The Story of Mohamed Amin

by Brian Tetley

  By then, he and Willetts were already working to complete photography on a parallel Journey through Pakistan. ‘Duncan was never really involved in doing books or anything on the publishing side of the company until Journey through Kenya and Journey through Pakistan. I asked him if he would work on them. I thought it would be interesting to see how we worked together. Both books were a tremendous success. Since then, Duncan and I have shared photography on virtually all our books.’

  President Zia ul Haq was enthusiastic to see the book completed. Between them, Amin, Willetts, and writer Graham Hancock spent several months in that rugged country. Promised every facility and support, they discovered this was no empty pledge.

  Later, in London, the secretary for the Pakistan ministry of information rang Amin to say that President Zia ul Haq, then in Paris, would like to see him—with the book proofs, if possible.

  When Mo arrived, the Pakistani leader was addressing a press conference. While he fielded tough questions with intellectual agility, the photographer went into an anteroom and laid out the full-colour proofs on a large table. After the conference, Zia greeted Mo with warmth then slowly and methodically studied each picture—of ancient Mughal forts, of camel nomads in the deserts, of K2, the world’s second highest mountain at more than 28,000 feet, taken from the open doorway of a helicopter flying in freezing winter weather, rotor blades desperately clawing the thin air 3,000 feet above the chopper’s ceiling with Mo’s finger frozen on the shutter trigger. The president turned to the newsman. ‘Mr Amin—I never knew my country was so beautiful.’

  Mohamed wanted to publish the two Journey through books—Pakistan and Kenya—simultaneously. But Kenya still had no buyer. I suggested he write to film star William Holden—an old friend who knew Kenya well—asking if he could publish the book as William Holden’s Journey through Kenya.

  Holden was enthusiastic. ‘I congratulate you,’ wrote the star of Stalag 11, Bridge on the River Kwai, and The Wild Bunch, ‘for a truly remarkable job. I’m delighted to do the foreword.’ He enclosed a 5,000-word manuscript, the first chapter. The first edition came out in 1983 and by 1987, Journey through Kenya had been reprinted in English five times. There are also German, Italian, French, and Swedish language editions.

  Then, in June 1981, while filming the OAU conference in his home town, Amin was asked to stage an exhibition of his work at the Commonwealth Institute in London. It was timely. He had just arranged for Kenya’s Attorney-General Charles Njonjo to open his Cradle of Mankind exhibition in Nairobi in September and most of the work was already done.

  Charles Njonjo, among the inner-cabinet in the Kenya Government, at that time was a close confidante and associate of President Daniel arap Moi. He opened the exhibition at the Nairobi Hilton on September 23, 1981. Mohamed Amin used the occasion to launch a trust fund to help educate the children of the communities around Lake Turkana. To do this, he produced a limited edition of Cradle of Mankind signed by Richard Leakey and himself. In an appeal to potential buyers, he pointed out:

  ‘The cost of producing this special edition, printed on fine art paper, handbound in expensive simulated leather, with a gold blocked cover and elegant slipcase, is my own personal contribution to the Lake Turkana Education Fund.’ It was a substantial contribution: running into several thousand pounds. The charity still functions.

  The staging of the exhibition in Nairobi coincided with publication. Reviews were ecstatic. Africana, the most respected wildlife magazine in East Africa, described it as ‘superbly illustrated…stunning pictures alone make turning the pages a pleasurable exercise’. And Britain’s Good Book Guide said simply, ‘The text…is informative and lively but the 164 full-colour photographs are brilliant.’

  Richard Leakey’s television series and book, The Making of Mankind, also stimulated interest.

  Casting around for a notable personality to open the London exhibition, Amin wrote for help to his old friend Sir Anthony—’Tony’—Duff, the former British High Commissioner in Kenya, who was then working in the Foreign Office, and who later became head of MI5. As a result, the photographer was stunned to receive a letter from HRH Princess Alexandra agreeing to open the exhibition in London.

