The Great Walking Train

The Great Walking Train

A night mare; one night long ago…

Sam Mwaka-karama

      In the dry harvest season, the village was always lively, happy and buzzed with busy-bee activities. The village women were already on the kraal spreading the fresh harvest millet for the drying hot day.

      We the village kids hardly ever overslept in the dry season – by the early Lakana sunrise we were already seated atop the huge grand old Aliri anthill; where that little part of the anthill we had broken the previous evening protruded out wet fine earth… the Okok ants had over-night sealed the broken part by rebuilding a small mold. It was this fresh earth that we used to roll small round balls for our catapult. That was our routine; early to rise and sweep the kraal clean of all goats overnight droppings – so that our mothers dried and processed the harvests by day.

      The boys from across the Oitino River were already blowing their hands telling us that the birds hunting party had started moving-out and we should hurry hurry hurry! Otoye-toye-toye… wan-do cako-wot’o, wot-wunnu yo-yot otoye-toye-toye!

      As the soldier ants strike-out at our fingers, we quickly flick them away and sometimes crush them into the balls we now hurriedly roll. ‘Kwiik, kwiik, kwiik’ – suddenly Okwiik the black birds perched high up the tall majestic Tugu palm trees shriek down at us… and using the dried hard earth balls we had made the previous day – we slug them rapidly. They scatter flying north the direction we were preparing to go. So we hurry to run after them.

      Yelling and scrambling down the anthill, we race after them occasionally sending our earth balls at them; Okwiik are a clumsy flier, but they are freak birds – no village boy ever shot them down – so we merely catapult the slugs at them aimlessly. Sensing the slugs zapping around they quickly scale-up flying higher and higher and eventually out of our reach.

       At the Rocky River convergent point we meet the boys from across – we are friends, age-mates and often fighting foes as well. But this morning we were in good camaraderie friendship we all joked and laughed.

        As we walked away from the villages the bird hunting party effectively began then; every boy was on the look-out for the wild doves Akuri; the tough winged pigeons dried on open fire tasted salty – we all looked out for them. The land was vast as far as the eyes could see and, we just kept going.

        By mid-day I had killed three little birds; some of the bigger boys had already killed one or two Akuri wild doves – the biggest boy among us had killed a spy squirrel; Tilli slugged it clean between the eye and the ear… it was warm and its hind-legs kicked weakly as the big boy picked it up, twisting its neck dead.

       Tilli’s father was my father’s brother – and we the kids from my grandfather’s clan saw him as our head. Now we were one up on the boys from across because our head boy had already made the big kill of the day – now he had two pigeons, one Aliboro and the squirrel.

       The wild and now rowdy birds hunting party walked on and on past even the furthest villages on the far outer fringes towards the wild country side. Many times, a rabbit and other small animals suddenly bolted in a blurry get away – Tilli’s dog Genkumi snatched the streak rabbit in a spectacular chase I was to see for the first time – awesome it was!

        The dry season wild fire had swept the country side clean – so our birds hunting party just went on and on. At length, we had eventually gathered around a group of huge trees in the mid afternoon silently searching for birds in the dense green leaves and slugging at them quietly – it was hot and the birds landed on the trees to rest and cool down… I killed two good size pigeons there. Just then the older boys decided we gather twigs and start a fire. The older boys looked for and found a particular type of tree and broke its twigs; sitting on the ground a boy placed two twigs together and held them firmly by his heels and then used a pencil sized twig that he vigorously rubbed between his palms and presently smoke began to appear at the contact point he firmly grinded… another boy added soft dry grass to this grinded-point and blew his cheeks hard at it till the flames appeared – now everybody picked dry grass and lighted the fire and the roasting of birds and small animals spread-out.

The abominable Walking Train…

       It was suddenly getting dark when we realized the day was gone and if we didn’t hurry back we were getting caught-up by nightfall… it was then that we suddenly began hearing some not so far away strange rhythmic weird  crunching, clanging and hissing noise! Bewildered, we all stopped the roasting and eating and listened craning our necks and cocking our ears – we held our breaths.

