Word: kampala
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
July 1976: Pro-Palestinian gunmen hijacked an Air France jet to Entebbe Airport on the outskirts of Kampala in Uganda. Holding 106 people hostage, the terrorists demanded the release of 53 prisoners from jails in Israel, Kenya and several European countries. Israeli commandos aboard three C-130 Hercules transports swept down on the airfield at night. Three hostages and one Israeli officer were killed; 103 people were rescued...
...northeast, where U.N. officials estimate that 136,000 people are on the verge of starvation. Savage Karamojong tribesmen, armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifles looted from one of Amin's arsenals, raid villages and harass the missionary outposts where relief food and medicine are distributed. Famine may eventually hit Kampala, where many workers earn 500 shillings ($68) or less a month, barely enough to purchase three bunches of green bananas, the staple of the diet. Complains a Kampala housewife: "Prices were never this high under Amin...
...make ends meet, virtually every Ugandan has resorted to cheating. Cab drivers charge 1,000 shillings for the 21-mile drive from Kampala to Entebbe airport, ten times the fare a year ago. Clerks at government-controlled stores routinely consign salt, sugar and other commodities to the black market, where they sell for many times the official price. Coffee, Uganda's biggest cash crop, is smuggled into neighboring Burundi, which last year exported more than twice the quantity of coffee beans it harvested in its own fields. Says a Ugandan clergyman: "I don't know if our people...
Most of the demands for Binaisa's resignation involve charges that he has done little or nothing to root out entrenched government corruption. Last month Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, whose troops did most of the fighting in the war against Amin, dispatched his Foreign Minister, Ben Mkapa, to Kampala with a harsh message: Tanzanians had not shed their blood and emptied their treasury so that Ugandan politicians could line their pockets and fight among themselves. By early March Nyerere had apparently become fed up with the continued political infighting. He was also annoyed that Binaisa's aides...
...instability will last until the country has an elected government with a strong mandate. Binaisa said last week that national elections, originally scheduled for June 1981, might be held by November of this year. Until then, Uganda is likely to stumble from crisis to crisis. Says one Westerner in Kampala: "You don't rebuild a national sense of unity after eight years of rule by Idi Amin. This could be a beautiful country once people learn to trust each other again. Until then, all you can do is weep for Uganda...