Geoffrey Bindman travels from Bar to bar in Uganda and encounters a courteous Idi Amin. Post coup, the dictator proves more difficult to track down
It was 1970. Parliament had recently withdrawn British citizenship from those subjects who could not demonstrate ancestry within the UK. Ugandan Asians were among those clamouring for British visas.
Two students from England had been travelling in Africa. They found themselves in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, chatting to the editor of a local newspaper. The telephone rang and the students overheard the ensuing conversation. The caller was later identified as a suspect in a bizarre kidnapping.
An official from the British High Commission claimed that he had been seized by an armed gang and taken to an island in Lake Victoria, where he was kept for a few days, but then released unharmed.
The Ugandan government believed that behind the kidnapping there was another story of corruption. They suspected the British
official of selling visas and that the kidnapping, whether genuine or not, was linked to his illicit trade.
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