Battle in the Uganda–Tanzania War, April 1979
The Fall of Kampala, also known as the Liberation of Kampala (Kiswahili: "Kukombolewa kwa Kampala"), was a battle during the Uganda–Tanzania War in 1979, in which the combined forces of Tanzania and the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) attacked and captured the Ugandan capital, Kampala. As a result, Ugandan President Idi Amin was deposed, his forces were scattered, and a UNLF government was installed.
Amin had seized power in Uganda in 1971 and established a brutal dictatorship. Seven years later he attempted to invade Tanzania to the south. Tanzania repulsed the assault and launched a counter-attack into Ugandan territory. After routing the Ugandans and their Libyan allies in Entebbe, the Tanzanians revised their existing offensive designs for Kampala. The plans called for the 208th Brigade to advance from the south, spearheaded by Lieutenant Colonel Ben Msuya's 800-strong 19th Battalion, which was to secure the centre of the city. The 207th Brigade and a UNLF battalion were to attack from the west, while the 201st Brigade was to establish roadblocks to the north to prevent Ugandan units from withdrawing. An eastern corridor was left open to allow the Libyans to evacuate to Jinja and fly out of the country. Amin prepared for the defence of Kampala but fled through the gap.
The Tanzanians began their assault on the city on the morning of 10 April. The 19th Battalion moved cautiously down the Entebbe–Kampala road. Other battalions of the 208th advanced on Port Bell. The 201st Brigade established its roadblocks north of Kampala and intercepted the forces attempting to reinforce Kampala from Bombo and those attempting to break out of Kampala. The 207th Brigade advanced from the west in tandem with the UNLF battalion, which secured Nateete and passed through Rubaga. One of the 207th's battalions seized Kasubi hill and the royal tomb of the Kabakas. The 19th Battalion encountered only sporadic resistance and was greeted by crowds of rejoicing civilians. Upon reaching Kampala's city centre, the unit, lacking maps, had trouble navigating the streets. The Tanzanians secured the radio station and set up a command post on Kololo hill. The UNLF battalion occupied Republic House—the Uganda Army's headquarters at the edge of the city—unopposed, but was unable to take the State Research Bureau at Nakasero. Men of the 207th and 208th Brigades seized the southern and western portions of the city. The few Libyan units in the area put up little resistance, most having retreated to Jinja.
By dawn on April 11, Tanzanian troops had cut off all routes out of Kampala, including the road to Jinja, and began eliminating remaining pockets of resistance. Some UNLF forces conducted revenge killings against suspected collaborators with the Amin regime, while others attacked Kakwa and Nubians, both ethnic groups that had benefited from the dictatorship. Later in the morning Tanzanian artillery bombarded parts of the city. The remaining Ugandan soldiers in the city desperately attempted to escape by changing into civilian clothes and requisitioning civilian vehicles. Casualty statistics are not exact, though Tanzanian losses are estimated to have been light, and dozens of Ugandan soldiers and civilians are believed to have died. The battle marked the first time in the recent history of the continent that an African state seized the capital of another African country and deposed its government. In the immediate aftermath, civilians engaged in rampant looting, despite the attempts of Tanzanian and UNLF troops to maintain order. A new Ugandan government was established by the UNLF. Though pro-Amin forces were left scattered and disjointed by the seizure of the capital, combat operations in the country continued until 3 June, when Tanzanian forces reached the Sudanese border and eliminated the last resistance.
Background.
In 1971, Idi Amin launched a military coup that overthrew the President of Uganda, Milton Obote, precipitating a deterioration of relations with neighbouring Tanzania. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere had close ties with Obote and had supported his socialist orientation. Amin installed himself as President of Uganda and ruled the country under a repressive dictatorship. Nyerere withheld diplomatic recognition of the new government and offered asylum to Obote and his supporters. He tacticly supported a failed attempt by Obote to overthrow Amin in 1972, and after a brief border conflict he and Amin signed a peace accord. Nevertheless, relations between the two presidents remained tense, and Amin made repeated threats to invade Tanzania.
Uganda's economy languished under Amin's corrupt rule and instability manifested in the armed forces. Following a failed mutiny in late October 1978, Ugandan troops crossed the Tanzanian border in pursuit of rebellious soldiers. On 1 November Amin announced that he was annexing the Kagera Salient in northern Tanzania. Tanzania halted the sudden invasion, mobilised anti-Amin opposition groups, and launched a counter-offensive. Nyerere told foreign diplomats that he did not intend to depose Amin, but only "teach him a lesson". The claim was not believed; Nyerere despised Amin, and he made statements to some of his colleagues about overthrowing him. The Tanzanian government also felt that its northern border would not be secure unless the threat presented by Amin was eliminated. After initial advances into Ugandan territory, Major General David Msuguri was appointed commander of the Tanzania People's Defence Force (TPDF)'s 20th Division and ordered to push further into the country.
The TPDF seized Masaka on 24 February 1979. Nyerere originally planned to halt his forces there and allow Ugandan exiles to attack Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and overthrow Amin. He feared that scenes of Tanzanian troops occupying the city would reflect poorly on the country's image abroad. The fall of Masaka surprised and deeply troubled Ugandan commanders, who felt that the defeat made Kampala vulnerable to attack. They mobilised additional forces and began planning for a defence of the city. Some troops were sent to Lukaya, where they vainly attempted to halt the Tanzanian advance.
