The Guardian journalist John Fairhall, who has died aged 86, predicted the coup that brought Idi Amin to power in Uganda, and ended up facing death in one of his infamous jails. For years John was haunted by the sound of his unluckier fellow inmates being sledgehammered to death and wondering whether he would be next. Of the 25 people he shared a squalid, crowded cell with in Makindye prison, Kampala, for four days in September 1972, 15 were murdered.
An Africa specialist since his time in Nairobi, Kenya, on the East African Standard and later on the multiracial Nation newspaper (1959-62), John was a natural choice as the Guardian’s Africa correspondent. His knowledge of the region and his contacts produced the hunch that a coup was imminent in Uganda in 1971. He was there in time for Amin’s first press conference, while the shooting was still going on. Several further trips there ensued, during which he reported the unfolding nightmare as Amin murdered and expelled with impunity. After the prison episode John was deported, and his reportage made him the international correspondent of the year in the IPC press awards six months later.
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