How Idi Amin Changed My Life!

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
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Friday, April 26, 2013

How Idi Amin, the 'Butcher of Uganda' changed my life -- for good

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

KAMPALA, UGANDA (ANS) -- It's hard to believe, but it is true, that Idi Amin Dada, who became known as the "Butcher of Uganda" for his brutal, despotic rule while president of Uganda in the 1970s, and was possibly the most notorious of all Africa's post-independence dictators, changed my life for good.

Idi Amin with the many medals he had awarded himself

This monster, who seized power in a military coup in 1971 and ruled over Uganda for 8 years, is said to have been responsible for the murders of some 300,000 Christians during his terrible period of misrule.

Winston Churchill visited Uganda and wrote a book in 1908 called "My African Journey" in which he said, "For magnificence, for variety of form and color, for profusion of brilliant life -- bird, insect, reptile, beast -- for vast scale -- Uganda is truly 'the Pearl of Africa.'"

But by 1979, when Amin fled into exile; first to Libya and then to Saudi Arabia where he died in Jeddah on August 16, 2003, his country had been reduced to a "Tarnished Pearl of Africa."

Amin's time in power saw shocking bloodshed, with a number of his opponents either murdered, tortured, or imprisoned. His insatiable bloodlust finally saw, according to human rights observers, at least 500,000 Ugandans killed during his eight-year reign of terror.
For many, he became a huge joke and was satirized on British TV by actor John Bird, especially after he gave himself so many titles, including "His Excellency, President for Life," "Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor," "Idi Amin Dada, VC,[C] DSO, MC," "Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular."

So how on earth did this vicious killer, who took power in a military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote, and a former heavyweight boxer, who stood 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed 270 pounds, changed my life and helped me find a new mission in my life - helping the Persecuted Christian Church?

Well, it began in the Spring of 1979 while I was in a smoky bar off Fleet Street, London (the then center of the British newspaper industry. It was called "The Stab in the Back" and I was drunk as usual with my colleagues, when an old friend, Ray Barnett, came back into my life after he became deeply concerned at how far I had slipped from my earlier Christian faith. (I had been born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, and my father later became an Evangelical pastor in Birmingham, England, for some 30 years.)

Ray, an Irish-Canadian, who had founded a non-profit called Friends in the West and later began the African Children's Choir, had previously taken me on a reporting trip to Russia, where we were held briefly under house arrest, and often looked me up when he was in London.

Ray who was born in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and later settled in British Columbia, Canada, was aware that I was desperately unhappy with my life as a tabloid reporter with the Sunday People newspaper and really wanted to help me get my life back on track with God.

So in that smoky bar filled with cynical London hacks, Ray shared with me the incredible story of the courageous Christians of Uganda who had survived the "Uganda Holocaust." He explained that 300,000 believers were among those who were slaughtered during the mass killings of those eight years of Amin's misrule.

He then challenged me to give my life and talents back to the Lord; quit my job and travel with him to Uganda to write a book on what had happened in that country. His timing couldn't have been better and that night I recommitted my life to the Lord, agreed to quit my job on the Sunday People, one of Britain's largest circulation newspapers, and fly to Uganda with him to begin work on the book which was eventually published by Pickering And Inglis , a British publisher, and also by Zondervan in the United States. It was called "Uganda Holocaust."

Ray Barnett and Dan Wooding pictured after arriving at Entebbe Airport

We flew from London to Nairobi in Kenya and then onto Entebbe Airport and as we were touching down, Ray turned to me and said, "Well, Dan, you've gone and done it now."

I smiled wryly. "Yes, I have. You know, on the last day at the paper they had a reception and all the staff sang 'All things bright and beautiful' for me. I think they must have made history. I don't think a hymn's ever been sung in the Sunday People newsroom before.

"I'm glad I'm out, but it was quite a wrench. It was as if I had a ladder up to a building which was my career. I had crawled and scratched my way to the top and when I got there I discovered I had the ladder against the wrong building all the time.."

As the plane touched down on the runway at the battle-scarred airport, the passengers, mainly Ugandan refugees returning home, clapped joyously as the hostess said "Welcome home!"

In Nairobi, we had approached World Vision International and they agreed to allow Ray and me to join one of their relief reconnoiters, and to travel with them in a Volkswagen Kombi van that would take us on the long, hair-raising journey into the very heart of the Uganda holocaust.

Now at Entebbe, we clambered down the steps of the plane to be greeted by a hot, stuffy billow of air, and I noticed a huge presence of Tanzanian troops. About three hundred yards from our plane, the notorious "Whisky Run" jet stood motionless and riddled with bullets. This Boeing 707, bearing the black, red, and yellow insignia of Uganda Airlines, used to make a weekly fourteen-hour flight to Stanstead Airport in England, where Amin's men would load it up with booze (even though they were Muslims) and other "goodies" for the killer squads.

Dan and Ray with soldiers in Uganda

The Ugandans paid for this with cash from the sale of coffee. Often there were as much as forty tons of goods in the airplane's hold. Whisky was always a priority. It was Amin's way of buying their loyalty.

