Iddi Amin Revisited

It is approximately 30 years since the overthrow of Africa’s most notorious post-indepence dictator, Iddi Amin. On 10/04/09 a combined force of the Tanzania’s People’s Defence Force (TPDF) and groups of Ugandan rebels united under Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) overthrew Amin. His overthrow ended a 9 year reign of terror during which 300,000 Ugandans were killed. Amazingly, so many years after his exit, the worlds fascination with the “Butcher of Africa” aka “Big Daddy” continues to grow. Yet who was this man, who dared called himself . “His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”? It is difficult to separate the man from the myth. Is it true, he ate his opponents and stored their heads in his refrigerator? We may never know. What is known is that Idi Amin Dada was born around 1925 in a remote part of North Western Uganda. Deserted by his father at an early age, he was brought up by his mother, a herbalist and diviner. Nothing about his humble origins suggested that the village boy would eventually become Uganda’s most famous native son. Having received very little formal education, the young Amin looked to the military as a source of advancement. He joined the Kings African Rifles in 1948. During his time with the KAR, Amin developed a reputation for excessive brutality during interrogations. In what was to be known as the ‘Turkana Massacre’, in 1962, while conducting an operation to suppress cattle stealing by tribesmen spilling into the north of Uganda from the neighbouring Turkana region of Kenya, Amin personally ordered that the cattle rustlers be tortured, beaten to death or be buried alive. However, his British superiors refused to court martial him for what they merely deemed to be ‘overzealousness’ on his part. Later that year, Amin became army chief of staff four years after Uganda won independence from the United Kingdom while his protégé Obote became Prime Minister. In 1967, he helped Obote depose Uganda’s first President, King Freddie. On 25th January 1971 with the help of the British, whilst the increasingly unpopular Obote attended a Commonwealth meeting in Singapore, Amin led a coup d’etat and took control of the country, declaring himself president. Idi Amin was initially warmly welcomed by Ugandans who thronged the streets of Kampala in their thousands to herald the dawn of new era. In his inaugural speech to the nation, Amin said, “I am not an ambitious man, personally, I am just a soldier with a concern for my country and its people.” And Ugandans naively believed him. The international community too was much too pleased; the British Foreign Office famously gushingly described Amin as “a splendid type and a good (rugby) player”. Little did they know that while Amin was being sworn in to power, his ‘killer squads’ were secretly hunting down and slaying Obote’s supporters in their thousands. The international community was soon given a rude jolt when Amin expelled the country’s 40,000-80,000 Indians and Pakistanis in 1972, reportedly after receiving a message from God during a dream. Amin has often caricatured in the media, as a mad clowning buffoon with murderous tendencies. In truth is he was much more complex than that. He was a larger than life figure, prone to terrible mood swings; he could be very charming and oozing jollity one second, and order for the killing of an errant Minister the next; A real life Mr.Jekyll and Dr. Hyde. His eccentric behaviour made him fodder for the World media, amongst other things, he declared himself King of Scotland, banned hippies and mini-skirts, and appeared at a royal Saudi Arabian funeral in 1975 wearing a kilt. Amin also once sent the then US President, Richard Nixon, a “get well soon” card just after the Watergate scandal, and told the then Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, to “pack her knickers”. He is also remembered for staging a publicity stunt for the world media, forcing white residents of Kampala to carry him on a throne then kneel before him and recite an oath of loyalty. Idi Amin would be a joke if his legacy was not so cruel.His amusing shenanigans which were a hall mark of his reign however masked a much darker figure whose death squads were responsible for the death of 300,000 people in a country of 10 million. Among those to die are ordinary citizens, former and serving Cabinet ministers, the chief justice, Supreme Court judges, diplomats, academics, educators, prominent Roman Catholic and Anglican Archbishop, senior bureaucrats, medical practitioners, bankers, tribal leaders, business executives, journalists and a number of foreignersHis erratic behaviour led many to conclude that he was suffering from some kind of mental disorder. Despite Amin’s crimes against humanity, he escaped justice because the Saudi authorities shielded one of the monsters of our time. Ends