海角大神

There are few photos that so neatly capture the zeitgeist of a time as the shot of former Ugandan president Idi Amin arriving at Kampala鈥檚 Nile Hotel for a diplomatic reception in July of 1975.

In the picture, carried by newspapers around the globe, Amin鈥檚 280-pound bulk is held aloft by four white men with frozen grins.

Amin dubbed the stunt the 鈥渨hite man鈥檚 burden,鈥� a gleeful inversion of the 19th-century British poem extolling the noble necessity of the West鈥檚 colonial projects. By the time he was deposed by coup four years later, publicity stunts like this had sealed his legacy as one of the world鈥檚 most bewilderingly inventive dictators, a man whose staggering cruelty seemed matched only by his outsized flair for showboating.

In Kampala, that complicated legacy became synonymous with the hotel that Amin was carried into in 1975 鈥� the site of both infamous torture chambers and glitzy parties, where the president routinely kept dissidents locked in one room while feting diplomats in the next. The Nile Hotel was so beloved to Amin that he sometimes claimed to have been born on the site where it was built.

But over the past four decades, the hotel has undergone a quiet transformation, one that mirrors the country鈥檚 own ambivalent relationship to its scarred past. Today, well-to-do visitors come to the Nile 鈥� now a chain luxury hotel called the Serena 鈥� to eat salmon and baked Alaska in its leafy courtyard, or gaze out over the congested city from one of its $300 a night suites.

In neighboring Rwanda, a macabre tourist industry has sprung up specializing in 聽genocide memorials 鈥� churches filled with bloodied clothing, bones stacked neatly in underground crypts. But in Uganda, the discovery during hotel renovations of three skeletons buried in the basement brought a scramble to cover up the story, lest their hotel take on such a grim association.

聽鈥淚t is a practice of our regimes here to try to erase any legacies or memories of the regimes they have overthrown,鈥� says Deo Katono, chair of the department of history, archeology, and organizational studies at Makerere University in Kampala. 鈥淎s part of their attempt to legitimize themselves they try to eliminate any outward public symbols of what came before them.鈥�

In fact, as he points out, Uganda has few post-colonial public memorials, and nearly nothing鈥� schools, hospitals, streets 鈥� is named for the military dictators who preceded President Yoweri Museveni, as though history began anew the day he came to power in 1986.

And as Uganda prepares for the results Saturday聽of its presidential election 鈥� which Mr. Museveni is expected to win handily 鈥� that narrative has been as useful as a thousand campaign rallies. Across the country, Museveni's grandfatherly face beams down from campaign posters bearing a pithy message: Steady progress.

聽鈥淣o one can disturb our peace,鈥� Museveni promised at last week鈥檚 presidential debate, which was broadcast live from the conference center of the Serena Hotel. 鈥淲e struggled against so many problems [and] we cannot allow anybody to 鈥� disturb our people. It's not acceptable.鈥�

The promise was made from a symbolic vantage point 鈥� just below the president鈥檚 feet lay the labyrinth of basement offices where the security forces of Amin and fellow military dictator Milton Obote tortured and interrogated members of the opposition. The lawns outside were the same ones where, four decades earlier, a trio of high-ranking government officials accused of treason had been forced to confess before 3,000 soldiers chanting 鈥淜ill them! Kill them today!鈥澛�

Today, Museveni's government still makes regular use of the Serena, though largely for more prosaic purposes. He gives his annual State of the Nation Address there, and regularly books out the conference centre for official functions -- like the recent launch of a new addition of his autobiography,聽Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda. (Opposition sources, however, have recently alleged a more nefarious use as well, claiming that Museveni is using the Serena as a vote rigging site in the current elections).

聽But if the dark corners of the Serena鈥檚 history 鈥� like that of the country writ large 鈥� often go unremarked, it doesn鈥檛 mean they have been forgotten.

鈥淚 have never seen a ghost here, but I don鈥檛 rule it out,鈥� a waiter in one of the Serena鈥檚 cafes says. Workers remember its history from their childhoods, and tend to avoid walking the grounds alone at night. Guests, too, have been affected. One TripAdvisor reviewer from 2011 noted that 鈥渘o amount of renovation can ever erase the horrors hidden in its history.鈥� 聽聽

And the Serena is not the only site in Kampala where the present has placed a fragile veneer over a troubled past. A constellation of Amin鈥檚 former torture centers dots the city and its surrounds 鈥� the ramshackle Makindye military barracks, the corpse-dumping grounds in the forest of Namanve, the Lubiri Palace. Of these, only the tunnel-like torture chamber at Lubiri is open to visitors. The rest, like the Serena, carry on with barely a nod to their past.

In part, this is pragmatism for people and a country attempting to move on, says Mr. Katono, the historian. But it鈥檚 also practical in a more basic way. Uganda is poor, its cities crowded. To turn every place with a violent history into a memorial would freeze the city itself. People here must tend to the basic necessities of their present lives before they can even think of preserving the past, he points out:聽鈥淚s historical memory edible? No, unfortunately it鈥檚 not.鈥�

Ryan Lenora Brown's reporting from Uganda was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation.