Coup of Convenience

The strange goings-on in Uganda last week presented a variation on Africa's current crop of coups. Uganda's gov ernment was overthrown all right, but not by military men. It was Prime Minister Milton Apollo Obote himself who seized full powers, and he did it, so he said, only to prevent another coup which was being planned against him.

Obote has long nursed an ambition to do away with the political opposition and run Uganda on a one-party basis under the domination of his fellow Nilotic tribesmen of the north. Trouble is that a split recently began developing even in his own Uganda People's Congress, caused by a group of Bantu Cabinet ministers determined to resist control by the northerners. The split widened last month when the anti-Obote faction supported the charge in Parliament by an opposition party leader that the Prime Minister, two of his ministers, and the deputy army commander had illegally shared a $325,000 windfall that was captured from Simba rebels by Uganda troopers during the 1964-65 Congo rebellion. At first, Obote agreed to set up a judicial panel to investigate the charge. But before the judges could convene, Obote took matters into his own hands. Ordering the arrest of five of his ministers, Obote had them dragged screaming and kicking from a Cabinet session by members of his personal 500-man police force. Next he suspended the constitution and began broadcasting wild stories about internal intrigues and the threat of invasion by foreign troops.

Obote's actions caused deep divisions among Uganda's 8,000,000 people. His political opposition refused to be intimidated. "It is the duty of all Ugandians to protect the constitution and to die for it, if necessary," cried Kabaka Yekka Party Leader Daudi Ocheng. "Once the constitution is broken, the rule of the jungle takes over." Actually, whether there was to be any dying appeared to be up to the four-battalion army. So far, its loyalty seemed badly split between Obote and the figurehead chief of state, Sir Edward ("Freddy") Mutesa, 42, who is the Kabaka, hereditary ruler of Buganda kingdom, most powerful of Uganda's four regions.

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