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Article: SURVIVING IDI AMIN VIA MADISON.(FRONT)(THE TALK)(Column)
- Article from:
- The Capital Times
- Article date:
- April 27, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Capital Newspapers. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Doug Moe
ON THE morning he thought he was going to die, Okello Oculi vowed not to panic. But this was Uganda, 1971, and the two men who came for him were soldiers of the murderous dictator Idi Amin.
They put Oculi, a poet, novelist and tutorial fellow at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, into the back seat of a limousine and took him to the Makindye military base.
"The reputation of Makindye," Oculi would say later, "was that you did not last a night. You were essentially clubbed and bashed to death."
How Oculi, 64, survived to become one of East Africa's leading writers and intellectuals is an absorbing tale, and of ...