      We were gripped! Terror rooted us immobile as the noise coming from over the headland westwards was now louder and louder; and suddenly thick black smoke billowed; chwek-whwek-chwek-whwek-chwek; clang-wrek, clang-werk, clang-wrek, clang-wrek – we scampered running homewards, but the hideous menacing noise moved much faster cutting us off – suddenly as we got onto the headland there it was struggling up valley; a twisty long train hissing white hydro-smoke - like out of two huge nostrils and, black smoke out of the top of its head… the train and coaches all moved on legs the size of a huge man’s chest as it walked its multiple legs in unison, bending at the knees and at its Elephant like large heavy feet.

        Many times in the uneven hillside as it detoured to cut-us off from breaking into a terrified home run one or the other of its many-many massive legs jerked sideways revealing an open between the thigh and the lower leg where a glistening hydraulic shock system appeared briefly and steadied it shortened back and walked on – terrified many of the other kids had already run away but three of us were transfixed staring at the awesome walking train… inside it was weak yellow light and head and shoulders of passengers could be furtively seen.

        Two engineers sweat drenched were busy in their tiny cabin: the big fat charcoal black one threw hefty logs in the hellfire that cooked and boiled the engine – while his pencil thin colleague hanged out; his face reminded me of the moon crescent; his fore-head was bulging and his thin mouth drawn tight inwards with a long smoking pipe also with pointed chin was firmly bitten by his clenched hard jaw – spittle occasionally streaked out of the side of his mouth, his engineer’s cap pasted at the back of his head and, his hair around it was graying… I realized that he was unseeingly looking around because he obviously did not see us – as the walking train momentarily stopped and; presently one of the doors flung open and a thin lone woman silhouetted out and claimed down the three steps disappearing afoot the massive walking train at the grassy ground. Then the train began moving… now we ran and ran and ran till I suddenly woke-up! O! O! Ohh! A night mare! I was drenched in sweat my heart beating wildly. I nearly died in the abominable scare! ***  

             

When Uganda Police Detectives First first crossed to Kenya

When Uganda Police Detectives first crossed to Kenya

         A Police Story...

Sam Mwaka-karama

‘Athi River Murder’ – became a first rate Ugandan crime detective story exhaustively followed and reported by DRUM magazines for years in the 1960s and 70s - long after the criminals had either been apprehended, vanished or for others melted away with their trail running cold every year that elapsed.

The drama had unfolded at Lugogo Indoors Stadium – the night was light and somewhat cool as it often was in Kampala evenings, the night sky favourably clear and star spangled up there; a huge tropical moon slightly past overhead noon point.  As the guests packed in, security was normal. There was an air of political anticipation; then President Obote had just few years earlier successfully abrogated the independence constitution, made his ‘Nakivubo Pronouncement’ as the build-up on his ‘Move to the Left’ political philosophy.

 Lugogo was one such political philosophy build-up event - there that night Dr. Obote was set to unfurl his next dictum what would begin to piece together the complex steps towards mapping-out his political philosophy – and the visualized build-up of the ideology [move to the left] - next door in Tanzania then President Julius Nyerere, equally worked-up the Tanzanian people with his “Ujamah” African socialism political mobilization Ideology – already the fire-brand was talking about ushering a transformation. While at the same time then Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta united the Kenyan people under his ‘fly-whisk’ political ideology of ‘’pull-together’’ in his long characteristic call –‘’ Harambee’’. To foreign observers and African watchers the East African region looked very-much set for a major change.

That night in Lugogo as Obote was set to make another major pronouncement, a group of the Kabaka’s Buganda loyalist die hard; following the crisis of 1966 that saw the exit of Kabaka Mutesa II into exile in Britain – the loyalists were determined to end President Obote’s life – though the old Police systems had already gotten wind of the loyalists arrangements, they had been several steps behind and, actually very late!

The ‘assassin’ moved easily and freely among the mostly security un-conscious VIP and eminent guests, and dressed in a popular Kitenge design with the Presidents head centred on his Kitenge shirt; just like so many chanting praise animatedly, Kyeyune eventually picking his moment approached and actually fired! The rest is a well known police story – in Uganda history.

For the detectives, headed by Indian Hassan Sundrani, and going by the book as it were - they were said to have been closing on the trail of the suspect group a long time, Kyeyune just freaked them out; because he was the ‘dummy’ - he was the most unlikely of the group that included names like John Obo (1965/6 Army dismissed mutineer Captain), and some of Katwe’s toughies the detectives trailed all the time. It was in the dying eleventh hour of the ‘Lugogo take’ – that Hassan’s detectives got the name and identity of ‘the man with the golden gun’, from a Suzana Night Club prostitute – now they knew the ‘dummy’ was the assassin; but where was he? The last minute race began then...

