From some thirty of these tribal areas, the British forged Uganda in the late nineteenth century. Britain, the greatest imperial power, had a particular interest in Uganda, because the region controlled the source of the Nile, which controlled Egypt, which controlled the Suez Canal, which controlled the most direct route to India, the jevvel in Britain’s imperial crovvn. Because Uganda was important to the British for its ovvn reasons, the borders vvere set vvithout much thought for the people involved. Thus the borders did not coincide with tribal territories, which overlap neighboring Zaire, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.
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When the Europeans came, three other elements were added to Ugandan society. One was European religion. The British brought their Anglicanism, and the French their Catholicism. These were more than a match for the Moslem faith brought by the Arab slave traders in the early nineteenth century. Today, only ten per cent of the population is Moslem, and the rest are about half-and- half Anglican and Catholic. The Europeans also established Christian schools. Since the Moslems did not do this, Islam soon came to be equated with a lack of education.
The British were also responsible for the introduction of Uganda’s Asians. The Asians were originally brought to build the Kenya-Uganda railway, which was supposed to carry troops to proteet the source of the Nile against the imperial ambitions of the French, Belgians and Germans. Long before it was finished in 1901, however, such stratcgic justifıcations seemed foolish—the railway was nicknamed the “Lunatic Line” by British MP’s appalled at its soaring cost. The line never carried troops, but it did enable the Asians to develop trade; they became the middle class of Uganda, and indeed of all British East Africa.
A third element, and one of particularly tragic significance for Uganda today. was the community of Southern Sudanese brought in as mercenaries by the British to staff the lower ranks of the army and the police. İn Uganda, indeed throughout East Africa, they became known as Nubians. They have retained their own identity, like the Asians. They are wholly Moslem. and stili speak their own version of Arabic.
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The most immediate problem facing independent Uganda was the issue of the “lost counties” which had once belonged to Bunyoro and were now part of Buganda. In the 1890s, the British had, with the assistance of the Kabaka of Buganda, fought and beaten Bunyoro, and the British had awarded the Kabaka a chunk of Bunyoro for his efforts. The Banyoro (people of Bunyoro) had always resented this. The British, conveniently for them, left the problem for the new regime to solve. The Independence Constitution called for a referendum to be held within two years so that the inhabitants of the “lost counties” could decide for themselves which area they wished to belong to. The current Kabaka, of course, had little interest in holding the referendum, for the Banyoro in the “lost counties” would undoubtedly vote to be governed by their own people rather than the Baganda. But Obote insisted on the referendum, which was held in 1964. The Kabaka duly lost the counties to Bunyoro, and the tenuous alliance between Obote and the Kabaka collapsed, a split between Prime Minister and President that eventually led to the end of democratic rule in Uganda.
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I was closely involved with this operation. Obote and I had a personal radio link with Amin. Ours was code- named “Sparrow”; Amin’s was “Kisu.” The rebels often came to Entebbe, stayed in Amin’s house, and saw Obote. Their greatest need was for arms and transport. They had no cash, but they did have truckloads of gold and ivory, seized as they
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In the space of just a few months, Uganda had gone from a peaceful democracy to something very close to a military dictatorship.
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Hundreds of prominent citizens were imprisoned without trial (including the former Army Commander, Shaban Opolot). Regular lists of political detainees—often up to eighty names at a time—were published, as demanded by law, in the weekly Uganda Gazette. Obote, backed by his security forces, ruled supreme. It is ironic that the system later developed by Amin, an illiterate killer who strikes at random, was inherited half-formed from a man raised in the best democratic traditions.
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By mid-1971, an inexperienced junior officer corps virtually ran the country. One of the most feared of these men was—and is—Lieutenant Malyamungu who was in charge of quelling dissent in the army. Before he joined the army, he had been a gatekeeper at Nyanza Textile Industries, where my brother Kisajja was personnel manager. At the time of the coup, he commandeered a tank with which he shot up the entrance to the Entebbe airport terminal, killing two priests. After the coup he headed Amin’s execution gangs, with unlimited power to execute anybody in the army, even officers senior to him.
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To rebuild a real officer corps from Amin’s illiterate sadists, who could hardly speak a word of English, was an insurmountable problem. The British, however, gave it a try. Soon after the coup, Amin requested and was granted a British officer to train the Intelligence Service. The cadets given to him were Amin’s best, yet they were still totally inadequate. I often met this officer on his way to and from the President’s office and he would tell me of the difficulties he was having. He doubted that the men could ever benefit from his presence. “Obviously an intelligence officer needs some basic intelligence,” he would say. “These chaps have none.” Since they were semi-literate, all he could do was describe the basic tasks of an intelligence officer. Not that they could ever perform these tasks, let alone teach others, which was the long-term aim of the project. He often told me how ridiculous he felt. He stuck it out for three or four months, then said he would try to arrange training for them outside the country, and left.
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Toward the end of my leave, one incident—the murder of Michael Kagwa, President of the Industrial Court- revealed to the country as a whole that the massacres w'ere not to be limited to the army, or to the Acholi and Langi. Kagwa, who was extremely rich (he had a Mercedes sports car with its own television), had a girlfriend, Helen Ogwang, in whom Amin was interested. In September 1971, Kagwa was seized by Amin’s bodyguards at the Kampala International Hotel swimming pool. They shot him and burnt his body, together with his Mercedes, on the outskirts of the capital near Namirembe Cathedral. No attempt was made to discover who the murderers were. The senior police officers had already been arrested for investigating the Okoya murder. No one would risk death by asking questions that could lead only to Amin. The government “offered” a 50,000-shilling reward for information. So far it has gone unclaimed. Helen Ogwang was later posted to the Uganda Embassy in Paris, where she defected.
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The oil money from Libya was good for Amin personally, but it did little to sustain the loyalty of the army. To ensure this, he needed to offer cash or goods. He soon found a way to provide both.
On August 4, Amin appeared at the barracks at Tororo, near the Kenyan border, and announced to the troops that he had had a dream the previous night in which God instructed him to order the 50,000 Asians out of Uganda within ninety days. This he proceeded to do.
The Asian community was an ideal target. Asians almost totally controlled Uganda’s trade, factories, plantations and industries. They were the managers, the bureaucrats, the accountants, the technicians, the doctors, the engineers, the lawyers. They formed an affluent middle class, a distinctive element in the population, with their own language, behavior patterns, names and occupations. On the whole they were not popular with the Africans. They have been described as the Jews of East Africa. They were, in other words, ideal targets.
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