  Ten days after it opened in Nairobi, he took it down and packed it in special boxes to send to London. It took three days just to get the pictures into their large packing cases. Mo did most of the packing himself. Kenya Airways had agreed to deliver the exhibition to Heathrow and eventually to bring it back. He flew to London for the royal opening, which attracted a great deal of attention. It included a brief speech of thanks by Mo and a longer and more detailed account of the things to be found around Lake Turkana by Richard Leakey. John Charlton of Chatto and Windus, Amin’s London publisher, was clearly delighted.

  During its run from October 24 to December 31, 1981, the exhibition drew an estimated 100,000 visitors. When it closed, it was moved to the Royal Geographical Society’s London headquarters, where it ran, with like success, for another month.

  Two days after the opening, he received a warm letter of appreciation from Lady Mona Mitchell, the Princess’s lady-in-waiting:

  The Princess, together with Mr Ogilvy and their son, James, greatly admired your wonderful photographs and they also enjoyed meeting many of the people who have been helping you. In saying how much they appreciated your kindness, Her Royal Highness and her husband would be glad if you would pass on their thanks to Mr Leakey, whom they were so pleased to see again and who made the tour round very interesting for Mr Ogilvy.

  But by then, Amin was in Frankfurt for the annual book fair—dummies, manuscripts, and illustrations of Journey through Kenya and Journey through Pakistan in his hand. As William Holden’s Journey through Kenya, the former was bought by The Bodley Head, news that delighted the Hollywood star. They also bought Journey through Pakistan.

  Tragically, Holden, whose love of Kenya, its people, wildlife, and landscapes was all-consuming, never lived to see the published book. Only weeks later, he died in an accident in his Los Angeles apartment.

  13. Uprising in Kenya, Bombs in Beirut

  A DEMANDING AND OFTEN HARSH taskmaster, Amin is an office virago. But aboard a long-haul jet or bouncing through the bush headed for adventure, he’s a different personality altogether. The prospect of yet another tough ordeal seems to remove the tension from his character, and the anticipation of another 16- to 18-hour day for several days on end seems to stimulate rather than tire him. Few can sustain his pace but in the end, however much they curse his incessant quest for perfection, most are thankful for his presence.

  When he wants, he can be ruthless and withering, but time and success have mellowed the sharp, aggressive edge of his character. But he has lost none of his steely nerve or sure touch.

  Yet there are times he has had doubts. About himself. About his work.

  New Year 1982 dawned with production of the two Journey through books in their final stages. With Esmond and Chryssee Bradley Martin’s Run Rhino Run also in production, Amin immediately began work on two new publishing projects—Portraits of Africa and Ian Parker’s Ivory Crisis.

  The work was far removed from the demands of television news coverage of frontline battles but, in its own way, just as hectic and perhaps intellectually even more demanding.

  Ever since Visnews closed its Africa Service, which used to be sent to broadcasters across the continent, Amin had had fewer television assignments. The service had been as close to a pan-African TV news network as anything could get at that time. He had wanted to develop and enlarge it, but Visnews found it uneconomical. Henceforth, the agency’s only interest in stories from Africa was if western broadcasters or some other media bloc would air them. Thus Mohamed Amin turned his energy to publishing.

  He discovered he really enjoyed every stage of book production right up to the time the ozalids, blueprints of the finished pages, arrived for checking, double-checking, and final approval before delivery of the finished work. But he feared
he might be overreaching himself.

  ‘I began thinking of retirement. With the amount of work I had taken on, I felt I could easily ruin some of the projects because I felt it was not possible to cope.

  ‘The answer is not to take on more people. I think you always perform better with a smaller team. As somebody said to me the other day, “If you are playing chess, the answer is not to have too many players on the board.” That’s when you get trouble. That’s very true. The more people you’ve got, the more trouble. Because you’re where the buck ends, and you’re the one that has to do something about it.’

