The Teeth May Smile But The Heart Does Not Forget
From Rwanda to Sierra Leone, African countries recovering from tyranny and war are facing an impossible dilemma: should they overlook past atrocities for the sake of peace, or seek catharsis through tribunals and truth commissions? Uganda chose the path of forgetting: after Idi Amin’s reign was overthrown, the new government opted for amnesty for his henchmen rather than prolonged conflict.
Ugandans tried to bury their history, but reminders of the truth were never far from view. In 1972, a local chief named Eliphaz Laki disappeared, becoming one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Amin’s terror. For nearly three decades, no one dared to investigate the chief’s fate. But then his son, Duncan Laki, discovered a stray clue that led him to a shallow grave—and to three alleged executioners, among them Amin’s former chief of staff. Duncan Laki’s discovery resulted in a trial that gave voice to a nation’s past: as lawyers argued, tribes clashed, and Laki pressed for justice, the confrontation offered Ugandans a promise of the reckoning they had been so long denied.
For four years, Andrew Rice followed the Laki murder case, crossing Uganda to investigate Amin’s legacy and the limits of reconciliation. At once a mystery, a historical accounting, and a portrait of modern Africa, Teeth May Smile But the Heart Does Not Forget is above all an exploration of how—and whether—the past can be laid to rest.
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“Tyrant, killer, buffoon: Idi Amin was unforgettable. But his victims have largely been forgotten. Andrew Rice rescues one man’s memory, gives him a face and a voice and lets him speak for a multitude of the dead.
This is reporting at its best—as gripping as any murder mystery, but far more important, because every painful word is true.
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— Robert Guest, former Africa editor of The Economist and author of The Shackled Continent