Old Kampala coups
I cannot say that I learned of the over- throw of Dr Milton Obote of Uganda with
any great regret: if a choice is to be made between quiet military men and noisy civil dictators (the choice has often seemed to be between Sandhurst and the LSE although in this case the LSE is not represented) then I prefer, in Africa at least, the military.
It so happened that I was in Uganda when Dr Obote deposed King Freddie, the Kabaka of Buganda (which is an enclave within Uganda) and declared himself to be President : the press releases announcing the declaration (which releases were as formal an announcement, at the time, as existed) were to be found by roaming around the ad- ministrative offices in Kampala, the pleasant hilly capital town constantly filled with Hausa and with Indian traders. If you were lucky, you chanced upon the right duplicating machine as it happened to run off a couple of copies. It was all extremely informal, even •to the firing of a few accidental shots.
The main problem, as usual, was com- munication—not only getting news out of the country, not indeed only finding news in the country (like finding the right duplicating machine at the right moment), but getting in- to the country, and, once there, commuting between Entebbe, stifling on the mosquito- ridden banks of Lake Victoria and Kampala, There was a garage a mile or so up the road from the Entebbe hotel, and sometimes there was a car to be hired and sometimes not, and the only alternative way to hitch a lift. Once in Kampala it was even more difficult getting back down to Entebbe. The mosquitoes at
night made the journey most unwelcome, and people in Kampala (like all people who live on hills) despised Entebbe, down below on the sullen banks of the great inland sea.
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