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    Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin
    Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin
    Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin

    By Noel O'Cleirigh

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    In this book the writer describes life in Uganda as seen through the eyes of an expatriate civil servant employed by the Ministry of Education. He gives the reader an insight into a newly independent country transforming its colonial style education system through its Africanization policies, some of which he inaugurated and helped to implement. A former member of Professor George Eogan's Excavation Team at Knowth in The Boyne Valley, he continued his interest in this discipline while living in East Africa and presents vivid pen pictures of some of the archaeological field trips and surveys he carried out on behalf of the Department of Antiquities of the Uganda Museum.

    The book also deals with the history and tribal customs of the Baganda and Langi people as well as describing some of the memorable people encountered by the author..........the veteran CMS Missionary Phebe Cave-Brown-Cave........Jacobo Obote, the father of Uganda's President Milton Obote.......the saintly Archbishop Luwum.....the formidable Mrs Enim,mother-in-law of the infamous Idi Amin.........

    The events recounted by Noel O'Cleirigh throughout the pages of this book are set in East Africa amid a backdrop of President Obote's brand of African Socialism and General Idi Amin's Military Coup d'Etat and subsequent Reign of Terror.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTrafford Publishing
    Release dateOct 18, 2004
    ISBN9781466957503
    Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin
    Author

    Noel O'Cleirigh

    Mr. Noel O'Cleirigh studied English and Archaeology at University College Dublin and is a graduate of The National University of Ireland. He undertook post-graduate studies in Educational Administration (Maynooth) and in Linguistics ( Dublin and London). A Member of l'Association Internationale de Linguistique Applique, The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and the RDS, he is also a past President of Arklow Historical Society. His career in Education included service in East Africa, The Middle East and Ireland where he worked for County Wicklow VEC up to his retirement as Vice-Principal of Arklow Community College. He has lectured widely on historical and archaeological topics, given occasional radio talks including contributions to RTE's Aeriris Programme. He has also had articles published in The Journal of Arklow Historical Society, The People Newspaper Group, The Link and The Irish Times. The Royal Irish Academy awarded him an Eoin O'Mahony Bursary for his research on The History of The O'Cleirigh Family, a monograph on which was subsequently published by the SociŽtŽ des ƒcrivains, Paris.

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      Book preview

      Recollections of Uganda Under Milton Obote and Idi Amin - Noel O'Cleirigh

      Copyright 2004 Noel O’Cleirigh. All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

      Note for Librarians: a cataloguing record for this book that includes Dewey Classification and US Library of Congress numbers is available from the National Library of Canada. The complete cataloguing record can be obtained from the National Library’s online database at:

      www.nlc-bnc.ca/amicus/index-e.html

      ISBN 1-4120-2440-4

      ISBN 978-1-4669-5750-3 (ebook)

      Image279.JPG

      This book was published on-demand in cooperation with Trafford Publishing. On-demand publishing is a unique process and service of making a book available for retail sale to the public taking advantage of on demand manufacturing and Internet marketing. On-demand publishing includes promotions, retail sales, manufacturing, order fulfilment, accounting and collecting royalties on behalf of the author.

      Suite 6E, 2333 Government St., Victoria, B.C. V8T 4P4, CANADA

      Phone 250-383-6864 Toll-free 1-888-232-4444 (Canada & US)

      Fax 250-383-6804 E-mail sales@trafford.com Web site www.trafford.com

      TRAFFORD PUBLISHING IS A DIVISION OF TRAFFORD HOLDINGS LTD.

      Trafford Catalogue #04-0268 www.trafford.com/robots/04-0268.html

      10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3

      CONTENTS

      WHICH WAY LIRA?

      A GIFT FROM IRELAND

      NEIGHBOURS

      JOK POWER

      INDEPENDENCE DAY

      COMMON MAN’S CHARTER

      MAKING ENEMIES IN HIGH PLACES

      ON ARCHAEOLOGICAL SAFARIS

      JANUARY ‘71

      JACOBO OBOTE

      KAMPALA POSTING

      REIGN OF TERROR

      THE SEPTEMBER INVASION

      ENCOUNTERS WITH AMIN

      GOD HELP THE POOR IRISH-WHO’LL LOOK AFTER THEM?

      PASSPORT PROBLEMS

      For

      ANNE

      and

      SHANE

      WHICH WAY LIRA?

      My first Ugandan appointment was as an Education Officer to the Northern District of the country. The Administrative Centre was in the town of Lira, which could boast of four second level boarding schools, one technical school, two Teacher Training Colleges, a School of Nursing and a Television Centre. Up to the time of my appointment, secondary schools had taught to O Level only and the main part of my job was to introduce, teach and monitor A Level courses to cater for those students who aspired to gain entance to Makerere University in Kampala.

