Terror compliments of Idi Amin

I spent a night in a hotel after the climb but the next morning I wanted to get back to Kampala. My friends wanted to spend a few more days around Fort Portal so we split up. I ate breakfast and showered then headed out to the road in the direction of Kampala to hitch hike. I was dressed in my usual boots, shorts, no shirt and my long hair was drying in the wind as I stood on the side of the road waiting for a ride. In about ten minutes a black sedan came by and saw me. The driver hit the brakes and stopped right where I was standing. I casually started talking to him about where I was going etc but he interrupted me briskly and just shouted, "Get in the car! Quickly!"

I was a little taken aback by his seeming rudeness but for some reason I complied with his request. He punched the pedal even before I had the door closed all the way and he raced down the road in a very agitated state. I wanted to ask him what was up but he started to talk first. He spoke clearly but with severe tension in his voice, "You must not know what is happening in our country do you?" I shook my head no and he continued. "Something very very wrong is going on. It is very dangerous. Idi Amin has gone crazy again. He and his soldiers are killing and torturing more civilians. He has declared marshal law and told all of the people from India that they must leave the country and not take anything with them. If they don't leave quickly he will torture and kill them. He has also declared Uganda to be under the rules of the Koran. These rules include no short pants above the knees for men or they will be killed. No long hair or you will be killed, No hair on the face or you will be killed. You are standing along the road in violation of all of these new rules and the army is just behind me. If I had not come along and found you they would surely have killed you with Idi Amin's favorite method of tying you to the ground with your arms and legs splayed and then smashing your crotch area with a big hammer to kill you painfully but slowly. They have already done that to many people."

While he was talking he saw some trees and brush along the side of the road and he pulled around behind them and drove practically all the way into the grove until the car was hidden out of view from the road. He told me to get on the floor and he threw a blanket over the top of me just in case. Almost right away a caravan of military trucks went past us on the road. I could not see them but I could sure hear them and feel the vibrations from the heavy trucks as they sped past us. After they had gone by we waited a while to give them some time to get way ahead of us. He told me more about the situation as we waited.

"Idi Amin has declared war on intellectuals and on Indians. I am afraid for my life and I work for our government as the Minister of Agriculture. I went to school in America and in England. Idi Amin does not like anybody smarter than him around and he only has a fourth grade education and some Israeli military training so he is murdering all the people that went to university especially in a different country like I did. He will kill me for sure. I am on my way to my home in Kampala and I am gathering my things and fleeing to Kenya. You will have to come with me to Kenya or they will torture and kill you for sure. Our country is in chaos. God save us!"

He told me more gory details on the drive to Kampala about the whole Idi Amin history. He told me, "The banks were all robbed by him before he told the Indians to leave because he knew they stored their cash and jewelry in the safety deposit boxes. He murdered many people from the opposition tribe to keep them from taking away his rule. Many of them had fled to Zaire or Kenya already. They couldn't flee to the Sudan or Ethiopia because there were wars going on in those places. Idi Amin closed the newspapers and now he personally writes the only newspaper allowed in the country. The airport is closed. The trains are not running. Everything is a total mess and very very dangerous. I hope we can get out of here alive. It will take me two days to get all my things together in Kampala then we will go to the border together. You will have to hide in my house until then. You can not even show your face to anyone. "

He was clearly terrified himself. So I stayed hidden in his house and he spent all day for two days collecting what he could to flee the country. Just in case, I came up with a contingency plan to flee at night alone if I had to do that. It was just in the case that he did not come back to the house. Then when he was ready we got in his government issued car and we left for the border with Kenya. At the border he was very nervous. He pointed my door at the Kenyan border and told me to watch in the mirror and if anything went wrong I should immediately jump out of the car and run as fast as I could run into Kenya and just hope that I did not get shot. He planned on bribing his way out of the country. The flaw in the plan is why should they accept a bribe when they could just take everything? I hoped the fact that he was driving an official car would intimidate them into letting us through. I sat in the car watching. It got a bit animated at one point and I put my hand on the door and checked that it wasn't locked. Then they all started to laugh and he walked back to the car laughing and joking as we headed over to the Kenyan side. As we pulled up to the gate entering Kenya he let out a big sigh and started to cry like a baby. "I am crying for my country right now, not for myself!" I knew why he was crying. I was right there with him. I was scared shitless sitting there wondering if we would make it out and the relief when we did was enough to make a grown man cry.