Dormant: among the Guerrillas

In 1982, William Pike met a man named Ben Matogo in a coffee-bar in London. Matogo was, like Pike, a graduate student - his thesis was on the history of East African publishing - but he was also the foreign representative of an armed resistance movement opposed to Milton Obote's oppressive regime in Uganda. A year later Pike, having completed his degree in African Studies, accepted Matogo's invitation to join him in the Ugandan bush to see first-hand how the National Resistance Movement was conducting its war. Pike accompanied the guerrillas - on a bicycle - from village to village in their progress to Kampala and argued their cause in the London newspapers. In 1986, with Obote finally overthrown and the guerrilla leader Yoweri Museveni installed as President, Pike was invited to return to Uganda; the revolutionary government had many administrative offices to fill - including the running of the national newspaper. Who could be its editor? Pike tells the inside story of the revolution he witnessed and the democracy he has helped to establish.