of nations, and not to prohibit a use of force which is limited in intention and effect to the protection of a state’s own integrity and its nationals’ vital interests, when the machinery envisaged by the United Nations Charter is ineffective in the situation.”

  One’s mind tends to be dulled and one’s memory to be hazy as the debate goes on in this Council. Let me remind the Council that we are talking about a decision by the Government of Israel to protect its citizens, hostages threatened with their very lives, over 100 men, women and children held at gun point by terrorists who had hijacked them, who recognize no sovereignty, know no law, and who have proved in the past that there are no limits to their bestiality.

  These are the selfsame people who shot diplomats, bound hand and foot; who murdered sportsmen at the Olympic games, bound hand and foot and who, in the past, have held children hostage and were ready to slaughter them. These people were being aided and abetted by a Government headed by a racist murderer who had applauded the slaughter of Israeli sportsmen, bound hand and foot by the same terrorists; who had called for the extinction of Israel in this United Nations, and who had not only praised Hitler for the murder of six million Jews but had proposed building a monument to Hitler—a move which prompted even the Soviet Ambassador in Kampala to suggest to President Amin that he was going too far.

  This was the problem that faced the Government of Israel: over 100 men, women and children, innocent hostages with terrorist guns pointed at them and with no doubt whatsoever in anybody’s mind as to the intention of these terrorists to carry out their wicked plan and slaughter innocent people as they had done in the past. This is the picture which must be in the mind’s eye of representatives as they discuss this problem.

  I regret many of the remarks made by the representative of Tanzania because I suspect they do not reflect his true feelings or the true feelings of the Government of Tanzania.

  I reject out of hand his ridiculous attempt to equate with an attack on Africa this Israeli rescue operation to save its passengers. How can the representative of Tanzania make such a remark?

  Would Africa have looked better if Palestinian terrorists, in connivance with President Amin, had slaughtered over 100 men, women and children?

  Would Africa have looked better with the blood of those innocent victims bespattering the soil of Africa?

  Who has besmirched Africa? Israel, for exercising its right to save its citizens in accordance with international law? Or that racist regime in Uganda, waging a heroic war against a defenceless old lady of 75 years?

  Who is threatening Africa? Israel which has done so much to help so many African countries, including many today, in the fields of agriculture, of technology, of health? Or the country which has dispatched this week 30 fighter-planes as reinforcements to Uganda, namely the Government of
Libya? Against whom are these planes directed and by whom are they flown? You know as well as I do that they are directed against Kenya and Tanzania, which have been threatened and continue to be threatened openly in statements by the President of Uganda, and that the planes are flown by, amongst others, PLO pilots.

  Who is threatening Africa and the Africans?

  Israel, whose refusal to be associated in any way with President Amin’s proposal to invade and bomb Tanzania in 1972 brought about Uganda’s break with Israel, or the Head of State who produced in Israel and in other countries incidentally maps describing his plans to invade Tanzania?

  Who has treated Africa with contempt if not the President of Uganda, who has labelled the President of Tanzania, a man of international stature and standing, in words which are despicable and disgusting and which I do not wish to repeat because of the high regard which I and my people have for the President of Tanzania.

  The representative of Tanzania says he “would have preferred principles to be given priority over expediency”.

  What principles are you talking about? The principles of Uganda which are reflected in the grim recital of murder, kidnapping and banditry in the document distributed today by the Foreign Minister of Kenya? Have you said one word here against these Ugandan principles? Is it principle or expediency which brought you, the distinguished representative of a very distinguished country, to be a co-sponsor of this resolution with Libya, the paymaster and centre of world terrorism and the country which is supplying fighter aircraft to Uganda? You know as well as I do that those planes will not be used by Uganda against Israel.

  If you, my dear friend, wish to discuss principles and expediency, by all means let us do so. But let us spell them out too. Let us not be selective about principles and expediency, just as we should not be selective about terror and rescue operations.