Idi Amin

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Image:Uganda-Amin-10-Shillings-cr.jpg Idi Amin (May 17, 1924<ref>The date and birthplace of Idi Amin is somewhat disputed. Biographical sources give 1924, 1 January, 1925 and 17 May, 1928 as his date of birth, and both Koboko District (at that time Arua District) and Kampala as his place of birth. His relatives, interviewed in the newspaper The Monitor after his death, say he was born in Kampala.[1]</ref> – August 16, 2003) was an army officer and President of Uganda (1971 to 1979).

Amin's tenure witnessed much sectarian violence, including the persecution of the Acholi, Lango, and other tribes as well as Christians in Uganda. Reports of the torture and murder of 300,000 to 500,000 Ugandans during Amin's presidency have been widespread since the 1970s.

His full title as president of Uganda was 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. <ref>A sample Google search [2]</ref>

Early life and career

Amin was born Idi Awo-Ongo Angoo in Kampala, by parents of the Kakwa ethnic group. His father was a Catholic who converted to Islam. Amin was deserted by his father at an early age and brought up in Buganda by his mother who, it is often claimed, was a sorceress. He received little formal education. His nickname, "Dada" was acquired in Kenya, while part of the British colonial army known as the King's African Rifles. Every time he was caught with a woman in his tent, he pleaded that she was his "dada" (sister), in order to be let off the hook by his commanders.

One of Amin's eight siblings claims that their father was a policeman.

Amin joined the King's African Rifles of the British colonial army as a private in 1946, rising to the rank of lieutenant after seeing action during the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya. He was considered a skilled soldier, however he also had a reputation for cruelty. He rose through the ranks, reaching sergeant-major before being made an effendi, the highest rank possible for a Black African in the British army.

With Amin as part of the action, the African Rifles murdered the Mau Mau General Gitau Matenjagwo and paraded his body for days around the village in Muranga. By 1962 he was already a Lieutenant and was assigned to quell the cattle rustling between Uganda’s Karamojong and Kenya’s Pokot (Suk) nomads. Amin’s platoon devised an easy method: they shot many Pokot warriors and left them in the open for hyenas to feed on.

In order to disarm the Karamojong of their spears, he ordered captured men to line up at a table, each one with his penis lying on the table. He threatened to cut the men’s organs off unless they revealed where they had hidden the spears. On one occasion, Amin personally cut off the organs of eight screaming men, before the others could reveal the hiding places for their weapons.

Amin was also an accomplished sportsman. Besides being a champion swimmer he held Uganda's light heavyweight boxing championship from 1951 to 1960.

Promotion in the military

After independence in October, 1962, Milton Obote, Uganda's first prime minister, rewarded his loyalty by promoting him to captain in 1963 and deputy commander of the army in 1964. In 1965 Obote and Amin were implicated in a deal to smuggle gold, coffee, and ivory out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A parliamentary investigation demanded by President Mutesa (also the Kabaka (King) of Buganda), put Obote on the defensive; he promoted Amin to general and made him chief-of-staff, had five ministers arrested, suspended the 1962 constitution, and declared himself as the new president. In 1966 Mutesa was forced into exile in Britain where he died in 1969.

Amin began recruiting members of his own tribe into the army as well as many Muslims from his West Nile area to the northwest of Uganda near the Sudanese border. Relations with Obote began to sour. Obote first responded by putting Amin under house arrest, and when this failed to undermine his support, Amin was given a non-executive position in the army.

Seizure of power

After hearing that Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, he seized power in a coup on January 25, 1971, when Obote was attending a Commonwealth summit meeting in Singapore.

Idi Amin was initially welcomed both within Uganda and by the international community. In an internal memo, the British Foreign Office described him as "a splendid type and a good football player". He gave former king and president Mutesa, who had died in exile, a state burial in April, 1971, freed many political prisoners, and disbanded the secret police, the General Service Unit.

He promised to hold elections within months. Shortly after taking power, however, Amin established the so-called "State Research Bureau" which were actually his own brand of "death squads" to hunt down and murder Obote's supporters as well as much of the intelligentsia, whom he distrusted. Military leaders who had not supported the coup were executed, many by beheading.

Obote took refuge in Tanzania, from where he attempted to regain the country through a military invasion in September, 1972, without success. Obote supporters within the Ugandan army, mainly from the Acholi and Lango tribes, were also involved in the invasion. Amin retaliated by bombing Tanzanian towns, and purging the army of Acholi and Lango officers. The ethnic violence grew to include the whole of the army, and then Ugandan civilians. At the violence increased, Amin became more and more paranoid, fearing a coup within his own government. The Nile Mansions Hotel in Kampala became infamous as Amin's interrogation and torture centre.

On August 4, 1972, Amin gave Uganda's 50,000 Asians (mainly of Indian origin) 90 days to leave the country, following an alleged dream in which, he claimed, God told him to expel them. Many Asians owned big business at Uganda. Many Indians where born in the country. Their relatives came from India to Uganda when the county was British colony. Those who remained were deported from the cities to the countryside. Most Asians got asylum in Great Britain. The same year he severed diplomatic relations with Israel and turned to Colonel Muammar Al Qadhafi of Libya, and also to the Soviet Union for support. In 1973 the United States closed its embassy in Kampala and in 1976 the United Kingdom closed its High Commission in Uganda.