      I was based at Dr. Obote College which was named after the then President of Uganda, Milton Obote. This College-originally a Church Missionary Society foundation-was sited at Boroboro, the nerve centre of Protestant missionary endeavour in the area. It was about five miles from Lira Town. Adjoining the college campus was Canon Lawrence Teacher Training College and St. Katherine’s Girls’ Boarding School. In the early sixties, these bastions of Protestantism which had been carved out of the Ugandan bush a few decades previously, were turned into State Colleges by Government Decree coupled with the financial backing of the World Bank. It was rather ironical that the latest Government Education Officer appointed to this region of the former British Protectorate was not only a whiteman but was also Irish and Catholic.

      Some months before my arrival I had undergone a comprehensive post-graduate Tropical Africa Course which was conducted amidst the regal splendour of Farn-ham Castle, a former Palace of Anglican Prelates, and now converted into the Overseas Service College. Here

      I underwent total immersion in literally everything to do with tropical East Africa, ranging from anthropological studies to zymotic diseases.

      As soon as friends, relations, colleagues and friends of friends heard I was heading for Uganda, both my wife and I were immediately inundated with advice. It appeared to me as if every second Irish person had some class of a cousin in Africa and it seems we were assured of a hearty Cead Mile Failte from Cape to Cairo. Practically all assumed we were going out as lay missionaries and it was pointless trying to explain otherwise. We were Third World do-gooders as far as most were concerned and consequently we were treated with a mixture of pity and sympathy tinged with envy occasionally. Quite frankly a lot of our friends thought we were slightly mad!

      We found Pre-Amin Kampala to be a civilized and beautiful multi-racial city. On arrival at Entebbe Airport we were met by the man from the Ministry, in the person of John Obong, who welcomed us to Uganda on behalf of the Minister of Education. It was 6 a. m. After our long, non-stop flight from London’s Heathrow, all we wanted was somewhere to sleep and to our relief Mr. Obong had arranged just that for us-a fine, balconied, en-suite bedroom at the old colonial style Grand Hotel, Kampala.

      Relax here for twenty four hours, said John I’ll call for you at 8. 30 a. m. to-morrow morning and bring you to the Ministry. Here we were on our first visit to Equatorial Africa and all we sought after was a bed!

      Three days later, after sampling the delights of Kampala, performing official duties like signing the Official Secrets Act (!) and obtaining my Education Officer’s Licence, we were en route to Lira Town which was destined to be my H. Q. for the next few years.

      The Ministry had provided us with a Puegeot station wagon, complete with an English speaking driver, whohad never been to Northern Uganda before. He was a Muganda, which meant that he belonged to the Baganda tribe and spoke Luganda. He also spoke Swahili, but as my grasp of that language was rather limited to what I had picked up at Farnham Castle, we conversed in English. He introduced himself as Sebo Kagwa and informed us that the people up there in the north are black you know. They are very backward too…very many of them wear no clothes…they go around completely knacked". Speaking in a fearful voice and rolling his eyes heavenwards in the most frightening fashion, he led us to believe we were driving into veritable Cannibal Land.

      Anne exchanged glances with me and then whispered tribalism… the Baganda versus the Langi and all that jazz…like our own homebred variety of Jackeens v Culchies.

      I prayed she was right.

      One hundred and twenty miles out of Kampala, after driving across undulating hills and through myriads of banana plantations, we ran out of tarmac and hit the dirt road at about 80 mph. Sebo Kagwa wrestled valiantly with the wheel, braked hard and succeeded in getting the station wagon to swerve and rock and slide spectacularly. We finally came to a shuddering halt and found ourselves facing back towards Kampala. Mr Kagwa grinned, spun the station wagon round again in a swirling dust cloud and continued for several hundred yards before treating us to a repeat performance. I suggested he should drive a little more slowly on the murram road-"Pole, pole, Sebo". He ee-eee-eeed and he aaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaaad and finally went at a pole, pole pace.

      Further on we stopped for refreshments at a most primitive wayside petrol station, where toilet facilities consisted of the most revolting pit latrines, which were crawling with multi-coloured maggots and buzzing with millions of flies. We were grateful however for the ice-cold beer that was available as we shared our Grand Hotel packed lunch with Sebo Kagwa. Apart from the petrol pumps, the stinking jacks and the thatched hut with its colourful nameboard proclaiming it to be The High Life Pan-African Bar, no other buildings were in sight. Yet the place swarmed with humanity. Taxis, buses and heavily laden matoke lorries had stopped here, where drivers passengers and vehicles could all be tanked up. Several dirt roads converged at this point and Sebo Kagwa told us that it would be our last chance for petrol and drinks before reaching Lira. We self-consciously noticed that we were the onlywhiteys around, but devil a bit of notice the Africans took of us.

      We then resumed our journey, now travelling on an extremely narrow track with very tall grass towering over us on either side. This track was just wide enough for our station wagon and it slowly dawned on us that we were actually driving through the African bush. Every so often, we would emerge into a clearing and catch a glimpse of people, huts, chickens, cocks and goats. Sebo Kagwa informed us that he was taking the short cut to Lira but four hours later we were still taking the short cut! By this time we were feeling hot, sweaty and irritable, as well as being caked in red murram dust, which blew in clouds before and behind us, enveloping everything in its path and seeping into every nook and

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