Taste of Death

Regardless of the motive, all those who engaged in magendo faced the risk of being caught by the authorities that was beside the danger of drowning in River Malaba as the border posts had to be avoided. Being caught by the authorities meant several things. One could either be sent to prison for several years after confiscation of goods, or have ones goods confiscated and tortured by soldiers who often manned roadblocks and patrolled roads and border villages, and then set you free if they wished. And if they were sharp, they arranged with local middlemen to smuggle their booty. Sometimes magendo operators were shot dead or tortured to death if they were not so lucky. Some of them were squeezed into car boots and driven for several miles. Some others died in their homes or hospitals as a result of physical torture by soldiers of anti smuggling units. My uncle was one of the unlucky magendo operators who died at the hands of Amin’s soldiers as a result of torture.

Towards the end of Amin’s regime in 1979 Uncle had lost his job with the town council and had two wives and ten children to look after. Living in a pastoral region of Uganda the smuggling of hides and skins that were in abundant supply to Kenya was not a far-fetched idea. For a while, traveling under the cover of darkness and working in cohorts with friends and relatives who lived close to the border, he managed to evade the roadblocks and the army patrols. The more his business flourished, the more journeys he had to make across the border, which only increases the chances of meeting what every smuggler dreaded. As fate would have it, he fell into the hands of Amin’s soldiers in the dying days of the regime.

At this time the regime had become very brutal and smugglers received similar treatment as suspected political dissidents who both considered saboteurs of the military government and national economy.

When Uncle was arrested, he was severely beaten and made to eat his own human excrement that flowed of its own accord as a result of the physical torture. When they were done with him, he was set free, only to die of severe internal bleeding a few week’s later.