Jolly Joe Kiwanuka (pictured below) was one of Uganda’s wealthiest and most influential citizens, He was stubborn and strong-willed, and his utter disregard for public opinion had made him a legend even to his closest friends. He owned a large wholesale business and among his many investments, he was also owner of Uganda’s champion soccer team, Express Football Club.

He was a powerful man both politically and financially, founder of the Ugandan National Congress and a Member of Parliament. He was an atheist and humanist who had no time for religion and seemed impervious to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  On more than one occasion, while watching his team compete, he had rushed out on the field – stopped the game – and forced the referee to reverse his decision.

Once while competing with a Catholic team he had slapped a priest across the face. Later when reporters asked why he had struck the man, Kiwanuka refused to answer. He only said, “There is no God”, and walked away.

It was November of 1969 and Kiwanuka had come to London to bury Mutesa II, the last Baganda king.The Baganda, the southern tribe of Uganda to which Kiwanuka and I belonged, were traditional enemies of President Milton Obote’s tribe, the northern Langi.

King Muteesa had been Obote’s most outspoken and bitter opponent and in 1966, after an attack on his palace in which many Baganda were killed, he was forced to flee to England. He spent his last years living in London, where he died in early winter of 1969.

King Mutesa’s memorial service, was full of spies from Obote’s extensive international network. The presence of these informers forced the speakers to choose their words carefully and, one by one, they made a point of dissociating themselves from the king’s politics. It was in this atmosphere of tension and diplomacy that Joseph “Jolly Joe” Kiwanuka stood up to speak.

As the founder of the Ugandan National Congress and a member of parliament, he commanded immediate respect. Dressed in a grey, tailored suit, he looked once around the room with a cool and confident gaze. Then, in a loud voice, he addressed himself to Obote’s agents.

You spies,” he said scornfully, “I know you are here. It is nothing to me. If there is something I say that you want Obote to hear, you come tell me first. I’ll take you to the airport and pay for your plane ticket home.

The audience was completely silent. Kiwanuka stared sternly at each person he suspected of spying and he continued.

You spies are here,” he said, now speaking almost quietly, “because we black people have not learned to love ourselves. I have been all over the world. I have been to America, to Australia, to Europe and to Asia. Everywhere, black people live in the most miserable conditions. We live in the sewers of society. I tell you, we are alone. There is no man who cares for us. We will not be loved unless we learn to love ourselves.”

Several weeks later the news reached London from Uganda that Joseph Kwanuka had been arrested and imprisoned without a trial.  On January 25, 1971 General Idi Amin led the Ugandan army in a successful “coup d’etat.” Political prisoners including Kiwanuka were set free and everyone expected a golden age of liberty and progress to ensue.

As bad and oppressive as Milton Obote may have been, he was an angel of mercy by comparison with Idi Amin. Kiwanuka would soon come into confrontation with Amin’s disregard for the rule of law.

In the last three months of 1972, while the western world dismissed stories of genocide as wild exaggerations by frightened refugees, Idi Amin and his assassins had killed over 90,000 Ugandans. Like other communist dictators his victims were primarily among the prominent citizens in the community.

Initially the victims were buried in mass graves. But as the killings continued, bloated bodies were to be found everywhere. Many of the executions were on public television; others were private occasions in the presence of family members.

The assassins seemed determined not to merely kill, but also to torture and humiliate. On 21 September, 1971 armed soldiers broke into the chamber of the Chief Justice of Uganda and after humiliating him in front of the court, dragged him away at gunpoint. He was taken to Makindye Military Prison where his ears, nose, lips and private parts were cut from his body. After two hours of suffering he was disembowelled and the rest of his body was burned. 

It was in this context that Jolly Joe Kiwanuka gave his life to Jesus Christ. One week after the death of the Chief Justice, Kiwanuka met Kefa Sempangi the leader of a 14,000 member Redeemed Church who later became one of his best friends. Sempangi greeted him but Jolly Joe didn’t bother to shake his hands.

“Owanga,” he said abruptly, speaking in the language of our tribe, the Baganda. “You know what’s going on. What do you say about it…….How do you see it…Do you think God knows what’s going on….Do you think he is going to help us?” God is there, I said, forgetting my fears and suspicions. Have you considered that we ought to give ourselves entirely over to Him?”

I have considered it, Kiwanuka said in an urgent voice. What is to be done?” We walked together to a small house by the side of the compound and there we prayed, asking God to reveal Himself.

When we finished, Kiwanuka was weeping. I knew then some desperate tension had overtaken his life, and the depths of his anguish caused my own heart to mourn. Later I learned he had been an unwilling witness to the torturous death of the Chief Justice of Uganda, a man whom he had loved deeply.