In the blinding stampede that followed Kyeyune’s shot – the assassin aided by his back-up [who suddenly crushed and demolished their way through the scampering mass of falling entanglement of bodies] rode on the back of the stampede-crowd and falling VIPs and hysterical everybody and Kyeyune  was out of the focal point perimeter in barely seconds. Huge throngs of people burst out of the gates, in minutes a whole lot of them wearing that Obote Kitenge, spilling onto that stretch down towards Lugogo by pass – where those detectives later theorized that the most likely route where the getaway car probably waited for the assassin action team.

 Other theories said the action group might have fled [along with the huge crowd of dancing groups from the Naguru community, who had been the mobilized welcome cultural group entertaining Guests outside the indoor stadium] running on foot across the Lugogo by-pass and onto what used to be open rugby ground and probably boarded the getaway car someplace near the Delinquent kids’ home close to the old Naguru housing estates flats. And the convoy of perhaps three or more cars drove through the night in sturdy Datsun 1600 SSS - to Kenya border. Kyeyune, the man who nearly killed President Obote disappeared into Kenya. It was rumoured among the junior detectives that a top Kenyan political criminal who went by the fake name of Mark twist might have master minded the Obote assassination attempt – however the many-many investigative articles written in the Drum magazine for several years after, never actually associated Mark Twist to the Lugogo event.

Emancipation of Uganda Police

Kampala was in turmoil after that fateful night – though Obote was out of danger, and was healthy enough to live many more years after the hurting of that assassin’s bullet; the challenges fell squarely on the shoulders of the Police; to find and bring to justice all involved accountably. The Scotland Yard landed investigators to aid the Ugandan detectives structure the group identikit and, begin tracking them down...

Since the UPC and KY political alliance had collapsed and come to an end – with the Kabaka of Buganda having much earlier fled into exile in Britain. And, Dr. Milton Obote assuming position of Executive President thus making Uganda a Republic by abrogating the Independence Constitution – the Buganda loyalists of the Kabaka had pledged a bullet on Obote’s head... and that was delivered by Kyeyune that night... the drums resounded throughout Buganda as the people were hysterical that actually President Obote had miraculously survived.

The now really heated President bared  down on the AG, DPP and IGP and the three  powerful officers pretty-much roughed-up Commissioner Hassan the CID Chief – who quickly delivered a report that the assassination group had fled to Kenya and, he needed clearances to cross a detective team into Kenya. Obote was a powerful East African President and, a friend to his East African peers – Hassan’s team was in Kenya in no time at all.

While in Uganda in the period following the Lugogo incidence, a spate of violent robberies broke-out as the loyalists raised cash for the exiled assassination group now living in Kenya... the robbery money used by the group in their settlement in Kenya was to dramatically make things doubly difficult for the detectives holed-up in Nairobi.

The team comprised high ranking action oriented detectives included a group of Police Women accompanied by top prostitutes who knew the assassin group well and had divulged a lot of their plan and contacts in Kenya. Rampant arrests back in Kampala had set the loyalists fleeing, and even as the core assassination group secured houses where they lived in posh areas of Nairobi – the detectives never the less closed-in and found outer periphery members, but not the core group till one prostitute found the men and, was lured into some meandering randes vous that eventually ended in the cat and mouse where the women were murdered in Athi River – the night the assassins drove to Mombasa, where they barricaded themselves for years later.

‘Äthi River Murder’ – hit the headlines all over East Africa and beyond – for the core group of the assassins, that was the desired thing, something as big as the shot in Lugogo – would get the detectives off their backs at least for a while... and as the group went underground in Mombasa, the team of detectives pulled-out with the bodies of the dead women. It would take sometimes for the re-org and given the political weight of the whole matter, it eventually became an indefinite thing. Uganda detectives kept the thin line alive though and, many others were periodically picked.

In the final analysis the blockbuster as punitively nibbled out by DRUM and other magazines and newspapers actually eventually spelt-out the emancipation of the Uganda Police – highlighting standards exhibited in the field of crime detection for which Uganda was more often internationally considered as performing fairly well. ‘Athi River Murder’ is on the very top of Uganda Police detective achievements to date – as it was foundational. Assassin Kyeyune was reputed to have materialized during the Amin era a free man with a business in Kampala – was the paradox! ***