In the reprisals following Idi Amin's 1971 coup in Uganda the mayor of Masaka, a town in West Buganda, was dragged from his house by Nubians paid by the General. A crowd gathered. The mayor asked to speak to the new chief of state by telephone. Amin's killers—“soldiers” is too good a word for them—stripped him, bound his hands, and tied a rope around his neck. The chief killer drew a knife, cut off the mayor's penis, and, holding it in front of the screaming man, told him he could call Kampala through the severed organ.