Ozuku and The King's African Rifles

As I mentioned earlier on the blog, we've made some new friends in Gulu town, including Ozuku the tailor. Yesterday, he invited us to his village home near Lacor hospital to meet his family and interview him about his life and health concerns. He also arranged a meeting for us with two of his friends who had served in the King's African Rifles (KAR). On our drive through the tall grass fields surrounding the city, Ozuku would point out sites where he was ambushed by the rebels and the Ugandan soldiers. He feared them both equally. We drove over a 15 foot long wooden bridge that had exploded by a rebel landmine 10 years ago. At the time, Ozuku was riding on a lorry overflowing with sugarcane, and the blast had thrown him onto the shore of a small creek. He joked, "If there wasn't so much sugarcane, it could have been much worse" (referring to the fact that he now only has a permanent limp on his right side). As our Corolla struggled through the massive craters in the dirt road, the tailor would gesture with his hand outside the window, pawing at the hills stretching green towards the south, while describing how he could spend days fleeing the unflinching soldiers from both sides of the war. He then would let out a loud chuckle, "They were such terrible times."

Despite it all, Ozuku still finds a way to make light of a very dark period. The first time he shared this story with us, he was busy hemming the puffy shoulders of a bright pink traditional dress under the awning of his shop in town. Like most store fronts throughout Uganda, his is painted with the colors and logo of a local cellphone company (red, black, and white in his case). Ozuku began with his classic laugh and shaking of the head, "One day, I acquired some beans and put them on a fire with only piece of wood burning. The bullets started, and we dodged the bullets until we ran into the bush. Now after returning home later that day, around 6, we found the beans were cooked just proper. I had put on just the right amount of wood. That was just another sign of God's support there." And again, he let out a booming chuckle, while we joined in this time.



The KAR were a special unit of soldiers created by the British from their East African colonies between the early and mid 20th century. The soldiers helped on military campaigns in Africa and abroad during both World Wars. Probably the most notable member of the KAR was Idi Amin. When Ozuku proposed to organize a meeting with two of his friends who had served in the KAR, we jumped at the opportunity to hear their stories. Before giving a little background about the video above, I will just touch on some of the highlights from our interviews with them. The men were both around 90 years old, a rarity of rarities in this part of the world. Having lived through WWII as soldiers serving in Burma, where they fought a relentless Japanese advancement, these men both noted that life in Northern Uganda was much more difficult than their military service. One of them noted, "WWII was a clean war, while war here is dirty." One of the men had lost 3 sons to the rebels. Both men also had numerous complaints regarding the lack of compensation for veterans, and one requested that we ask the Queen of England to provide money owed to them for their services protecting the empire over 50 years ago. They also were promised money from the current ruling government in Uganda, which they believe was "eaten" (a term commonly used to mean "taken" or "stolen") by the politicians. They provided us with their military credentials in hope that we could report their plight to anyone in power, and help secure some of the money that they've been promised. We brought them sugar, salt, soap, and tea for welcoming us into their homes.

Regarding the Flip video above (courtesy of Meredith): Just as in a medical interview, sometimes the most significant information comes out at the very end of it by simply asking, "Is there anything else you want to tell us?" This gentleman, in classic Ozuku fashion, began his response with a chuckle. What you see above is the start of a story where this elderly KAR vet describes taking 4 Japanese soldiers prisoner while fighting in Burma (Ozuku is the translator with a white beard and neon colored baseball cap). As the story continues, he reveals to us that his regiment of Ugandan soldiers were desperate to keep the Japanese at bay. So they decided to exploit the old rumor that Africans were cannibals. They killed one of the 4 prisoners, chopped them into pieces, and put the body parts into a pot. They showed this to the remaining 3 Japanese captives, who were subsequently released to tell their friends of the "madness" of the African troops. When we asked, "how did you choose which prisoner to kill?" He answered, "His own bad luck."