  Other challenges occupied his mind, too. The idea of a Journey down the Nile—from its source in the Mufumbiro Mountains, high above the western shores of Lake Victoria, across the lake, through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt, to the Mediterranean—was gaining strength.

  He had already identified the amphibious vehicles that he would use, and in May 1983, he asked John Turner of Sony to give him the company’s latest ENG High Band camera gear for the journey. He even thought the expedition might carry its own mobile transmitting dish to beam live satellite reports to the world from the middle of the bush, and arranged a two-way space radio link with London and Nairobi from Marconi Space Communications.

  Such an expedition offered everything Mohamed Amin enjoys in life—continuous travel among the toughest conditions man can endure, linked by mobile satellite equipment to the newsmaking business, by which he lives and breathes.

  In July, and in view of what was to happen, the timing was providential. Dolly and Salim flew to Canada for a long summer holiday with relatives. But there was a problem. The Canadian High Commission refused to recognise Salim’s British passport as a travel document since Salim had no right of entry into the country that issued it.

  Mohamed Amin called the British High Commission and was told, ‘Yes, we’ve made protests to the Canadians. They’ve been creating these problems for the last couple of months.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a Canadian problem. It’s a British problem. You’re issuing passports which have absolutely no value.’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, there’s nothing I can do.’

  ‘Look, there must be a way round. All my son wants to do is go and visit some relatives in Canada. Can’t you issue him some kind of paper?’

  ‘No, there’s nothing that I can do.’ Amin pointed out that Salim originally had a proper British passport.

  But when it was renewed, he had lost all his rights. Amin said the lad had been to Britain many times without any problems.

  ‘Can you prove he was allowed into Britain unconditionally in the past?’

  ‘He was allowed in many times when he had a proper passport, which was not stamped. I don’t see how I could prove that.’

  ‘Can you find any old tickets or any other evidence?’ He couldn’t. But when Amin was about to give up altogether, he came across some old pictures of Salim feeding pigeons in London’s Trafalgar Square and next to a statue of Robin Hood in Nottingham. He sent the official several prints of these. The official called back.

  ‘This evidence is terrific. We’ll issue him a proper passport.’

  As his family flew to Canada, Amin took a Saudia flight to Jeddah to interview Idi Amin on assignment for Britain’s Sunday Express colour magazine. ‘They were doing a cover story, one of those “Where-Are-They-Now?” features on killers and dictators around the world. But Idi Amin had moved to another house.’

  At Jeddah airport, waiting for a bus to take him to the Meridien Hotel, the driver of the Holiday Inn bus came along and asked if Mo remembered him. The photographer was nonplussed.

  The driver said, ‘You’re Idi Amin’s friend.’ It was the Pakistani who had driven Amin on his last visit.

  ‘I asked him if he knew where Idi Amin was living now. He said he did, so I checked in at the Holiday Inn instead, showered, dressed, and came downstairs and drove with him to Idi Amin’s new residence in the centre of Jeddah—a large house with perhaps 10 or 12 bedrooms with walls all around.

  ‘I talked to the guards, who allowed me in. I walked into the house, where some of his children were watching a cartoon show on television. I asked them if I could see their dad. One went upstairs and soon after, Idi came down and greeted me warmly. We sat in his living room and talked. He was very interested in what was going on in Uganda and we talked the whole day.

  ‘I tried to persuade him to let me take some pictures but he refused. However, he agreed to the interview, which I recorded on his tape recorder. He asked me to come back the next day, when we sat and talked again while his daughter cooked some beef sausages and made tea. I had taken along a Uganda map and when I showed it to him he got all excited. He wanted to know where Obote’s troops were located.

  ‘I’d no idea but I thought, “What the hell.”

  ‘So I said, “I think there’s a battalion here, and a few companies here and possibly there’s a brigade here.”

  ‘And I thought, “God, if he’s planning to attack Uganda on my information then he’s really got a surprise coming.”

  ‘With the map in his hands, he then agreed I could photograph him. So I did several pictures of him with the map and then with his children.

