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State funeral for Obote

KAMPALA (UGANDA): Uganda will give a full state funeral to the country's first Prime Minister and two-time President Milton Obote, despite charges that he was responsible for the deaths of 500,000 people, officials said on Wednesday. ``We decided that he should be accorded a state funeral as the former head of state who also led Uganda to independence,'' Information Minister James Nsaba Buturo said. ``Many Ugandans view him as the father of the nation, despite the killings that were carried out during his time.'' Current President Yoweri Museveni raised an army and fought a civil war against Obote from 1980 until 1985. Obote (80), died on Monday afternoon in a Johannesburg hospital after being hospitalised for several weeks. He had been living in self-imposed exile in Zambia. Obote will be buried at his ancestral home in northern Uganda at a yet-to-be determined date, relatives and officials at his Ugandan People's Congress party said. He is the fourth of Uganda's seven former leaders to die in exile. Obote, the son of a chief and farmer in the Langi tribal area of northern Uganda, won his first legislative seat in 1958. A year later, he formed the Uganda People's Congress. — AP

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