THE claims and COULLCE. claims are hard to disentangle, but COMEDICC force Tanzanians and exiles loyal to ex-premier Milton Obote seems to have captured the southern Ugandan town of Masaka.
The belligerent President Idi Amin has appealed for peace -a sign that his eight year rule is finally, and mercifully, drawing to an end.
The story of Amin's discomfiture begins when between 2,000 and 3,000 Ugandan troops with air and artillery backing pushed miles into neighbouring Tanzania. They occupied a 700 square mile area down to the Kagera river, which Amin implausibly claims for his own.
Tanzania taken Was SUEDESe both because the territorial claim was so bizarre and since the area is completely barren.
Amin was surprised at the hostility of African reaction. Most nIS East African neighbours condemned the invasion outright, while Uganda's Libyan ally called for a "brotherly resolution'.
Belatedly realising that the adventure was military disaster, Amin agreed to pull out. The Tanzanians, hardly surprisingly, did not believe a word of it and continued to pour troops into the Kagera salient. That was the beginning of the present war, which has Socialist Challenge 8 March 1979 page 12 now worked its way wards into Amin's back yard.
invasion have been advanced. Amin's brain although it can be medically proved SCROUS For lunacy, he has hardly departed from the norms of behaviour proper LO politician.
The first reason, floated by Tanzania and a number radical African states, was that the invasion aimed to divert Tanzania from its preoccupaby