Day 17: On Kampala and Memory

We spent today in Kampala Uganda touring sites around the city used as torture cells by Idi Amin during his reign of terror in the 1970's during which he killed any opponent or imagined opponent to his political power (likely around 300,000 people). It was challenging for multiple reasons.

First, only one site, the cavernous tunnel of dark cells under the Lubiri Palace which both dictators Amin (and also Milton Obote) used for killing, is maintained to this day as a memorial site. Not one other torture facility in Kampala out of possibly hundreds has remained as it was in the 70's. All have been reclaimed and reused for new things. And not just for storage or passive uses. The Serena Kampala for example, by far the nicest hotel in the entire country, has rooms in its lower levels that were once used to torture and kill people. Nowhere on the hotel website does it allude to this history. In fact, we were rapidly approached across four lanes of traffic by Serena security guards who crossed the street as we attempted to simply photograph the hotel from afar. It is a challenge to see examples of history being denied and erased. Later when we were at the Lubiri Palace, we asked our guide about the Serena Hotel and its policy of denial. He immediately replied, "I am not supposed to talk about the Serena Hotel." And that was that.

Of course there is the challenge is seeing the sites themselves. I have been all over the world to see genocide and torture sites to reflect on how they tell their stories and how they maintain their history. Lubiri's story is dark, figuratively and literally. The long walk to the tunnel. The tunnel itself, which Amin filled with water that he electrified to torture and ultimately kill his victims (where the students in the photo are standing) is silent, cold, unforgiving. Prisoners were placed into the concrete cells to the left, one of which is shown, until they weakened enough to be more easily killed.

Exploring these sites is challenging in a third way: trying to reconcile one's own opinions on torture, dictators, and mass murder - things which we should all be able to categorically condemn as bad and wrong - with opinions to the exact contrary by other people, sometimes locals themselves. A young Ugandan said to Dave the other day in all seriousness, "I like Idi Amin. He found all of the people who opposed him. And he killed them. This is a sign of solid leadership.”

How are we to reconcile living in a world of such contrasts between remembering and forgetting, while torn between and surrounded by those who range in feeling from sensitivity to continuing to promote cruelty? I am, yet again on this trip, left with more questions than answers.

-Greg