Last King of Scotland

Some of you may be interested in seeing, or may have already seen, the movie, "The Last King of Scotland". Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, does have a modern movie theatre. There was a lot of excitement when the first showing of the movie aired at the Kampala movie theater with president Museveni and other important figures watching. We were able to take the movie in during a recent visit to Kampala for a CRWRC country team function.

We didn’t find the movie as artfully or well done as some other recent films, such as "Blood Diamond". Still, it was fun to see it in Uganda with an audience that has a living memory of the Amin era. Generally, the people that we talk to that lived through the years Amin was in control from 1971 to 1979 feel that the depiction of the man was not truly accurate. Amin, they say, was much more shrewd and calculating and less given to outbursts of anger and/or laughter. Amin, of course, died over two years ago in exile in Saudi Arabia. It’s worth noting these facts since Amin seems to live on in the world’s psyche as a recent, or sometime even current, phenomenon. While his time is long since gone, the country is still recovering from the negative impacts of his many mistakes, such as his decision to expel all people of Asian decent. This decision alone was enough to send the country into an economic tailspin. Even more distressful was his decision to quietly execute all those that dared to oppose him. This decision had a chilling affect on the country’s budding civil society and fragile democracy. Some groups accredit him with the deaths of 300,000 people. Amnesty International puts the number at 500,000. In any case, Amin is not the central figure of the film, but is there as a foil to his Scottish doctor. There isn’t a lot of educational material on Uganda as a whole from that time period or since, though you do get some snapshots here and there of the country’s topographical and cultural diversity and beauty.

I have posted a picture of a carcass of an armored vehicle from the roadside not too far from Arua. I pass by three such vehicles when I travel to Goli to visit the headquarters of one of my partners. These vehicles are remnants of the last days of Idi Amin’s era when his troops fled to his homeland in West Nile as a last ditch effort to save their skins. Amin is said to be of Kakwa decent. Koboko, which is one of the districts in which we work, is largely populated by the Kakwa people-group. Because of this fact, following Amin’s overthrow, the people of West Nile were more-or-less persecuted by the incoming “security” force. The negative sentiment on the part of those living in the southern parts of Uganda toward those living in the northern reaches persist to this day. In fact, Uganda is sometimes described as being divided into two countries – the North and the South. This attitudinal divide does impact our work, as the north generally does not get the same attention or level of services as the southern part of the country. At the same time, the situation appears to have left people fairly independent and willing to grow in West Nile.

In general, things have started looking up under the current leadership that has been in place since 1986. There are still issues of gross corruption and mismanagement to tackle. However, we see some signs that the Ugandan civil society is starting to wake up to its rights and obligations. This fact demonstrates that some of the last vestiges of the Amin era oppression and suppression are slowly coming to an end.