GENERAL BAZOOKA GRUDGINGLY ADMITTED that Bat Katanga was the best employee he had ever had. It hurt to see how excellent his future prospects were. It was hard to tell how he had cleaned up the mess in the ministry. Whenever information was required, Bat or his team had it close at hand; whenever something needed to be done, they knew who would do it best and how long it would take him. His spies at the hydro-electric dam, which supplied the whole country with electricity, told him how well things were running. Much as he appreciated this level of efficiency, he felt it reflected badly on his position as overall boss of the ministry; it made him feel vulnerable, needful of this man and his talents as never before. How he would have loved it if a tribesman, a man he could trust 100 percent, had been the agent of this change! All this hurt very much because Bat was still uninitiated and had not pledged personal allegiance to me, his boss, his minister. He always talked about serving the government or the people, as if they, the leaders, his masters, weren’t people, as if Bat were an elected official, not somebody chosen by him. He was still the Cambridge graduate full of British airs, driving a British car, oozing sophistication. He had yet to inhale the stench of decay, which every true follower had to imbibe before being trusted, accepted. Apart from his academic aptitude, what had he ever done to deserve his fortune? News had already spread among ministers that he was an organizational wizard, and a few generals had talked about poaching him, moving him to their ministries for at least a year each. They even talked about tossing a coin or rolling the dice to find out who would get him first. The dice! He swore he would never allow that. He was sure some of those generals had consulted astrologers, possibly the Unholy Spirit himself, and had been promised success. But he would never let them take Bat away from him. If it came to that, they would all lose him. He knew that many generals were jealous because only recently Marshal Amin had singled out the Ministry of Power as deserving of special praise for showing improvement.
General Bazooka had other worries too. He was consumed with the task of retaining Marshal Amin’s favour and trying to rise in the hierarchy of power. Before and after the coup, it had been very easy to divine what the Marshal thought and wanted. But over the years, with mounting international pressure and local discontent, the Marshal had become more fickle, paranoid, unpredictable. He had increased the power of the Eunuchs, the presidential bodyguard that surrounded him at all times, and it was now much harder to make an appointment to see him, or to get him on the hotline. I shouldn’t be one of those made to wait, the General said to himself aloud, pacing up and down his office.
Over the years, the army of presidential astrologers, witch-doctors and soothsayers had increased fourfold. Some generals blamed these people, especially their leader, Dr. Ali — alias God, Jesus, the Unholy Spirit, the Government Spokesman — for the Marshal’s unpredictability, but General Bazooka knew better. The uncertainty in the air created fertile ground for astrology and all kinds of witchcraft to flourish. He didn’t hate Dr. Ali, with his enormous power, his Learjet, his Armani suits, his closeness to the Marshal. He just envied him, knowing how frantic the Marshal became when the runt stayed away longer than expected. In his book, Dr. Ali was the third-most-powerful man in the land, despite the fact that he was a foreigner, outside of the government and the armed forces, and he visited the country only ten times a year.
The General found it hard to discredit the man; he was the only astrologer who had predicted things which came true. He was the only person who could walk into the Marshal’s office any time of day or night without an appointment. He was the only person in the country whose life was guaranteed because nobody, least of all the Marshal, dared kill such a powerful astrologer. What made matters worse was the fact that the man was incorruptible. He had all the money in the world, for he worked not only for Marshal Amin but also for President Mobutu of Zaïre, Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic and General Bohari of Nigeria. In all the past years, General Bazooka had had one séance with him, paying a cool ten thousand dollars, and only recently he had heard that the Marshal had forbidden the astrologer from seeing generals or anybody else in the government.
This was a sign that the Marshal had become more fearful and distrustful of everybody. He could understand what the Marshal was going through. Both phantom and real coup plots were on the increase. It was hardly possible to tell which was which. Backbiting among the generals had also become worse. Factions of all kinds mushroomed almost daily, each demanding attention and ascendancy. The rivalry between the army and the security agencies, especially the State Research Bureau and the Public Safety Unit and the Eunuchs, did not make things easier. Amidst this volatile mix were the so-called presidential advisors. It was wisest to trust nobody. If it had been in the General’s power, he would have deposed and shot all faction leaders, merged the security agencies and restored order. He even advised the Marshal to do so, but he had refused. The confusion mounted.
In spite of all this, General Bazooka knew that the real powder-keg in the house was Western Europe, namely Gross Britain and the USA. These two countries had slashed aid to Uganda. They kept sending spies or phantom spies, one hardly knew any more. They destabilized the economy by encouraging coffee-smuggling through Kenya. They encouraged Kenya to embargo Uganda’s goods at the seaport of Mombasa. They campaigned against Uganda abroad, laying phantom crimes at the Marshal’s address.
The Marshal had become increasingly aware of the vacuum in his support system, namely failure to formulate a suitable policy in relation to these states, and he blamed the generals for it. General Bazooka found the accusations unjust, even though he sympathized with his leader. At cabinet and Defence Council meetings, the Marshal had developed the habit of throwing obnoxious temper tantrums, banging tables, firing guns, cursing and accusing everybody of sloth and redundancy. These blanket accusations hurt and worsened the divisions. General Bazooka was aware that the Marshal’s behaviour was a preamble to some action he could not divine. Was the Marshal about to hire some Libyan and Saudi advisors? Weren’t there enough of these already? There was mounting panic among the generals. The last thing anybody wanted was another influential foreigner in the mix.
General Bazooka’s guess was that the Marshal was going to promote an insignificant but highly educated southerner to a very important position. He believed that the Marshal was stalling because he was embarrassed by his decision. It had happened before. Some generals claimed that it was not a southerner, but a black American. He still remembered Roy Innis and his promises to send black American experts in medicine, education, business management and technology who never turned up. General Bazooka did not know whether to succumb to the generals’ sense of relief, stemming from the fact that a black American civilian would not be hard to manipulate or frustrate. He would get a palatial home on a big hill, a fleet of Boomerangs, bodyguards, the royal treatment. His bodyguards would not be hard to bribe for information. And if he became too troublesome, he could always be disappeared or thrust into a car wreck. I hope that the generals are right, General Bazooka said to himself, although the scenario does not solve my problem of wanting to get closer to the Marshal.
THE ARRIVAL of the British delegation which would change things for good was a mediocre affair, almost as unremarkable as the recent departure of Dr. Ali’s Learjet. General Bazooka would have missed it had he not been the Minister of Power and Communications. He attended the reception because these idiots, or snakes, as the Marshal called them, claimed that they could sell the government top-quality communications equipment without having to go through the maze of international protocol. General Bazooka did not like the idea very much because Copper Motors did the job well when it came to importing British goods, legally or illegally. Why introduce another group from the same country? And if it was a question of the new snakes undercutting the old crew, why not simply press Coppers to lower prices? If the arrivals had been Germans or Canadians, it would have made sense: diversification. The General sensed personal vendetta. Somebody at Coppers had probably displeased the Marshal.