Ugandan opposition groups met in Moshi in late March. They elected Yusuf Lule chairman of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) and established a cabinet. Shortly thereafter President Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, an ally of Amin, attempted to stem the advance by sending an ultimatum to Nyerere, demanding that he withdraw his forces in 24 hours or face the opposition of Libyan troops (which were already operating in Uganda). Nyerere rejected the threat in a radio broadcast, announcing that Libya's entry into the war did not change the Tanzanian government's view of Amin. Ugandan rebel forces did not have the strength to defeat Libyan units, so Nyerere decided to use the TPDF to take Kampala. Tanzanian leaders were also inclined to capture the city after Ugandan planes bombed Kagera and following Amin's announcement that the inhabitants of Masaka and Mbarara would face retaliation for welcoming the Tanzanian invasion. The successful formation of the UNLF government eased Tanzanian concerns about the aftermath of a seizure of the capital. On 25 March Amin imposed a curfew and a blackout in Kampala, which was home to 400,000 residents. Four days later the United Nations announced that it would evacuate the approximately 140 dependents of its Kampala staff to Kenya. On 31 March the Tanzanians drew up their plans of attack. Despite the imminence of the TPDF offensive, the leadership of the Save Uganda Movement (SUM) –a rebel group with active guerrillas in Ugandan cities– ordered its cells in Kampala to fall back to Kenya at this point, much to the SUM guerrillas' confusion and frustration.
Prelude.
In early April Tanzanian forces began to concentrate their efforts on weakening the Ugandan position in Kampala. Jets conducted several sorties against military targets in the city. Tanzanian commanders had originally assumed that Amin would station the bulk of his forces in the capital, and their initial plans called for a direct attack on the city. However, from the high ground in Mpigi they could see the Entebbe peninsula, where there was heavy Libyan air traffic and a large contingent of Ugandan and Libyan soldiers. If the TPDF seized Kampala before securing the town of Entebbe, it would be susceptible to a flanking attack. Taking Entebbe would cut off Uganda's Libyan reinforcements and permit an assault on the capital from the south. Msuguri made the decision to attack the peninsula first, and ordered the 208th Brigade to secure it. A preliminary bombardment frightened Amin in his official residence, the Entebbe State House, and he fled via helicopter to Kampala. On 7 April the brigade advanced into the town. Many Libyan soldiers attempted to evacuate to Kampala but were intercepted and killed. Following the seizure of Entebbe, hundreds of Ugandan soldiers garrisoning Kampala fled, many of them relocating with their moveable possessions to the country's north. While these troops attempted to flee the capital, one unit relocated from Bombo to Kampala to help defend Amin's government. It mostly consisted of members of West Nile tribes who were still loyal due to the patronage which they had received from the President. The remnants of the Libyan force joined the remaining Ugandan troops and took up positions around the capital. The morale of the Libyans and Uganda Army troops was extremely low despite Amin's public claims to the contrary.
On the morning of 8 April, Tanzanian officers held a final meeting in the Entebbe State House before the attack on Kampala. Brigadier Mwita Marwa, commander of the 208th Brigade, conducted the briefing. Nyerere requested that his commanders leave the eastern road from the city leading to Jinja clear so that Libyan troops and foreign diplomats could evacuate. He thought that by letting the Libyans escape, Libya could avoid humiliation and quietly withdraw from the war. Nyerere also feared that further conflict with Libyan troops would incite Afro–Arab tensions and invite the armed belligerence of other Arab states. He sent a message to Gaddafi explaining his decision, saying that the Libyans could be airlifted out of Uganda unopposed from the airstrip in Jinja. He further requested that his forces avoid damaging key buildings in Kampala, including Mulago Hospital, Makerere University, and the Parliament of Uganda. The Tanzanian plan of attack called for an advance by the 207th Brigade and a UNLF battalion from the west along the road from Masaka with a simultaneous assault from Entebbe in the south by the 208th Brigade. The latter's 19th Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Ben Msuya was earmarked for the seizure of the city centre, while other units were to cover their flanks in the bush. The 201st Brigade was to maintain a "blocking action" north of Kampala to prevent Ugandan forces from escaping. The entire operation was supposed to take three days to complete.
Amin made final preparations for the defence of the capital, and General Dusman Sabuni was left in charge of the defences. According to the "Africa Research Bulletin", there were approximately 1,000 soldiers garrisoning the city, while journalist John Darnton reported on 9 April an estimate that Amin had 2,000 to 3,000 men just south of the capital as "a last line of defence". The Kampala garrison included members of the Chui Battalion, personnel of the Ugandan Air Force, and a few tanks. In addition to Ugandan and Libyan soldiers, a small number of allied Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) militants belonging to Fatah took up positions in the outskirts of Kampala. These Palestinians were commanded by Mahmoud Da'as and reportedly ready to fight. Regardless, they also prepared possible evacuation routes. Many civilians fled in anticipation of a battle, though Minister of Commerce Muhammad Bakhit declared that they had to return within two days or have their property "reallocated". Most of the students at Makerere University went to their family homes outside the city. Kampala District Commissioner Wahib Muhammed claimed that a week before the Tanzanian attack Amin ordered all soldiers in the Kampala garrison to evacuate their families, and that most of the army subsequently withdrew "with a lot of discipline". On 8 April the Soviet Union's diplomats evacuated to Kenya in a convoy, accompanied by the personnel of other Eastern bloc legations.
The 800-strong 19th Battalion entrenched itself on a hill 21 kilometres away from Kampala overlooking the road from Entebbe. Throughout the night of 8 April the battalion command post faced harassing fire from a tank. Ugandan reconnaissance patrols engaged in sporadic fighting with Tanzanian defences while artillery bombarded Kampala's suburbs. At 03:30 on 9 April the 19th Battalion descended from its position. Shortly afterwards, Tanzanian