Kampala, like Rome, is built on seven hills, and to Ugandans each has its special significance. But none is so important as Mengo Hill, where a rambling brick palace on the peak is an object of universal awe. Not even the British dared violate its sanctity, for beneath its silver dome lived the Kabaka (ruler) of Buganda, largest and richest of Uganda's five ancient kingdoms. Buganda's rulers were so powerful in colonial days that they were always granted considerable autonomy by the British. Cambridge-educated Sir Edward F. W. Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula ("Freddy") Mutesa II, who succeeded to the throne in 1942, almost automatically became the nation's first President when it got its independence four years ago. Last week, however, Uganda erupted into a onesided, brutal civil war, and when the fighting had died down the sacred palace of Buganda was in ruins.
Too Much. The trouble had been boiling up since February, when Uganda's ambitious Prime Minister Milton Obote deposed King Freddy as President, seized full powers for himself.
Hardly had he declared himself President than he rammed through a new constitution giving Uganda a powerful central government—and erasing most of Buganda's cherished autonomy.
That was too much for King Freddy. Declaring that the new constitution was nothing less than an act of secession from Uganda, he ordered Obote and his regime to leave Kampala, appealed to Secretary-General U Thant for United Nations intervention to avert "calamity at the eleventh hour." Obote immediately accused the King of high treason, surrounded the palace with troops. Then from the top of Mengo Hill came a sound seldom heard: the deep, buckskin thump of the royal war drums summoning Buganda's 2,000,000 subjects to rise to defend their King.
They answered by the uncounted thousands. Phone wires were suddenly cut and roads blockaded all over the kingdom. Shooting broke out in Kampala, and bands of wild-eyed Baganda, shouting war cries and waving machetes, overturned buses and trucks at major intersections. Up the broad avenue to King Freddy's palace marched hundreds of men and women—some with babies strapped to their backs—setting gasoline fires in front of the troops who tried to stop them.
Mass Graves. But they were no match for the machine guns and artillery of Obote's army. After two days of fighting there was no palace left to defend. Great columns of yellow smoke rose over the rubble of Mengo Hill and the hillside was littered with fallen Bu ganda warriors. Cordons of troops prevented Red Cross workers from reaching most of the dead and wounded, but volunteers managed to carry more than 200 bodies to the central police morgue: the rest were hauled away at night in army trucks and dumped into mass graves, uncounted.
Obote seemed satisfied with the slaughter. With flames from King Freddy's demolished palace still visible from downtown Kampala, he appeared before Parliament to make an official announcement. "There is nothing to regret," said Obote. "The oneness of Uganda must be assured."