Image:AminCarried.jpg

Uganda under Amin had embarked on a large military buildup. The buildup raised concern in Nairobi. Early in June 1975, Kenyan officials impounded a large convoy of Soviet-made arms en route to Uganda at Mombasa port.

The tension reached climax in 1976. It was February that President Amin suddenly announced that he would investigate the possibility that large parts of southern Sudan and western and central Kenya, up to within 32 km of Nairobi, were historically a part of colonial Uganda. The Kenyan government response came two days later in a stern statement that said Kenya would not part with "a single inch of territory". Amin finally backed down after the Kenyan army deployed troops and armoured personnel carriers in defensive positions along the Kenya-Uganda border.

Amin had strong links to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The Israeli embassy was offered to them as headquarters; and Flight 139, the Air France Airbus hijacked from Athens on June 27, 1976, was invited by Amin to stop at Entebbe International Airport in the city of Entebbe, 32 km from Kampala. The hijackers demanded the release of 53 PLO and Red Army Faction prisoners in return for the 256 hostages, and were assisted by Amin's troops. Amin visited the hostages more than once. At midnight on July 3, 1976, Israeli commandos attacked the airport and freed all but two of the hostages. (One was killed by the Israeli forces, while another, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, who had been taken to a hospital before the rescue, was allegedly killed by two army officers after the hostage rescue. According to some unconfirmed reports, these officers were operating under Amin's direct orders.) Uganda's air force was badly crippled as its fighter jets were destroyed in the action (see also Operation Entebbe).

The success of the operation largely contributed to his downfall, while increased resistance and sabotage operations crippled the nation during his final years. Partly on the basis of his "visions" and this behaviour, Idi Amin is often believed to have suffered from neurosyphilis: Deborah Hayden makes the case for this hypothesis in her Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis.

Among the most prominent people killed by Idi Amin were: Benedicto Kiwanuka, the former Prime Minister and later Chief Justice; Janani Luwum, the Anglican Archbishop; Joseph Mubiru, the former Governor of the Central Bank; Frank Kalimuzo, the Vice Chancellor of Makerere University; and Byron Kawadwa, a prominent playwright.

As the years went on, Amin became increasingly erratic and outspoken. He had his tunics specially lengthened so that he could wear many World War II medals, including the Military Cross and Victoria Cross. He also granted himself a number of official titles, including King of Scotland.

Amin was fond of racing cars (of which he owned several), boxing, and Disney cartoons. Many foreign journalists considered him a somewhat comical and eccentric figure; he was widely caricatured in the west as a murderous buffoon. There were also rumours that he was a cannibal, though this has never been proven.

Deposition and exile

In October, 1978, Amin ordered the invasion of Tanzania while at the same time attempting to cover up an army mutiny. With help of Libyan troops, Amin tried to annex the northern Tanzanian province of Kagera. Tanzania, under President Julius Nyerere, declared war on Uganda, then began a counter attack, enlisting the country's population of Ugandan exiles.

On April 11, 1979, Amin was forced to quit the capital, Kampala. The Tanzanian army took the city with the help of the Ugandan and Rwandan guerrillas. Amin fled to exile, first in Libya, where sources are divided on whether he remained until December 1979 or early 1980, before finding final asylum in Saudi Arabia. He opened a bank account in Jeddah and resided there, subsisting on a government stipend. The new Ugandan government chose to keep him exiled, saying that Amin would face war crimes charges if he ever returned.

On July 20, 2003, one of his wives, Madina, reported that he was near death in a coma at the King Faisal specialist hospital in Jeddah. She pleaded with Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni that he might return to die in Uganda. The reply was that if he returned, he would have to "answer for his sins".

Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia on August 16, aged 79, and was buried in Jeddah. On August 17, David Owen told an interviewer for BBC Radio 4 that while he was the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary (1977 – 1979), he had suggested to have Amin assassinated. His idea was directly rejected. Owen said, "Amin's regime was the worst of all. It's a shame that we allowed him to keep in power for so long."

He is buried in Ruwais cemetery in Jeddah.

Portrayal in media

• Idi Amin Dada - A documentary directed by French filmmaker Barbet Schroeder.
• Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1980) - An exploitation film recreating Idi Amin's atrocities.
• The Last King of Scotland - Upcoming Hollywood movie directed by Kevin Macdonald and based on the novel of the same name by Giles Foden. Forest Whitaker will star as Amin alongside Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson.
• He is mentioned in the Sex Pistols song "No One is Innocent". a section of the lyrics include:

God save politicians God save our friends the pigs

God save Idi Amin and god save Ronald Biggs

God save all us sinners God save your blackest sheep

God save the good samaritan and god save the worthless creep

Notes

See also

• Uganda
• Uganda under Amin, part of the History of Uganda series.
• President of Uganda
• Politics of Uganda
• Political parties of Uganda
• Tanzania People's Defence Force
• President for Life
• List of converts to Islam

External links

• Idi Amin Cabinet Meeting Video
• BBC Article and Video - 25 January 1971: Idi Amin ousts Uganda president (BBC)
• Separate fact from fiction in Amin stories. Originally published in The Monitor
• Biography of Amin
• Another biography of Amin
• Film about Amin/Uganda

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