  ‘I returned to London and handed the interview and pictures to Pauline Peters on the Sunday Express. Next morning, I had breakfast with Rita Perry at White’s Hotel, where I was staying, and hired her to start my London office.’

  Then, in what turned out to be another case of ‘Mo’s Luck’, he left London that Saturday night, July 31, to return to Nairobi aboard a leased KLM 747 operating under the Kenya Airways flag. As the Jumbo journeyed through the night, members of the Kenya Air Force attempted an abortive coup d’etat. One of the key points they seized was Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

  As flight KQ103 neared Kenya, the rebels broke into the Voice of Kenya broadcasting station and announced that President Moi and his government had fallen. But as the pilot began the final descent to Jomo Kenyatta lnternational Airport, nobody aboard flight KQI03 was aware of this.

  Flaps went down and ‘Seat Belt’ and ‘No Smoking’ signs displayed, but just before touchdown, the captain put on full power and began a steep, swift climb. Over the intercom, he announced, ‘I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen. We are diverting to Mombasa. We have lost radio contact with Nairobi control tower.’

  Bitter fighting was taking place at the airport and it was closed. The rebels had already seized the city’s other civilian airfield, Wilson Airport.

  At Mombasa, Mo went to talk to the captain on the flight deck. He only knew that there had been an attempted coup. ‘Nobody on the ground knew what was happening. I wandered over to the charter office and asked a young Asian pilot who was reading the Sunday Nation and clearly didn’t know what was happening if he wanted to do a charter to Nairobi.

  ‘We were about an hour out of Nairobi and he couldn’t raise Eastair, the regional civil aviation control. Then some time later, the Mombasa tower called him and told the pilot that there had been an emergency and that he should turn back to Mombasa.

  ‘I told him, “No, we’ll go on to Nairobi.” After about five minutes, I thought I had better tell him what had happened. ‘If he could have thrown me out of the plane at that moment, he would have.

  ‘I believe quite strongly in destiny and fate. But only after you have put in everything that you have got. And then if something goes wrong, then you can sometimes say, “Well I did my best and God just did not will it.”

  ‘Nature has given you a body and a mind with which to think, and if you’ve used all that then you’ll get a helping hand to get in and get out. It was one of those situations.’

  The pilot asked Amin, ‘What do you expect is going to happen to us?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But if you’re really scared, why don’t you drop me at the polo grounds at Dagoretti Corner [on the outskirts of Nairobi]. Then you can take off and go to one of the lodges at Maasai Mara or Ambos
eli and I can walk home.’

  ‘It’s no problem landing there. But if you say there has been a coup and a plane is seen landing at the polo grounds, that could cause us a lot of problems.’

  ‘You’re right. That’s a bad idea. Let’s just go into Wilson. I’m sure there’ll be no problem. We might get arrested and pushed around a bit, but there’ll no real problem.’

  ‘So we came over Wilson and he waggled his wings as he passed the control tower, which you normally do to indicate your radio isn’t working or that you have another problem.

  ‘That, we learned later, was the worst thing we could have done because the rebels could easily have taken a shot at us. We circled and landed and there was nobody around, but as we were taxiing off the runway about half a dozen soldiers armed with machine guns leapt out of nowhere and stopped us right in the middle of the runway.’

  They were ordered out with their hands up and guns stuck in their backs. Asked where they were from, Mo calmly said Mombasa. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No. We don’t. We were told there was bad weather in Nairobi.’

  ‘No, this is much worse than bad weather. Everything has changed.

  We’ve taken over the government.’

  ‘Oh well…’

  The two were being walked towards the airport building while this conversation took place. Amin had no idea who was involved. It could have been either the army or the air force. In their camouflage uniforms, the rebels looked just like any military.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘We’ve been here since midnight.’ The rebels complained that they were hungry but that nobody had been to check on them. They had no idea what was happening. Said Amin, ‘I’m sure you can get something to eat at the Aero Club.’