How Idi Amin rescued his children from Kabale

April 11 marked 34 years since Idi Amin was overthrown by a combined force of Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) and Ugandan exiles. In this third part of our series – Idi Amin: The Last Days – as told by his son Jaffar Remo Amin, we reveal how Amin planned and executed a mission to rescue his 10 children who had been studying in boarding school in Kabale, following the cutting off of Mbarara by the liberation forces.

The long trek
We trudged through Wakaraba valley towards Kisoro. Mbarara was now in enemy hands and the two Uganda Army units there had ceased to exist as an organized force in the area. We would have to head for Kisoro, pass through Rwanda, cross over into Zaire and then back into Uganda around Lake George and Lake Edward through the Queen Elizabeth National Park in order to escape the invading Tanzanian Army. We would then go to Hotel Marguerita where we would wait for a plane dad was sending to fly us to Entebbe.

I remember the treacherously steep descend around the Kisoro area. The soldiers later told me that we were lucky passing through this place deep in the night because the abyss was not a sight for the faint hearted. What an amazing trek!

This will always stick in my mind. We only had a Military Police backup from the Kabale Barracks who escorted us in a military Land Rover. Just as we entered the national park deep in the night, somehow one of the sockets to the battery power came off and the powerful bus ground to a halt right in the middle of the park.

The military police alighted and came to try and fix the problem but they were very alarmed by the slowly advancing laughter from hyenas in the area, which seemed to be daring the soldiers to try their luck. Anyone who has ever heard the sound of a hyena’s laugh will know what I am talking about. The officer in-charge, a captain, then decided that we would have to rest in the car until early morning the next day.

At dawn, Sgt Tirikwendera, probably a veteran truck driver, alighted and simply re-plugged the battery and the powerful machine kick-started instantly. We set off on a speedy romp through the park but came to a mile long traffic jam of heavy goods trucks that had got stuck in metre deep ditches. I will always remember the initial bemused looks on the hardened truck driver’s faces when Sgt Tirikwendera made a detour on the side of the stranded trucks, then amazingly managed to pass the multitude of trucks to the grudgingly respectful stares of the truck drivers.

The drivers longingly looked on as we effortlessly trudged forwards in that brilliantly orange all-terrain military bus. We came out near the Kazinga Channel, a conduit that links Lake George to Lake Edward, and were able to join the tarmac road right up to Hotel Marguerita at the foothill of Mountain Rwenzori, inside Queen Elizabeth II National Park.

Dad sent a King-Air turbo propeller plane to pick us up after a lengthy stay at this memorable hotel that bears my mother’s name. While residing at Hotel Marguerita, the officer in-charge of Kabale Military Police Barracks, one Capt Rajab Rembi, a former Uganda Cranes no. 11 winger in the 1960s, tentatively managed to teach a gangly flat-footed laid back 12-year-old how to play pool in the bar room area.

I still remember the lessons I received from Captain Rajab and the misty atmosphere one sees at the foot of Mount Rwenzori. What a beautiful sight! Dad later shocked us when he claimed that there was an attempt by the advancing liberation forces to shoot down the plane with anti-aircraft fire as it approached the Mpigi area.
We slept during the entire flight because we were too exhausted from the jungle trek. We had trekked from Kabale to Rwanda and Zaire and back into Uganda around Kasese into the national park through the night, arrived at the hotel around lunch time and were flown to Entebbe arriving by 18:00 the same day. That was why dad’s revelation really shocked us.

Other than the turbulence experienced around the lakeshores as the King-Air plane approached Entebbe Airport, nothing much happened apart from my sister Asha Aate Mbabazi tagging my sweater and owning up that she had wet herself. I placed my six-year-old sister to the side and indeed my “Idi Best” (“Sunday Best”) trousers were all wet.

Upon arrival, I rushed to the Children’s Wing to change, while she was rushed to her mother Mama Mary Karemire. At the time Mama Mary was the private secretary for social affairs in the President’s Office.