In that moment when Kiwanuka had stood over the mutilated remains of his friend, the foundations of his life had been destroyed. The Chief Justice and he had worked together for more than twenty years. They had sacrificed themselves to make Uganda a strong, free country, and it seemed that both of their efforts had come to nothing.

When Kiwanuka finished weeping, he was silent for a moment. Then he turned to me with a grave but more settled face and said, So there really is a kingdom? …. Two weeks later at the end of the Sunday service worship, Kiwanuka stood before the congregation and spoke of the grace of God:

From the beginning…. I have been looking for a kingdom of freedom. I believed in the goodness of man and I believed that men and women could learn to love each other. Now I tell you, there is no good man. If God will leave us in our natural state, we will eat grass as the goats. But God has not left us!

He has made for us the kingdom that we cannot make for ourselves. He has rescued us from our own corruption and cruelty. The chains of our evil have been broken. It is I Joseph Kiwanuka, who am speaking and I know what I am saying! I have met the man of freedom, Jesus Christ. My sins have been forgiven. I stand before you as a new member of God’s kingdom.

In the midst of severe persecution, Sempangi, Kiwanuka and other elders of the church had a meeting that closed at 3:00 a.m. Sempangi says, the Redeemed Church as we had known it had come to an end. After one of the last raids it was unlikely that we could continue to hold public services. We would have to take the church underground.

We would have to develop a network of invisible leadership and begin meeting again in individual homes. The prospect of breaking up our 14,000 member church in this way seemed to us an overwhelming task and out of fatigue and perhaps even fear we all agreed that a discussion of a detailed plan should wait till the following evening.

But listen to what happened next, as recorded in Sempangi’s book, Reign of Terror, Rein of Love:

It is because of the resurrection we that we are free, Kiwanuka said, we are not slaves to this life or to our fear of death. We are slaves to Jesus Christ and He has risen from the grave.

Towards morning, one by one, the elders said goodbye. We embraced and tears ran down our cheeks as we said goodbye. The last to go was Kiwanuka. He grabbed both my arms in his large hands and seemed more confident and happy than ever.

You must know now, he said, whatever comes, we are ready to die. For we are no longer following Kefa, we are following Jesus Christ.

With these words he stepped out of the door. At the bottom of the steps he turned one last time before disappearing into the night. Goodbye Kefa, he said quietly. I will see you tomorrow. For once in his life, Joseph Kiwanuka was wrong. We would not see each other on earth again.

Kiwanuka had refused to believe his life was in danger and firmly resisted all efforts to persuade him to leave Uganda. His shop was surrounded one afternoon by Amin’s soldiers, but someone in the army had forewarned him of his danger. By the time the soldiers broke down the door, Kiwanuka was already on his way across the Uganda-Kenya border.

Sempangi who had now migrated to Holland wrote letters to Kiwanuka asking him to join him in training for the day when they would return to Uganda together, for the rebuilding of the country.

Unfortunately, Kiwanuka never received any of the letters. In utter frustration Sempangi wrote the last letter and prayed earnestly that the Kenyan postal authorities would finally deliver his message. Two days before Christmas, while Sempangi was still waiting for Kiwanuka’s reply, he received a letter from Leonidas Mukasa, an elder in Sempangi’s Redeemed Church.

Mukasa who had recently escaped to London, wrote:

My Dear Kefa,

It is with deep regret that I inform you of the death of our beloved brother in Christ, Joseph Kiwanuka, who ten days ago was kidnapped from Kenya. He was taken by force back to Uganda, to Makindye Prison, and badly clubbed about the head by Malire who was one of Amin’s killers and Amin himself. These men of Satan tried again and again to force him to renounce his faith but our brother lifted his hands to heaven and called the name of Jesus until his body collapsed dead.

It was only later that Sempangi had learned the details of Kiwanuka’s death. He had been kidnapped from his hotel room in Nairobi by gang of Nubians and taken directly to Makindye Prison.

After being kept in a cell and tortured for several days, he was taken outside to the public yard, where both Amin and Malire were waiting with hammers. Kiwanuka greeted them in a friendly fashion and, as their blows began to fall upon his body, he prayed aloud for the forgiveness of their sins.

Amin went into an uncontrollable rage. Forgetting his desire to see his former friend die a slow and torturous death, he grabbed a nearby sledgehammer and slammed him over the head. Kiwanuka, with his last breath, called the name of Jesus and collapsed dead at Amin’s feet!

After more than 20 years of suffering and hardship he had dreams of happiness on earth in his country which had once been described by Winston Churchill as the “Pearl of Africa.” Tragically, Idi Amin had dashed those dreams.

