Milton Obote Dies at 80; Strongman in Uganda, Twice Overthrown
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

LUSAKA, Zambia, Oct. 10 (Agence France-Presse) - Milton Obote, Uganda's former strongman, who was first toppled by Idi Amin and overthrown again after a second period in power, died Monday in a South African hospital, said his party. He was 80.

"Dr. Obote died today in the early hours of the afternoon" in Johannesburg, said Henry Mayega, an official with Mr. Obote's Ugandan People's Congress party, adding that the exact cause of death was not immediately known. Mr. Obote's son Ben confirmed the death.

Mr. Obote had been taken to South Africa from Zambia, where he had been living in exile. His death followed a series of strokes.

Mr. Obote maintained a low profile in Lusaka despite repeated calls from his supporters in Uganda for his return.

Born Dec. 28, 1924, in northern Uganda, Mr. Obote was expelled from college in Kampala in the late 1940's for leading a student strike and took a job as a construction worker in Kenya.

A naturally skilled orator, he later returned to Uganda and joined the independence movement there and became a member of the colonial legislative council in 1957.

A shrewd political operative, Mr. Obote first maneuvered his way into power in 1962 after striking an unlikely alliance with the King's Party of the powerful Baganda tribe to form independent Uganda's first government.

As executive vice president under the titular presidency of the Baganda party's leader, Sir Edward Mutesa, Mr. Obote clashed frequently with his partners as he voiced a particularly pro-communist line.

The coalition unraveled in 1967 when Mr. Obote declared himself president a year after scrapping the Constitution and replacing it with one giving the executive nearly absolute power.

He incurred the wrath of many by ruling large swaths of the country under draconian emergency laws adopted with the abolishing of the limited powers of the traditional leaders of Uganda's five tribal kingdoms.

Mr. Obote's socialist policies also made him anathema to the West and when his army chief, Idi Amin, overthrew him in 1971 while he attended a summit meeting of Commonwealth heads of state in Singapore, few were initially concerned.

Mr. Amin was accused of torturing and killing as many as 500,000 people before being overthrown in 1979.

Mr. Obote, who spent the Amin years in exile in Tanzania, returned to Uganda on May 27, 1980, and won disputed general elections a few months later to become president for a second time.

He was ousted five years later by forces led by the current president, Yoweri Museveni.

Mr. Obote, whose rule was marred by repression and who was accused of torturing political opponents, was granted political asylum in Zambia following his second ouster, in 1985.


Peter Kemp/Associated Press
President Milton Obote in 1983.



An estimated 300,000 civilians died between 1981 and 1985 as Mr. Museveni's guerrillas, the National Resistance Army, battled Mr. Obote's government forces, the Uganda National Liberation Army.

But the responsibility for the killings is still disputed, with Mr. Museveni claiming that the former government was responsible and Obote loyalists saying it was the guerrillas.