Freedom of the airwaves: (radio broadcaster Peter Onebe).

Not many people are alive to tell the tale that they have been knocked down by Idi Amin, Uganda's President from 1971-79. Radio journalist Peter Onebe not only survived this encounter but also being declared state enemy number one by Amin's successor, Milton Obote.

As a young man, Onebe planned to become a lawyer, but changed his mind after staying with a journalist's family in the US during a student exchange year in the mid-Sixties. `I wanted to devote my life to working for peace and defending human rights,' he says. `I realized that in a law court I would only defend one person. If I went into journalism I could work for the peace of the whole country.'

He joined the Ugandan Ministry of Information in 1970 and has served in the press corps of six presidents--some of them notorious for their intolerance of criticism.

His close call with Amin, however, was based on a misunderstanding. `I was broadcasting with a remote mike, and had to get very close to Amin as he spoke to the Minister of Agriculture. Because there were no wires, he thought I was a spy and hit me twice.' When Amin's bodyguards noticed that Onebe kept commentating as he fell, and that the same words were coming out of his engineer's handset, they said, `This is Radio Uganda'. That, says Onebe, saved him.

Later, when Amin arrested Princess Elizabeth of Toro, his former foreign minister, Onebe's report for ABC news alerted the world to her plight. Pressure from President Kenyatta of Kenya eventually led to her being released and whisked out of the country.

Amin fell from power in 1979 and in 1980 his predecessor, Milton Obote, was voted back into office. Onebe first fell foul of him when he asked about the rights of Rwandans living in Uganda, a group Obote opposed because many had served in Amin's security forces. As a result, he was marked as an opponent to the government.

But it was a question asked live on Radio Uganda on Obote's return from the 1982 Conference of non-aligned countries in India that threatened Onebe's life. At the conference Obote had supported the removal of US forces from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

`What assurance do these two countries (North and South Korea) give to the world that if the forces in the demilitarized zone are removed they will not fight again?' Onebe asked at the live press conference on his return.

The Vice-President snapped back, `Is there anyone else from Radio Uganda who has been paid by his master to ask questions?'

`I had stepped on the tail of the most dangerous snake in the world,' says Onebe. `I sweated--I knew I would be arrested.'

In fact, he remained free because of the popularity of his broadcasts, but he was unable to work for the next eight months and lived under constant fear of arrest or assassination. Eventually he was reinstated, but barred from the presidential press corps, which he only rejoined after Obote was overthrown in 1985.

Onebe first came into contact with Initiatives of Change (MRA) through the efforts of his compatriots to fight corruption. Its approach, he says, made him `more content' and helped him to forgive the people who had hurt him and his tribe. He even began to `see Obote and Amin in a new way'.

`There are a lot of wounded hearts in Uganda,' says Onebe. `After my ordeal with Obote I realized I must use radio to free the minds of the population. I decided to get involved and heal.' He often broadcasts testimonies of reconciliation and inner change on his programme, from 8.00 to 9.00 am every morning, which is heard far beyond Uganda's borders.