In utter desperation and despair Jolly Joe dared to turn his eyes from the storm clouds of earth to a land where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. He said,

From the beginning I have been looking for a kingdom. I have been looking for a kingdom of freedom. . . .” In Christ he found that freedom.

What Kiwanuka and other martyrs had sown in tears, they, and the church with them, would reap in joy. For the story of what God was doing in Uganda did not end with Idi Amin. What Pharaoah had meant for evil, God used for good. For every newspaper headline, for every story of atrocities and death, there was another story which went unreported and unnoticed.

It was the story of those who, by faith, had “escaped the edge of the sword”. It was the story of how God’s people, in the midst of great suffering, had come to understand the depths of love. And it was the story of how God in His providence, had led His children into the wilderness, to prepare a table before them.

Jolly Joe Kiwanuka and others did find the everlasting Kingdom!

Adapted from Kefa Sempangi’s autobiography, Reign of Terror, Reign of Love, A Firsthand account of Life and Death in Idi Amin’s Uganda. Copyright © 1979 Lion Publishing

Further Reading and Information:

A Distant Grief: The Real Story Behind the Martyrdom of Christians in Uganda, Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2006

From the Dust: A Sequel to A Distant Grief, Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub, 2008

Related Stories:

• Twenty Years in the Making
• Hollywood stars for new Idi Amin film
• Ssekandi warns on Uganda’s turbulent history

Author Kefa Sempangi-Photo credit

Most Americans may not like to hear this, but the truth is that modern day America very closely resembles Nazi Germany.  If you initially recoiled when you read the headline to this article, that is understandable.  After all, most of us were raised to deeply love this country.  But I would ask you to consider the evidence that I have compiled before you pass judgment on the matter. 

Most citizens of this nation know that something has gone deeply wrong, and I would suggest that just like the Nazis, all of the pageantry and beauty in our society masks an evil which has grown to a level that is almost unspeakable.  And just like the Germans, we don’t do ourselves any favors by turning a blind eye to what is going on. 

The following are 10 stunning parallels between the United States and Nazi Germany…

#1 Human Experimentation

The fact that the Nazis conducted scientific experiments on their prisoners has been heavily documented, but many Americans may not realize that we have been conducting similar experiments for decades.  The following comes from author John Whitehead…

In Alabama, for example, 600 black men with syphilis were allowed to suffer without proper medical treatment in order to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. In California, older prisoners had testicles from livestock and from recently executed convicts implanted in them to test their virility. In Connecticut, mental patients were injected with hepatitis.

In Maryland, sleeping prisoners had a pandemic flu virus sprayed up their noses. In Georgia, two dozen “volunteering” prison inmates had gonorrhea bacteria pumped directly into their urinary tracts through the penis. In Michigan, male patients at an insane asylum were exposed to the flu after first being injected with an experimental flu vaccine. In Minnesota, 11 public service employee “volunteers” were injected with malaria, then starved for five days.

In New York, dying patients had cancer cells introduced into their systems. In Ohio, over 100 inmates were injected with live cancer cells. Also in New York, prisoners at a reformatory prison were also split into two groups to determine how a deadly stomach virus was spread: the first group was made to swallow an unfiltered stool suspension, while the second group merely breathed in germs sprayed into the air. And in Staten Island, children with mental retardation were given hepatitis orally and by injection to see if they could then be cured.

And while times may have changed, the truth is that we are still being experimented on against our will.  Just check out what the New York Daily News says is happening in New York City this month…

Don’t hold your breath, it’s only a test.

The Department of Homeland Security will release “harmless particle materials” in the city’s subway system next week.

The “non-toxic, safe gas material” will be released at subway stations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens in order to understand where hazardous material would travel in the event of a biological terrorist attack.

In addition, let us not forget that we systematically create and perform experiments on unborn baby children…

A shocking new report indicates scientists have found a way for human embryos to live outside the womb for 14 days, which is a record, so they can be experimented on for a longer period of time.

Leading pro-life advocates are outraged that scientists would specifically create unique human beings to purposefully experiment on and later destroy just for research. They are worried scientists will continue creating more unborn human people who will be subjected to research for a longer duration of their embryonic life.

What we are doing is so evil that it is hard to put into words, and yet most Americans have come to accept this kind of sick behavior as perfectly normal.

#2 Socialism

The Nazis were hardcore socialists, and they were very proud of this fact.  For example, National Socialist theologian Gregor Strasser once made the following statement…

We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak … and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system.

