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J CONFIDENTIAL § 2. President Mobutu said that naturally the present situation had to take account of the past. He for his part would try to help in building the future. He wanted to explain why he had intervened in this affair. It was entirely by accident. General Amin had planned a visit to Zaire at the beginning of June which had to be put off. He had had to put him off again in mid-June and eventually at the end of June when he said he wanted to come President Mobutu felt obliged to agree. After they had had several hours conversation about bilateral relations, he had taken General Amin off on a fishing expedition. It was during this expedition that he felt he ought to take the opportunity to raise the question of Hills. It had taken him an hour's argument before Amin would agree to reprieve Hills; No doubt an important element in Atoin's attitude was the support he had had from Zaire alone among African countries when: he first came to power. However, he had been surprised when Amin had said that he would reprieve Hills provided that President Mobutu would occupy himself with all points of difference between Britain and Uganda. President Mobutu said he had plenty to do for his own country but nevertheless thought it was his duty to agree to this request. He felt that deep in his heart General Amin was still very pro-British. Everything about him was British and he seemed genuinely to want rapprochement. Perhaps there was some analogy with the relationship between Belgium and Zaire. 3. The President went on to say that he had agreed that his State Commis- sioner, M. Bula, should go to Kampala in order that he could put proposals to Amin for improving Anglo-Ugandan relations. Was it true as he had read in the Press, that Uganda owed Britain £21 million? Mr. Callaghan said that the right figure was £20 million for commercial debts and £8 million State debt. President Mobutu said that Zaire owed five times as much to Belgium; indeed it would be 30 times as much if you took into account certain claims made by the Belgians. Yet he had recently received the Belgian Minister of Commerce and had had a friendly letter from the Belgian King. It was surely a moral responsi- bility of Great Britain to help Uganda? Mr, Callaghan said that there were responsibilities on both sides. President Mobutu said that there was more moral responsibility on the part of Britain. The Ugandans alleged that Britain had failed to send necessary hospital supplies. Mr. Callaghan said that this was not true. We had in fact given supplies. As to our general relationship with our ex-colonial territories we had no serious difficulty except in the case of Uganda. Unfortunately we had now got to the point where British nationals were just not ready to go out to Uganda for commercial business. He had never prevented anybody from going. We had in fact supplied a good deal of equipment to. Uganda. We were carrying out orders for 5-ton lorries and Land Rovers. There were Land Rover spares almost ready for delivery. We had quoted for patrol boats and communications equipment. We had offered to take over responsibility for pensions for ex-Colonial Service Officers, However as long as our people did not feel safe in Uganda it would not be possible to get back to normal relations. General Amin's attitude to the British nationals in Uganda was a key factor. 4. Mr. Callaghan went on to say that he would like to give President Mobutu one example of our experience with General Amin over one of the contentious questions between us, i.e. compensation. In September 1973 General Amin told the previous British Government that he would not pay compensation until the Prime Minister visited Uganda. After the British election in 1974 a senior official was sent out to Uganda in the latter part of that year in order to talk about compensa- tion. Almost immediately after that General Amin ordered a cut in our High Commission down to five people. This temporarily put an end to the prospect CONFIDENTIAL 160342 c*