As we walked into the devastated terminal, it was amusing to see a table with a single immigration official, parked in the middle of the twisted mess. I presented my passport and before he even looked at it, he fixed me with a baleful stare and asked in an eerily, controlled voice, "Do you have any Kenyan newspapers? It gets so boring here with only two flights a day." (One was from Kenya, the other Zaire.)

I lamely handed him a Nairobi newspaper, so he stamped my passport. Obviously documentation didn't mean too much, as long as I had something for him to read.

When the three of us got through customs, we were met by Geoffrey Latim, a former Olympic athlete who had fled the country during Amin's reign. He was to be our guide. Latim led us to a Christian customs officer who, while being watched by a poker-faced Tanzanian soldier armed with a rifle, made a token check of our bags.

"There is no phone link with Kampala and little or no petrol (gasoline)," explained Latim. "So we might be in for a long wait until a driver arrives for us. He dropped me off and said he would be back later."

Latim was right. During that time, the Christian customs official, who turned out to be from the Acholi tribe, joined us for a chat. He shared with us how God had saved his life. "I was going to be killed on April 7, 1979," he said. "But on the sixth, Entebbe was liberated by the Tanzanians troops and my life was spared."

The man revealed that his name was on a death list found when the State Research Bureau headquarters at Nakasero, Kampala, was liberated by the Tanzanians. He looked sad as he told of the heartbreak of his job during Amin's rule. "I saw many people passing through customs and I knew there was no way they would reach the aircraft," he said tragically. "They would be intercepted by the State Research men and never be heard of again. These terrible killers were all over the airport. Most of them were illiterate and had gotten their jobs because they were of the same tribe as Amin."

Eventually the Kombi arrived and we began the thirty-mile journey to the capital. We were stopped at several road blocks set up by the Tanzanians, and Latim patiently explained to the positively wild-looking soldiers-most of whom were carrying a rifle in one hand, a huge looted "ghetto-blaster" playing loud, thumping disco music in the other -- why we were in Uganda. Burned-out military hardware, including tanks, littered the sides of the main highway to Kampala.

Soon we were at the Namirembe Guest House, run by the Church of Uganda, but originally set up by the Church Missionary Society. It was getting dark as the van bumped its way into the grounds, which are just below the cathedral.

"You are all most welcome," said the ever-smiling manager, Naomi Gonahasa. We soon realized the incredible difficulties under which she and her staff were working. There was no running water and so it had to be brought in jerry cans from the city on the back of a bicycle, at $1.50 US a can.

Each resident was rationed to one bottle of brownish water per day -- and that was for everything. They had no gas for cooking, so it was all done on a charcoal fire. What made it even more difficult was that there were no telephones working in the entire city, so we could not alert any of Ray's contacts that we had arrived.

When we unpacked in the fading light, we heard the sounds of machine-gun fire reverberating across the city below us. Then came the sounds of heavy explosions and of screaming and wailing, which continued all through the night.

I now realized that Ray had been deadly serious when he told me that this trip could cost me my life. I got down by my bed and re-committed my life to the Lord.

"God," I said against a background of screaming, "I don't know what is going to happen here, but I want you to have your own way with my life, and that of Ray. We realize the dangers, but they are nothing to what our brothers and sisters here have faced over the past eight years."

As I stood up, I turned to Ray who was calmly lying on his bed, reading his Bible, and said, "A fine mess you've got me into again.."
He smiled. "Where would you rather be -- in Fleet Street, or here, serving the suffering church of Uganda?"

My look showed him that I knew I was now in the center of God's will.
During our stay at the guest house, we became firm friends with Naomi and her husband Stephen. As we built up trust with them, they revealed their part in saving the lives of believers on the run from Amin's savage killers.

I learned from them the secret code word which they responded to when someone came to them for sanctuary.

"This was a good hiding place from State Research people," said Stephen. "People would turn up here and as long as they knew the code word "Goodyear", we would hide them. Their food was served in their rooms. Naturally we would not let them sign the guest register in case it would be checked."

Naomi added, "We were not really frightened, because we believed that God was protecting us."

This sincere young couple, obvious targets for the thugs of the Ugandan State Research Bureau, were also active members of an underground church. Often believers from the Deliverance Church, one of the twenty-seven groups banned by Amin after he claimed had received orders from Allah in dreams, would have meetings in the lounge of the guest house.

The next morning we had our first experience of the terrible ferocity of Amin's battle against the church during his reign of terror. We went to a church in Makerere, run by the Gospel Mission to Uganda. As we examined the bullet holes that had riddled the ceiling and the walls, I asked a member what had happened.

He told me that on April 12, 1978, Amin's wild-eyed soldiers had invaded the church and begun firing indiscriminately at the 600-strong congregation. Assistant pastor, Jotham Mutebi, was on the platform and he sank to his knees in prayer.

Amid the mayhem, hundreds more quickly dropped to their knees between the pews. With upraised arms they began to praise the Lord. The sturdy red brick church was filled with a cacophony of incredible sound-a combination of prayer, praise and bullets.

Joseph Nyakairu, a member of the church orchestra, raised his trumpet to his lips and blew it as loudly as he could. The Amin soldiers thought the Christians were about to counter-attack and fled the sanctuary.

