‘Uganda sinks deeper into the mire

ROR.

Amin’'s schemes backfire

For some time after General
th in successfully weathered
4 e Storm created by the expul-
ee of the non-citizen Asians
ae Uganda and sundry jail-
sig €xpulsions and the like, ob-
fe seemed to think that
ae: were taking a distinct
a for the better. With inter-
4! Opposition crushed, the guer-
a @ incursion from Tanzania
Tepulsed, Amin seemed secure
indeed, .
am had even acquired a cer-
is . Tadical air as the result of
in _fulminations about impe-
alism and the well - argued

Speeches he made in announcing |

ne takeover of British business
ee and the subsequent
sonnel of most British per
si cand the objectively progres-
i character of many of the
Undn’S, Measures must not be
Ming ated: the Asian do-
eon of the petty urban eco-
mic y, after all, was an econo-
ae and political fact of some
ace, with strong over-
ike of the colonial period.
“nee the summary discom-
Wis € of British business interests
riali a blow against British impe-
Sate and, in its very unpredic-
rence an unsettling occur-
" for the imperialist powers
: eeeeral. If it were possible,
si Be Amin seemed determin-
at Uganda would no long-
Tialis @ Creature of British impe-
Uae” Would ‘belong wholly to
aed as he was fond of
ng,

qin reality, however, is rather
tery ct, Amin has failed, ut-
* Y and miserably, to: achieve
Se. ms the prime requirements
“build regime: he has failed to
secur, any kind of durable or
and ik Political base for his rule,

my in motion again.
and Heed the basically insecure
gime ectistic nature of the re-
each pomes painfully apparent
is ex, Ime the slightest pressure
With €rted on it — and to cope
ture ae pressure, Amin has
. Increasingly to non-Ugan-
ism’) (so much for his ‘national-
‘) to maintain him in power.

By IVAN BEZUGLOV

incigeSCOW — The following

the aay Occurred in a shop in

miles Y Of Kalinin (about 100
4... North-west of here.

ark hy are the knitted blouses
than ¢ paensive in your shop
Thent © same ones in a depart-

tm, Store?” asked customers.

ou
duc see, they have been pro-
sh €d at different factories,” the

aR assistants replied.

it? a has that got to do with
the star, all: prices are fixed by
Dri parce and not by the enter-
“yy ae customers went on.

ticles 1» the price of new ar-
tory » 's worked out by the fac-

i the assistants retorted.
ni S Customers asked the Kali-
tee ,8!Onal trade union comit-
Since " give an explanation.
Btanteq © Soviet government has
Contre trade unions the right to
tial ty Price setting, the territo-
Cideq @4e union committee de-
ctors ¢ nend its non-staff ins-
8mation the production amal-
Mercy, USSR’s repeal of com-
Workin Secrecy enables. the
the a & people to freely control

Ctivities of the administra-

m, that the Ugandan eco-

© has failed to set the eco-

Uganda's president Amin.

Despite the theorising of ‘rad-
ical’ apologists, there is no real
sign that Amin is succeeding in
creating an indigenous capitalist
class ‘by decree’ to replace the
departed Asians‘and British. For
one thing, for all the talk about
anti-imperialism, the key finan-
cial institutions — banks _(not-
ably Barclays), insurance and
investment companies — remain
in imperialist hands. Indeed, one
of the first acts of the regime
on usurping power from Obote
in 1971 was to hand these con-
cerns—nationalized by Obote—
back to their former owners! For
another, no-one in his right mind
supposes that the bunch of huck-
sters, crooks, optimists and
small-time traders who have
been vying for the businesses of
the expelled Asiansvare going ‘to
be able to reopen the three-
quarters of Kampala’s — busi-
nesses which have shut down.

This in itself would perhaps
be not a bad thing, if it implied
that economic resources were

“being devoted to better uses

than drapery stores and tape re-
corder merchants: but everyone

“knows they are not. There is no

money in the Ugandan treasury,
there are no real prospects of

’ substantial sums flowing in, and

tion, including the financial one.
The trade union inspectors were

. given account books and other

documentation; they talked with

the administration workers and

the local trade union activists.
As a result, the inspectors con-
cluded that the administration
was obsesssd by profitmaking
and had submitted to state or-
gans wrong costing, increasing
the cost of raw material. By not
carrying out - planned assign-
ments: on reducing production
costs, the administration got
profit mainly by producing ex-
pensive commodities.

Profit is, of course, an import-
ant indicator in the work of
each enterprise. However, the
state prohibits profit-making at
any cost, ignoring the. interests
of the people. ‘The state plan
fixed for the amalgamation ob-
liges its management and all
personnel to increase the manu-
facture of cheap goods and re-
duce production costs by ‘per-
fecting production _engineering.
The administration, however,
preferred an easier and unlaw-
ful way. :

Yeleva Bahareva, director
general of the production amal-

if they did they would promptly
be stolen by the General and
his henchmen.

And to the economic crisis
and the prospect of a drastic
downturn in living standards for
large numbers of Ugandans
must be added a political crisis,
compounded of determined op-
position to the regime from both
inside and outside the country,
and Amin’s own inability. to
move beyond barrack - room
threats‘ and blustering to the
cultivation of political support.
Increasingly, therefore, he has
resorted to a policy of political
survival based on three elem-
ents:

—The exploitation’ of ethnic.

religious differences
—Terror and repression dir-
ected at real or imagined oppo-
sition :
—lIncreasing dependence on
outside intervention and support.

