Free Tombstones and Banana Trees by Medad Birungi Page A

understood spiritual warfare, he forgave her, and they are now happily married with a son. His relatives needed more time before they could understand.

    There is much pain within my country, bitterness with roots that lie deep in the past. And you cannot talk about the past of Uganda without hearing the name Idi Amin Dada.
    Amin was a tyrant. He ruled Uganda as a military dictator from 1971 to 1979, leaving behind anywhere between one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand corpses. Those who disagreed with him, who opposed him, or who were from the wrong ethnic background were all targets, and his cruelty spread throughout the entire country.
    Almost every family was affected by his brutality since he militarized villages, and at every level of government there would be one of his men sitting with a gun in his lap. There is a story that one day Amin called all his soldiers together and told them to raise their guns above their heads. “That is your salary,” he told them. And so began an age when the whole of our country was controlled by lawless soldiers who rampaged, looted, stole, and hired themselves out as assassins.
    There was no justice in Uganda in those days. The police were corrupt, the army were terrorists, and all the lawyers had either been chased away or corrupted themselves and become liars. I remember soldiers coming to our village to arrest people, and the fear was tangible even for a peasant boy like myself. Once the army arrived with empty trucks and told us to get in. They said that President Amin was making his way to the football stadium in Kabale and that we had to go with them to watch. We did as we were told and arrived to join the crowd of five thousand to watch the president.
    Standing on the grass in the middle of the stadium were seven people, heads down, hands cuffed, and eyes blindfolded. Soldiers were lined up twenty meters or so opposite them, their guns at their side. Amin took the microphone and raged against the seven who were there to be punished. Amin was angry, and he made it clear that if anyone else even disagreed with him they would share the same fate as the individuals standing in the middle of the pitch. They were Christians, and Amin accused them of being behind a plot to overthrow him. I was told they were villagers from the local area, but I did not know any of them. Eventually they were given the opportunity to say something. Some talked about heaven and forgiveness. Then the local bishop—a man named Festo Kivengere, the bishop of Kigezi—prayed for them. And then they were shot.
    We left the stadium in silence. My mind was split. On the one hand I was heartbroken for the ones who had been killed and full of hatred for Amin, but I was also impressed by the dignified way these Christians had met their end. I thought I knew what suffering was, and I raged against it, wept for it, and struggled as best I could. Yet these people—these Christians—were different. They did not resist or hate; they accepted. Their beliefs were real; all of us in the crowd could see that. It painted a strong picture of Christianity.
    Earlier I wrote that almost every family was affected by the brutality of Idi Amin’s regime, and we were no exception. I also said that my eldest sister, Peninah, who was now married, helped to transform our fortunes. Her husband, Eric, had already taken one wife, but he was a good man and Peninah was happy to be his second wife. She was very beautiful, and her marriage brought new hope into our family. She took all financial responsibility for the family, paying my primary-school fees and buying us the new land at the top of the hill. In a way she adopted me as her first son, but we all benefited from her generosity: We were clothed and finally able to eat two meals a day. She became a Christian and seemed to be more than just an older sister. We felt as if we had a sense of security. She became the source of our self-worth and our