AFRICA: Big Daddy: The Perfect Host

Any political gathering held on the home turf of Uganda’s dictatorial President Idi Amin Dada was bound to be a bit bizarre. The twelfth annual summit of the Organization of African Unity in Kampala last week easily lived up—or down—to expectations. “I will not embarrass you because of the confidence you have shown in me,” “Big Daddy” promised as he became OAU chairman for the coming year. Nonetheless President Amin—who had generously promoted himself to the rank of field marshal for the occasion—proceeded to put on a divertissement that could not fail to embarrass delegates who had come to Kampala for serious business.

Brutal Actions. Traditionally, the rotating OAU chairmanship honors the leader of the host nation for each year’s summit. Perhaps fearing the worst, moderate African leaders plotted desperately to bypass Big Daddy when Uganda’s turn as host rolled unavoidably around this year. In the past, the continent’s heads of state have tended to ignore Amin’s buffoonery and instability. Recently, though, they have been embarrassed by growing evidence of his brutal actions. Since Big Daddy seized power four years ago, an estimated 50,000 enemies of his regime have been murdered. He has expelled another 50,000 longtime Asian residents from his country and amply displayed his arrogant cruelty—most recently by dangling British Writer Denis Hills (TIME, July 7) at the end of a death sentence until British authorities pleaded for clemency.

Ultimately, only 19 of the 46 OAU heads of state turned up at Kampala. Three nations—Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana—boycotted the assemblage to protest Big Daddy’s presence in the chair, and 24 others sent lesser delegations. The unexpected overthrow of Nigeria’s Yakubu Gowon at mid-meeting cast another pall. Four participants —Congo’s Marien Ngouabi, Gabon’s Omar Bongo, Cameroon’s Ahmadou Ahidjo and Niger’s Seyni Kountché —quickly lit out for home. “Maybe they’re not exactly afraid,” commented one Arab delegate. “Just prudent.”

For those who showed, reported TIME Correspondent Lee Griggs, it was a convention to remember. Delegates were met at Entebbe International Airport by bare-breasted dancers, native drummers and Big Daddy himself. The highlight of a presummit cocktail party was the entrance of Amin, ensconced in a sedan chair toted by four otherwise staid British businessmen who live in Uganda; Big Daddy’s 280-lb. bulk, it was jokingly explained, was now “the white man’s burden.” Amin squeezed out a few tunes on an accordion to entertain his guests and proudly showed off a presidential menagerie that included a crocodile, an ostrich, a leopard and a chimpanzee.

Television Network. Amin waved the green flag to start a special OAU road rally, then jumped into his Maserati to participate briefly in the race; his assistant driver was a comely young Ugandan woman identified only as Amin’s “very good friend” and as “Miss Sarah.” At week’s end Miss Sarah became Amin’s second wife (he had four last year but divorced three of them).

At Kampala’s football stadium, 6,000 children went through card drills, in which they flashed such messages as “We are happy under the care of Marshal Amin” and “The imperialists are our enemies.” Soldiers did military drills to a curious tempo—selections by Vienna’s operetta king, Franz Lehár. Uganda’s air force bombed an island in Lake Victoria renamed “Cape Town View” for the occasion. That was to demonstrate how Big Daddy planned to deal with the white racists of South Africa and Rhodesia.

Amin’s mismanagement and his lavish expenditure on military hardware have reduced Uganda’s economy to a shambles. Neighboring nations now refuse to sell Amin goods except for cash in advance. Last week, however, thanks to a special loan of $30 million from Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid to Amin, a cornucopia of salt, sugar, eggs, butter, chickens, and whisky appeared in Uganda. “I have won the economic war,” Amin bragged as he dedicated, of all unnecessary things, a color television network, which serves a scant 350 sets, during summit ceremonies.

A million rolls of toilet paper had been imported for the occasion, as well as enough tabasco sauce to satiate Ugandan palates for years to come. Nonetheless soap was often unavailable, and items in many shops carried discreet “for display only” signs. “If the field marshal has won the war,” one Kampala storekeeper said, “we cannot afford any more victories or we will all go broke.” A group calling itself the Uganda Liberation Committee set off a series of bombs in the capital to protest extravagance while peasants still went without medicine or hospitals.

Troubled Angola. Despite Amin’s sideshows, the summit managed to dispose of a serious agenda of 41 items. It admitted four new member nations —Mozambique, the Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé and Principe, and the Comoro Islands. It voted to send a “conciliation committee” to troubled Angola rather than the peace-keeping force that Amin recommended. It opted for further negotiations with Rhodesia to achieve eventual black rule, rather than the invasion that Amin demanded. Rebuffing militant Arab members, the OAU voted only for increased pressure on Israel to observe United Nations resolutions on withdrawal from occupied territory, rather than the U.N. expulsion or immediate suspension that the Arabs had sought. Finally, the members agreed to hold their next summit—presuming the OAU can survive a full year with Big Daddy Amin at its head—on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.