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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 16, 1985
PAGE 13
years ago out of concern for my community. I was trained as a
teacher, but I felt I could do more as a policeman.•••
"Until a few months ago, the black community accepted that we
were doing a job that had to be done by someone--blacks want pro
tection from criminals like anyone else--but now it has changed.
People want us to quit the police force. They see us as enemies.
There are instigators in
™
community, radicals who incite
people's anger, and we have suddenly become the targets for the
most intense hatred."
The Lesson of Uganda
With so much attention focused on South Africa recently, the American press
(but not the British} has failed to give adequate coverage to the awful
conditions prevailing in Uganda in the wake of that country's recent revo
lution. The July 24 WALL STREET JOURNAL, however, did an overview piece on
what it called the "Luckless Land."
Titled "Idi Amin May Be Gone, But
Ruinous Violence Continues in Uganda," the article was written three days
before the July 27 coup that unseated--for the second time--President
Milton Obote:
KAMPALA, Uganda--On a recent Monday night, a businessman was
hacked to death at his home here. After the funeral, the vic
tim's friends puzzled over some post-mortem questions. Was the
murder political, religious or business-related?
They had no
answers, but one thing they knew: The killers weren't thieves.
They wore army uniforms, and they stole nothing. Uganda is full
of such murders and such mysteries. People are killed just about
every night in Kampala, a city of fewer than 500,000.•••
"Death has become an everyday story," says a nervous young Catho
lic priest. "Children aren't afraid of dead bodies any longer.
They've seen too many." Then he whispers: "It was better under
Amin."
� �-
Bitter rivalries with their roots in politics, religion and
business have become modern-day overlays on the map of tribal di
visions that traditionally made Uganda a nation without nation
alism. Today, the capital city of Kampala has the feel of a fron
tier town. Anything goes. Killers are for hire, cheap. A for
eign resident shakes his head over being told that a government
minister, acting through his permanent secretary, has put out a
murder contract on another permanent secretary.
"I know all
three of them," the foreigner muses.
Uganda has .Q.!!! of Africa's most complex political geographies.
In the 19th century, what now is Uganda was the relatively
sophisticated kingdom of Buganda (early explorers' translators
from the east coast couldn't pronounce the "B"} , � handful of
rival kingdoms and dozens of mini-states. The people spoke more
than 60 languages.
Uganda, whose various parts were joined
together as a British protectorate in 1894, has paid a price for
its diversity ever since. In fact, the 23-year history of Uganda
since independence can be read as a war against the Baganda (peo
ple of Buganda) of the Kampala area in an attempt to reduce the