Failure™ Magazine

The Teeth May Smile But The Heart Does Not Forget

Murder and memory in Uganda.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History

What happened to Eliphaz Laki?
He disappeared under the regime of Idi Amin. He was a supporter of the prior president, and because he was known to be an opposition supporter he was targeted.

What drove Duncan to seek the truth about his father’s fate?
It was something that ate at him. Even more maddening than not knowing was not being allowed to ask. On several occasions he tried to figure out what had happened and was diverted at each turn until he discovered an important clue that set the ball rolling.

It must have taken courage to pursue the case. I understand his family was not totally on board with the idea.
His family was divided. Their reluctance was understandable because they basically knew what happened. And getting to the nitty-gritty of the truth was potentially dangerous if people who still held power were implicated. So it definitely took courage. Duncan is very soft spoken but also a brave and determined guy.

How did Duncan find his father’s killers?
The key was a motor vehicle registration. The way Laki was killed is that he was taken away in his own car. Automobiles were extremely valuable in those days, as only a couple of people in an entire county owned one. So when the soldiers took Laki they made sure to take his car, too.

Many years later, when Duncan was working at the Uganda Revenue Authority, he looked up the registration for his father’s car. He discovered that it had been re-registered, and that the individual was living in the northwestern part of the country where Amin was from. So it seemed quite likely that this person was, if not the killer, then somebody who knew the killer.

Duncan tracked down this individual—Mohammed Anyule—via private detectives, and Anyule eventually confessed. He said: I was involved. I know what happened. But I was just the driver. The guy who actually did the killing was Nasur Gille.

Gille is now a bicycle repairman, but at the time he was an assassin for the army. Under interrogation, Gille admitted that he shot Laki, but said he did it under orders from [Major General] Yusuf Gowon. Gowon had subsequently become chief of staff of the army under Amin, and had come back to Uganda under a highly publicized amnesty.

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