Alpay: "Reign of Terror": Reign of Terror On several occasions when I was Minister of Health, Amin insisted on being left alone with his victims' bodies. Such was the case when the acting Chief of Staff, Brigadier Charles Arube, was murdered in March 1974. Amin came to see the body while it was in the mortuary of Mulago Hospital; he ordered the deputy medical superintendent. Dr. Kyewalabaye, to “wait outside"; Amin then went in by himself for two or three minutes. There is of course no evidence for what he does in private, but it is universally believed in Uganda that he engages in blood rituals. Hardly any Ugandan doubts that Amin has, quite literally, a taste for blood. Amin’s bizarre behavior has much to do with the peculiarities of his own aberrant personality. It also derives partly from his tribal background. Like many other warrior societies, the Kakwa, Amin’s tribe, are known to have practiced blood rituals on slain enemies. These involve cutting a piece of flesh from the body to subdue the dead man’s spirit or tasting the victim’s blood to render the spirit harmless—a spirit, it is believed, will not revenge itself on a body that has become in effect its own. Such rituals still exist among-the Kakwa. If they kill a man, it is their practice to insert a knife in the body and touch the bloody blade to their lips. The ritual has been observed even in the upper ranks of the government. The driver of a Kakwa official, a senior member of the administration, told me that he was driving his boss through the Murchison Falls National Park in 1976, when they came upon some big-game poachers. The official, armed with a rifle and a knife (as is common for Amin’s men), shot two of the poachers. He then went up to the corpses, stabbed each one with his knife and licked the blade.

On several occasions when I was Minister of Health, Amin insisted on being left alone with his victims' bodies. Such was the case when the acting Chief of Staff, Brigadier Charles Arube, was murdered in March 1974. Amin came to see the body while it was in the mortuary of Mulago Hospital; he ordered the deputy medical superintendent. Dr. Kyewalabaye, to “wait outside"; Amin then went in by himself for two or three minutes. There is of course no evidence for what he does in private, but it is universally believed in Uganda that he engages in blood rituals. Hardly any Ugandan doubts that Amin has, quite literally, a taste for blood. Amin’s bizarre behavior has much to do with the peculiarities of his own aberrant personality. It also derives partly from his tribal background. Like many other warrior societies, the Kakwa, Amin’s tribe, are known to have practiced blood rituals on slain enemies. These involve cutting a piece of flesh from the body to subdue the dead man’s spirit or tasting the victim’s blood to render the spirit harmless—a spirit, it is believed, will not revenge itself on a body that has become in effect its own. Such rituals still exist among-the Kakwa. If they kill a man, it is their practice to insert a knife in the body and touch the bloody blade to their lips. The ritual has been observed even in the upper ranks of the government. The driver of a Kakwa official, a senior member of the administration, told me that he was driving his boss through the Murchison Falls National Park in 1976, when they came upon some big-game poachers. The official, armed with a rifle and a knife (as is common for Amin’s men), shot two of the poachers. He then went up to the corpses, stabbed each one with his knife and licked the blade.

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A State of Blood Henry Kyanba

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