1,000 Members of Uganda’s Secret Police, Bodyguard Detail Arrested

This nation’s new military rulers have put more than 1,000 members of the ousted president’s secret police and bodyguard in a maximum security jail, prison administration sources said Wednesday.

The northern army commander who led rebellious troops in the July 27 coup was named armed forces chief Wednesday, and the Roman Catholic primate offered to preside at a peace conference to reconcile this central African nation’s military and political factions.

The prison sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the roundup was mainly of members of the National Security Agency, as the secret police are called. They said the men had been taken to Luzira prison near Kampala.

Their account conformed with a report in Munno, a Kampala daily newspaper supported by the Catholic church. It said 1,072 people had been taken to Luzira.

Since the coup against President Milton Obote, military authorities have called on all members of the security agency and the presidential bodyguard to turn themselves in with their weapons.

Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga said in his first major statement since the coup that the people “have suffered enough.” He deplored the looting and bloodshed that accompanied the takeover, imploring political leaders and guerrilla commanders to attend a peace conference “with one national motive of healing Uganda’s wounds.”

Lt. Gen. Tito Okello, interim chief of state, has proposed such a conference. Most political and guerrilla factions have endorsed the idea but have not agreed on a date, place or agenda.

The major anti-Obote guerrilla group, Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement, initially welcomed the coup but now criticizes the new regime. It has agreed to a meeting but calls that “a major concession.”

Brig. Basilio Olara Okello, the northern commander and a principal coup leader, was promoted to lieutenant general and armed forces commander to replace Tito Okello. They are not related.