Word: amin
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Three months ago, Amin announced that Hills, 61, a resident of Uganda since 1964 and a lecturer at a teachers' training college until 1973, had been arrested for "spying" and for writing, in an unpublished manuscript, that Big Daddy ruled in the manner of a "village tyrant." A civil court threw out the case against Hills, who is suffering from terminal cancer. Nonetheless, a secret military tribunal quickly found him guilty of treason. Yet even before the kangaroo-court tribunal had reached its verdict, Amin was offering to trade Hills' life for some concessions from the British government...
...Worried not only about Hills but about the fate of 700 other British citizens residing in Uganda, Britain's Labor Government dispatched to Kampala two royal envoys who seemed well-suited to the assignment: Lieut. General Sir Chandos Blair, 56, and retired Major Iain Grahame, 43, who were Amin's military commanders when he was a soldier in the now. disbanded King's African Rifles. When the envoys reached Kampala, they were greeted by a guard of honor and a military band. Amin was off at a rally in honor of African Refugee Day. This...
After a day of waiting in Kampala, the two officers were transported by helicopter to meet Amin in Arua, his birthplace in northern Uganda. With typical cunning, Big Daddy was waiting for them in the gloom of a thatched hut whose entrance was so low that the British officers were obliged to crawl inside, thereby enabling Radio Uganda to boast that "the two guests entered the general's house on their knees...
Still, everything started off well enough. Amin declared that he "loved" Blair and announced that "out of respect for the Queen" he had decided to postpone Hills' execution. At the next day's meeting an argument apparently broke out between Amin and the British envoys. The negotiations ended when Blair, an old-school officer with a clipped voice, gave Amin a smart military salute and stalked out of the room murmuring, "I am very disappointed...
Alert the Army! Berserk with anger, Big Daddy declared that Hills would be shot on July 4, unless British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan visits Uganda in the meantime. Trembling, Amin shouted to his defense council, "Alert the army! Alert the air force! Call Libya [an ally whose leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is a fellow Moslem and fellow eccentric] and tell her to start sending airplanes here!" Later, complaining that Blair had been "undiplomatic, hot-tempered and totally drunk" during the talks, Amin charged that the envoy had threatened to order "British troops from Kenya" to invade Uganda, and that Britain...