Obituaries: Idi Amin 1925 - 2003

If you were born after about 1963, the announcement of the passing on August 16th of one-time Ugandan dictator Idi Amin probably held little meaning. To those of us who were at least in our teens or twenties during the decade of the 70s, however, just hearing this name again in the news was like being visited by a ghost from a long forgotten past.

Until Amin took the world stage as a most unlikely actor, most American's probably hadn't even heard of Uganda, a landlocked central African nation, slightly smaller than Oregon, surrounded by Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. Except for possibly Kenya, these have all been politically troubled nations, where blood often flows as freely as the seasonal monsoons. None of these nations, however, even during their darkest hours, has seen trouble on such a grand scale as when Idi Amin ruled Uganda. Under Amin, the nation of Uganda was to become, for a time, a household name, both here in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

The son of a self-proclaimed sorceress, Amin was born in Uganda's remote West Nile region. Receiving little formal education, he looked to the military as a source of advancement, joining the Kings African Rifles in 1948 where he enjoyed rapid promotion, in 1961 becoming one of the first two Ugandans to be given the Queen's Commission. He continued to thrive after Uganda achieved independence in 1962, eventually becoming Chief of Staff of the army and navy under President Milton Obote.

Amin reportedly became increasingly dissatisfied with the Obote administration, and seized the country in a bloody coup in 1971 while President Obote was out of the country. The Brits were, at first, secretly pleased with this turn of events, since they figured that Amin would be pro-British in his approach. Their elation was short lived however, as Amin ushered-in an eight year reign that would be marked by bizarre and brutal behavior.

Less than a year after seizing power, Amin would evoke the ire of the international community when he expelled all Asians from Uganda, blaming them for controlling the economy for their own ends. This began a rapid sequence of events that would promote him to the status of "dictator-you-love-to-hate." Much to the chagrin of the Brits who had supported him, he appropriated British property in Uganda and curtailed business between the two countries, while constantly threatening to expel the Britons who remained there.

Probably the most infamous incident during his tenure occurred in 1976 when he apparently colluded with a Palestinian group which hijacked an Air France jet and held its Israeli passengers hostage at Entebbe Airport. In the now-famous "Raid on Entebbe," Israeli commandos stormed the airport in a daring raid under cover of darkness, rescuing all but one of the hostages and flying them back to Israel.

But it wasn't Admin's treatment of Asians or the Brits, nor his collusion with Palestinian terrorist groups that raised him to the status of the world's most well known dictator. As unpleasant as these incidents were, it was the uncivilized brutality which he used against his own people that sickened the world most.

He murdered hundreds of thousands of real and perceived opponents, reportedly feasting of the bodies of some of his victims and throwing their remains to the crocodiles. It's estimated that about 500,000 people were killed during his rule. As a result of mass expulsions, gross mismanagement and rampant corruption, Uganda plunged into economic chaos. In 1972, in protest of Amin's policies, the United States cut off aid to the country. President Jimmy Carter was to later say that the actions of the dictator "disgusted the entire civilized world."

He was bizarre in ways that were sure to capture the attention of the press. During his eight years as "president for life," he awarded himself the Victoria Cross, offered to visit Northern Ireland as a peace mediator, claimed to be leIding the fight for Scottish independence and said that he, not the Queen, should be head of the Commonwealth. His supposed cannibalism, of course, got tons of ink.

Like most military dictators with delusions of grandeur, Idi Amin eventually overreached himself. After repeatedly sending his troops to invade neighboring Tanzania, in 1979 Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles counter-attacked, sending him into exile. He fled first to Libya, then Iraq, before finally settling in Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to stay, with the caveat that he stay out of politics. He remained in Saudi Arabia for more than ten years.

Unfortunately, the passing of Idi Amin is important, not because it marks the end of an era, but because it only serves to remind us that we must still be watchful for brutal dictators. All we have to do is watch the evening news to know that the likes of Idi Amin are everywhere very much in evidence. Like they used to say in days of old, "The king is dead. Long live the king."

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