Football: The Sport that United Killer Idi Amin and his Ugandan Victims

This is despite the fact that the sport just like any other social activity has its own urgly side with hooliganism and violence on part of fans, biased refereeing, match fixing and bribery and finincial scandals like ticket scams all being witnessed.

However there's more to talk about at home on the positive side of the sport.

Since its introduction in the country in 1897 by one of the early Anglican missionaries , Archdeacon Rev. Robert Henry Walker, football has been an avenue to enhance talents, bring enjoyment and to create friendship. Many successful Ugandans in society today are what they are because of football.

One of the best examples in the country today is the current Ugandan minister for Local Government , Jaberi Bidandi Ssali. For all his political experience, Hon. Ssali has forever been linked to football. He was in 1980 arrested and detained in the country's main maximum prison of Luzira for political reasons and was later freed mainly because of his needed services as coach of the Ugandan national football team, The Cranes.

He had earlier on been the manager of the Ugandan national team when it finished runners-up to hosts Ghana in the 1978 Africa Cup of Nations. Later he coached a top local club, KCC FC, for years guiding it to several national titles. The minister has for years been a Member of the Ugandan Parliament for one of the city's constituences and his winning has always been attributed to the fact that the population of his area is dominated by football fans and sports lovers in general.

Idi Amin's role in Ugandan sport
In Uganda today, just mentioning the name Idi Amin is enough to cause fear to both the old and young. Surprisingly to sports people especially football fans the former Ugandan president and dictator will for ever be remembered for the role he played in the development of sports in the country when still president.

Just like other dictators like Mobutu of Zaire and San Abacha Nigeria, Idi Amin always poured money in sports and believed that this was one of the easiest and best ways his country would triumph and become known in the whole world. The Uganda national football team known as The Cranes that has so far recorded the country's best football achievement by reaching the finals of the prestigious Africa Nations Cup (finishing runners-up to hosts Ghana in 1978) was singlehandedly sponsored by the dictator.

Other sports too benefitted. In boxing Uganda was the undisputed number one boxing nation on the continent and produced boxers of the calibre of John "The Beast" Mugabi, Ayub Kalule and Cornelius Bossa Edward (Bother Edwards) who later went on to terrorise the boxing world when turning professional. Amin himself was once a national heavy weight boxing champion when still a junior officer serving in the colonial King African Rifles army.

When president he at one time disagreed with members of the national boxing team who were complaining of biased refereeing after an international competition held abroad. "The only way you will get rid of such injustice is to emulate me. Always knock-out your opponents like I used to do," he told the boxers on meeting them.

Elsewhere, football in Uganda boasts of many attributes. The game has played as ignificant role in protecting various people in circumstances of danger. In 1977 when Idi Amin's sporting army officer , major Nasur Abdallah, banned Express FC , one of the top local clubs. He accused it of having links with Tanzanian-based opposition exiles, and two players and a number of fans were arrested and detained at the infamous Makindye military barracks.

The players, John Ntensibe and Mike Kiganda, would never have been seen again but when the Ugandan national team, The Cranes was preparing to face Zambia in an international match, word went to Idi Amin that two top national players were languishing in jail ahead of a big match. On Amin's express orders the two players were released.

With them in dentention was the Club's best known cheer lady, Mama Baker Kazibwe.

"Amin's soldiers were barbaric but those who loved football protected us in prison by giving us food and water," she told this writer recently.

Football journalists saved from torture
Many members of Amin's rogue State Research Bureau happened to be football fanatics and played a key role in saving the lives of innocent people they interacted with at football matches. Veteran journalist , Douglas Nsubuga recalls when he was once arrested in the city centre with 22 passport photographs of the national youth team players which he had collected for publication ahead of a crucial continental match.

The Libyan soldiers (troops of Libyan soldiers were in 1979 sent to Uganda to back Idi Amin at the height of the war waged against him by Tanzania-based Ugandan exiles) who arrested him mistook the photos for those of guerillas who had blown up a power plant around Kampala industrial area. On arrival at State Research Bureau (SRB) torture chambers, an agent identified the photos and set the journalist free. Very few people ever went inside the SRB headquarters and lived to tell.

Another radio football commentator, Kiremerwa Kigongo, found himself in the notorious Room 311 at another Nile Mansions torture chambers. One army captain found him being tortured and asked why he was detained. "I don't know," was all what the journalist answered. The Captain ordered his immediate release because he knew him as a football man.

Football unites bitter enemies
Elsewhere in the region, football has proved the right tool to cement relations. A case in point was when the Ethiopians and Eritreans players in 1999 shared a Kampala hotel during the East and Central Africa club championship held in Uganda. They would be seen sharing jokes, jogged together and ate at the same table while back in the horn of Africa the two neighbours were fighting a bitter war.

And recently, before Uganda and Sudan normalised ties, the two countries' top politicians could not see face to face, let alone sit at the same table to iron out their differences. But when it came to football, Uganda never failed to honour a competition held in Khartoum and the Sudanese were always seen in Kampala. What's more, even referees from both countries officiated matches involving the two neighbours without any bias. Actually football seemed to be the only talking point between the two countries then.

And across Uganda's south western border to the Republic of Rwanda football is playing a major role in uniting the two ethnic races of Hutus and Tutsis. With most political reconciliatory steps failing, the government of president Paul Kagame is budgeting a lot of money meant for sports development and its aim seems to be paying off.

At football clubs and the national team popularly known as Amavubi, Tutsis and Hutu players are seen interacting well as was the case before the genocide that claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 of the former. Even at football matches, both Tutsi and Hutus freely mix together and support their clubs of choice, surprisingly this time on other grounds, far from tribal ones.

Nothing works in Uganda and the neighbourhood? Football works.