200 church members who were going to be burned alive celebrating their freedom (Photo: Dan Wooding)

In the ensuing confusion, nearly 400 people managed to slip away from the church. But at least 200 remained on their knees and continued to worship the Lord when the soldiers returned and continued spraying bullets everywhere. They took hold of Joseph's trumpet and threw it to the ground, spraying bullets at it. Then they "executed" the organ. The congregation knew that death could be imminent and that they were under arrest!

They were taken to the State Research Bureau headquarters at Nakasero, and there they were mocked and told that as soon as General Mustafa Adrisi, Idi Amin's second-in-command, signed the execution order, they would all be burned alive.

The 200 sat in silent prayer and, even as they prayed, General Adrisi was involved in a terrible car crash in which both his legs were badly fractured. He ended up a cripple in a wheelchair and finally Amin turned against him," said one believer.

When the signed order from Adrisi did not appear, the guards led the prisoners to the cells. They were kept behind bars for some months. Many of them were badly tortured, but miraculously none of them died.
As we left these incredible people, I turned to Ray and said, "I've never met believers of this caliber in my country. They certainly have much to teach us about faith and courage."

We bumped along for hours on end, having to stop regularly at road blocks.

Idi Amin with Archbishop Luwum. Note the pistol at the side of Amin. He was said to have used it shortly afterwards to murder the Archbishop

In Latim's hometown of Gulu, we learned the astonishing story of the burial of Archbishop Janani Luwum, who according to credible sources in Kampala, had been brutally shot in the mouth by Idi Amin himself.
Mildred Brown, an English woman who was working in the region translating the Scriptures into Acholi for the Bible Society, began to explain how Janani's body had been taken to his home village of Mucwini, near the Sudan border, for burial.

His mother, at her home, told the soldiers, "My son is a Christian. He cannot be buried here; he must be buried in the graveyard of the local church."

So the soldiers took the casket to the picturesque tiny hilltop church for a hurried burial.

As we drank our tea, Miss Brown told us, "The soldiers had begun to dig the grave, but hadn't been able to complete the job before dark because the earth was too hard. They left the coffin in the church overnight, SO they could finish the grave the next day."

Thus the hardness of the ground gave the group of believers at Mucwini the chance to gaze for the last time on their martyred archbishop. By the flickering gleam of a hurricane lamp, they saw the body of a purple-clad man. They noted there were two gun wounds, one in his neck, where the bullet had apparently gone into his mouth and out again, the other in his groin. Janani's purple robe was stained with blood, his arms were badly skinned, his rings had been stolen, and he was shoeless.

They were all gazing quietly, reverently, at the body of a martyr, a man who was killed for daring to stand up to the "black Hitler of Africa."

Even as the people gave thanks for their beloved archbishop, just one of some 500,000 victims under Amin, the government-controlled newspaper, Voice of Uganda, published a call for President Amin to be made emperor and then proclaimed him as "the Son of God."

Back in Kampala, we were able to meet up with "God's Double Agent in the President's Office". Ben Oluka, who was senior assistant secretary in the Department of Religious Affairs in Amin's office, had used his influence to bring about the saving of many Christian lives throughout Uganda.

But what Amin did not realize was that Ben Oluka was not only doing what he could to assist suffering believers, but was also pastoring an underground church in his home. It was a small group from the Deliverance Church, an indigenous Ugandan evangelical fellowship.

Book cover

"At that time, I was working in the office that had to enforce the president's ban (against the twenty-seven denominations), and secretly I was running an underground church myself," he said. "When the ban was announced, much of the church immediately went underground, and house meetings sprang up throughout the country. There is a higher power, and when government restricts freedom of worship, God's supremacy has to take over. I was personally ready for martyrdom."

And that was the feeling of millions of Ugandan believers, regardless of Amin's persecution. They were willing to die for their faith.

At the end of the trip, I knelt by my bed at the Namirembe Guest House and prayed, "Lord, these Ugandan believers have had such an impact on me that I want to dedicate my talents for the rest of my life to helping suffering believers around the world who don't have a voice. Please help me to be a voice for them."

I returned from Uganda a different person. The courage of the Ugandan Christians will live with me forever.

"After working on a story like this, how can I ever return to Fleet Street?" I shared with my wife Norma back home in England.

Now, I realize how his persecution of his people and particularly the Christians there, had changed my life forever. What Amin meant for evil, God has used for good! And now that I have since moved with my family to Southern California, I spend all my time writing about the Persecuted Christians of the world, including those in Uganda, through my news service (www.assistnews.net), and through my "Front Page Radio" program on the KWVE Radio Network (www.kwve.com) and my "His Channel Live" Internet TV show on www.hischannel.com.

If you would like a free subscription to the news service, just go to: http://sheperd.com/ASSIST/subscribe_to_assist_news_service.htm to sign up.

"Uganda Holocaust" is still available on various Internet sites, and you can check them out or go to www.amazon.com.

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Dan Wooding, 72, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 49 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and he hosts the weekly "Front Page Radio" show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States and around the world. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. Dan recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and as one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 45 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: Caped Crusader - Amazon