LETTER: Uganda massacre

Paul Hickman
Monday 08 March 1999 00:02 GMT
Comments

LETTER:

Uganda massacre

Sir: In using the text from the note attached to one of the bodies in the dreadful Uganda massacre (report, 5 March), your correspondent Lucy Hannan gives a misleading impression of the killers.

The note has been misread. A correct translation is: "This is the punishment of the Anglo-Saxons who have sold us [down the river]. You are protecting the minority and oppressing the majority." (She saw tous where Vous is written).

Moreover, the language is not "schoolboy French". It is language written by an educated person aware of the intricacies of French grammar. All the endings and agreements which many students (and native speakers) of the language find so challenging are correct. The only anomaly is the elliptical Voila punition, which is missing a "la" before the noun.

Your report may thus suggest that the perpetrators were uneducated brutes. The written evidence suggests they were intelligent, calculating, cold- blooded murderers.

PAUL HICKMAN

Lymington,

Hampshire

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