It is now no secret that Amin
has been desperately cultivating
Gaddafi and Feisal, pleading
‘Muslim solidarity’ to get ma-
ney, arms, even soldiers from
the Libyan and Saudi leaders. It
is likewise clear what opposi-
tion to Amin means: for the
Chief Justice of Uganda, for the
Governor of the Central Bank,
for the Vice Chancellor of Ma-
kerere University, it meant mur-
der at the hands of ‘persons un-
known’ (this was later changed
to ‘Obote guerrillas’). For 12 un-
fortunate ‘guerrillas’ in Febru-
ary this year, it meant a bar-
baric public execution by firing
squad.

And, in his desperate attempts
to remain in control of the situa-
tion, Amir has now begun in
earnest to whip up ethnic hat-
reds. The Langi people, from
whom Obote comes, are now ac-
cused of being — collectively —
responsible for all opposition to
Amin’s rule. And the concern of
Kenyan trade unionists for the
safety of Kenyans working on
the railways in Uganda calls
forth hysterical attacks from
Amin on the Luo of Kenya, who,
he says, have been conspiring
with his enemies.

: —African Communist

Here people can control prices |

gamation, had to give an expla-
nation at the meeting of the
regional trade union committee.
She was told to revise the in-
creased prices and to start the
production of -necessary con-
sumer goods. Otherwise, she

was warned, the trade union @

would mistrust her and ask the
Ministry to’ relieve her of her
office.

request the administration work-
ed out organizational and tech-
nological measures which reduc-
ed production costs of knitted

goods and, hence, their price. }

The trade union committee es-
tablished firm control over the
observance of price setting.
Soviet law envisage the parti-
cipation of trade unions in the
control of price-setting over
observance of economically
grounded retail prices of con-

sumer goods and charges for the |

services rendered to the popula-
tion.

-’: Trade unions make wide use

of. their right. Millions of Soviet
factory and office workers —

trade union members — parti- .

cipate in mass control over com-
modity prices.

At ‘the trade union’s urgent

By BERT WHYTE

é SOVIET PANORAMA

The Sea of Azov has always
been famous for its huge stocks
of valuable sturgeon and other
species of fish. At one time the
catch reached 300,000 tons a
year. But in recent years the fish
stocks have diminished, due to
changes in the sea’s water bal-
ance. :

Let me explain. The Don and
Kuban rivers supply the Sea of
Azov with fresh water. But
strong southern winds also drive
water from the Black Sea into
Azov via the Kerch Strait. This
water is salty. Then northern
winds force Azov water into the
Black Sea. What happens is that
the salinity of the Sea of Azov
constantly changes, with more
salt being added annually—and
this the fish don’t like. So some
“rehabilitation” program is Call-
ed for. A

Several solutions, all very ex-
pensive have been proposed by
scientists. The project favored
by the Ministry of Fisheries is
the building of a solid dam, over
a mile long, from the Caucasian
coast at the Chuska spit, to join
in middle of the .Kerch Strait
with a water-pass weir with
piers and locks stretching from
the Crimean coast. Then the ex-
change of water could be regu-
lated by manoeuvring with the
locks. The cost? About 200 mil-
lion roubles.

If the project is carried ‘out, a
sharp increase in fish stocks in
the Sea. of Azov will take place.

* * *

In the magazine Nedelya a

father tells how his little daugh-

ter came home from the puppet .

theatre, terribly excited.

“It was marvellous. A girl
swung on.a swing and the bears
learned to read...” :

“So you like the dolls?” her
father asked.

“What dolls?’

“The dolls that you saw in
the theatre.”

“There weren’t any dolls,
daddy. Nobody played dolls.”

And the magazine printed an-
other child’s remark under the
title, “The Critic.” This lad had

seen a performance of Little Red
Riding Hood, and pronounced
judgement:

“I didn’t like Little Red Rid-
ing Hood. She thought too much
of hers2lf. I liked the wolf best
of all.” 4

a * A od

The “Soviet Union has trade
relations with 54 developing
states, and signed agreements
on economic cooperation with 44
countries of Asia, Africa and
Latin America. Close to 500 eco-
nomic. projects have already
been built in developing coun-
tries and another 500 are under

construction,

The magazine International

Affairs stresses that the USSR’s:

aid is directed toward solving
the main problem facing these

. countries — the creation and
development of a sound national:
industry.

: * - :

By the middle of summer a
100-mile ferry service will begin

operating between Sakhalin Is-.

land in the Far East, and the
mainland. The first of five fer-
ries designed to carry passeng-

ers, freight cars, trucks, trac-

tors, automobiles and other ma-
chinery has already come off the
ways and completed tests in the
Baltic -Sea. ,

Sakhalin is .a fast-developing
economic district. The main
town, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, near
Mt. Rossiskaya, has a new dra-
ma theatre, cinema, pioneer pal-
ace and TV tower. The island is
fully electrified, has one big ther-
mal power station and another
under construction, and supplies
oil to Kamchatka, Magaden,
Maritime and Khabarovsk ter-
ritories.

_ Pravda reports that during the
ninth five-year plan (1971-1975)
work will be completed. on a
unified power grid in the south

_of the island, a pipeline will be

built across the Tatary Strait,
oil and gas deposits will be de-
veloped further, and new ships

will be added to the Sakhalin

fishing flotilla.

A large self-service store, specializing in selling fish products
opened in Chertanovo, a new housing area in Moscow. The design
of the store, called the OCEAN, has incorporated all new things in

the construction and equipment of stores and in organizing service
in them. Products are placed in special air-conditioned counters.
There are pools for live fish. In the package department, the fish
is weighed electronically and packed into polyethylene bags. The
service in the store is aimed at saving a customer's time. Those need-
ing tips on how to cook some or other seafood dish are helped by

an automatic information service.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1973—PAGE 9

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