Unfortunately, the United States is rapidly moving in a similar direction.  An avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, is wildly popular with Democrats, and more than half of all U.S. adults under the age of 30 now say that they reject capitalism.

#3 Free Stuff

Just like Bernie Sanders wants to do, the Nazis gave out lots and lots of free stuff.  Kitty Werthmann was a child living a peaceful life in Austria when Hitler took over her nation, and I will be quoting her extensively for the rest of this article.  She says that once the Nazis took control in Austria, they started handing out lots of freebies…

Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

#4 Taxes

Free stuff may sound like a good idea, but someone has to pay for it.  According to Kitty Werthmann, once the Nazis took control of Austria “our tax rates went up to 80% of our income“, and that absolutely choked the life out of the free market system.

Sadly, things are moving in the exact same direction in the United States.  When the federal income tax was first implemented a little over a century ago, most Americans were taxed at a rate of just one percent.  But today, we are being taxed into oblivion.  I recently wrote an article in which I listed 97 different taxes that Americans pay each year, and when you add all of those taxes together some Americans end up paying out more than 50 percent of their incomes in taxes.

#5 Obamacare

Would it surprise you to learn that the Nazis had their own version of Obamacare?  The following is some more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann…

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

#6 Government Regulation

Just like the Obama administration, the Nazis wanted to tightly regulate virtually everything in the economy.  Here is more from Kitty Werthmann…

My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business.

If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

#7 Gun Control

The Nazis believed in having a very strong military, but they were also obsessed with taking the guns away from the general population.  According to Kitty Werthmann, the first step was gun registration, and once the government knew where all the guns were it was very easy to round all of them up…

Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

#8 Spying

The Nazi secret police, also known as the Gestapo, became world famous for their brutal tactics.  The Nazis wanted to know everything about everybody, and anyone that was deemed to be “anti-government” was dealt with mercilessly.

Unfortunately, we are moving in the exact same direction in the United States today.  We spy on our enemies, but we also spy on our friends.  Control freaks working for the government are systematically watching us, tracking us, recording our phone calls and monitoring our emails.  At this point, government snooping has become so pervasive that 64 percent of all reporters believe that the government is spying on them.

#9 Abortion

The Nazis brought legalized abortion to Germany, and they were especially interested in having “undesirable” elements of the population engage in this practice.  It turns out that Adolf Hitler was actually a huge fan of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and he adopted many of her philosophies.  As I have written about previously, Sanger once made the following statement…

The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”

Now compare that line from Sanger to this statement from Hitler in Mein Kampf…

The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring. . . represents the most humane act of mankind.

Just like the Nazis, our disregard for human life is absolutely appalling.  Even after the American people were shown clear undercover video evidence that revealed that Planned Parenthood is chopping up aborted babies and selling their body parts to the highest bidder, one survey found that only 29 percent of Americans wanted to cut off the hundreds of millions of dollars that Planned Parenthood is getting from the federal government every year.

To say that we have become an “evil nation” is a gigantic understatement.

#10 Pushing The Christian Faith Out Of Public Life

In this day and age, it has become “American” to remove every trace of the Christian faith from public life.  We don’t want God in our government, in our schools, in our parks or in our businesses.  Many people may not realize this, but the Nazis were the exact same way.  The following information originally comes from Bruce Walker, the author of “The Swastika Against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity“…

The Nazi tract Gott und Volk was distributed in 1941, and it describes the life cycle of German youth in the future, who would:  “With parties and gifts the youth will be led painlessly from one faith to the other and will grow up without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments… The education of the youth is to be confined primarily by the teacher, the officer, and the leaders of the party.  The priests will die out.  They have estranged the youth from the Volk.  Into their places will step the leaders.  Not deputies of God.  But anyway the best Germans.  And how shall we train our children?  Thus, as though they had never heard of Christianity!”

And just like Nazi Germany, our end will be exceedingly terrible.

You see, the truth is that all evil regimes eventually fall, and America is headed for a day of reckoning.

Even now, our enemies are preparing weapons which could potentially destroy us in a single day.  For example, just check out what Russia is building…

The “Satan 2″ missile is rumoured to be the most powerful ever designed and is equipped with stealth technology to help it dodge enemy radar systems .

This terrifying doomsday weapon is likely to strike fear into the hearts of Western military chiefs, as current missile defence technology is totally incapable of stopping it.

It is being reported that the warheads from a single Satan 2 missile could destroy a state the size of Texas or a country the size of France.

Whether it is nuclear oblivion or something else, if we continue to behave like the Nazis it is just a matter of time before America is destroyed.

Let us hope and pray that this country wakes up while there is still time to do so.

© Copyright 2016, End of the American Dream