Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada (1924–2003), who was president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, was known for abusing his power, not caring about human rights, being unpredictable, and tearing the country’s economy and government apart. Amin was born between 1924 and 1927 in Koboko, which used to be part of the West Nile region. His background was humble and varied. The Kakwa people live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Uganda, and his father was from that group.
Idi Amin’s mother was a Lugbara, which is the biggest group of people in West Nile. She had a big impact on his early life. Because his mother had to leave his father, he left his home country when he was young. He and his mother left West Nile and lived at the Lugazi sugar estate in Buganda. To make ends meet, Amin did a lot of different jobs and moved around a lot to follow his mother wherever she went. Because of these things, he only got a fourth-grade education.
The people who ran the British colonies liked Idi Amin. People thought he would be weak and obedient because he was big, spoke Kiswahili, and hadn’t gone to school. Idi Amin became a corporal in 1949 after joining the army as a private in 1946. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were Mau Mau rebels in Kenya who opposed British rule. Amin fought against them. In 1951, the British promoted Idi Amin to sergeant, then to lieutenant corporal, then to effendi (a rank made up of excellent African noncommissioned officers) in 1959. Idi Amin and Shaban Opolot became the first Ugandan commissioned officers to receive the rank of lieutenant in 1961.
Before Uganda got its freedom in 1962, Idi Amin’s cruelty became known. Instead of following orders to stop cattle theft between Karamoja (Uganda) and Turkana (Kenya), which is a nearby ethnic group, Idi Amin broke people’s rights in very serious ways. The British wanted to bring Amin to justice for his crimes soon after Uganda got its freedom, but Apolo Milton Obote, who became prime minister, didn’t agree with them. Instead, he scolded him.
Even though Idi Amin didn’t agree with Obote’s plan to get educated Ugandans to join the military, he was still made captain in 1962 and major in 1963, and he was chosen to take the senior officers’ course at the Wiltshire School for Infantry in Britain in 1963. In 1964, there was a mutiny in the army, which made the military and Idi Amin in particular very important in politics. The Ugandan soldiers’ desire to make their working conditions better overall was at issue.
Idi Amin’s actions to resolve the situation led to his promotion to colonel and his assignment to lead the First Battalion. Obote’s desire to assist supporters of Patrice Lumumba, the murdered prime minister of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), gave Amin a chance to get close to Prime Minister Obote. Obote told Idi Amin to set up military camps in the Congo, but the army’s chief of staff didn’t know about it.
Idi Amin was also involved in obtaining coffee, cash, and ivory from the Congo so that Uganda could buy weapons. People who were against Obote, like the Kabaka (King) of Buganda (Edward Mutesa), wanted to start an investigation into the illegal entry of gold and ivory into Uganda. To get around the problem, Obote set up an investigation committee, arrested five cabinet ministers, suspended the constitution, fired the kabaka, and made Amin commander of the armed forces.
Idi Amin struck Kabaka’s palace with no mercy, which made Mutesa run away to Britain, where he died in exile in 1969. On January 25, 1971, Idi Amin successfully staged his coup d’état against Obote’s government, ending the period of shaky politics that began in 1966. The biggest ethnic group in Uganda, the Baganda, was angry with Obote politically, and there were also disagreements within the ruling party, the Uganda People’s Congress.
In 1970, Obote appointed Idi Amin chief of general staff, which gave him control over all parts of the military and allowed him to overthrow Obote’s government on January 25, 1971. It is not clear why Obote did this. Idi Amin did not make policies in an orderly manner during his eight years in power, had sycophants around, and used terror to keep people in line.
Due to Idi Amin’s poor leadership, the government was completely broken up. In many Ugandans’ minds and the minds of people around the world, Amin was a simple man who got involved in politics to save the country. Between 1971 and 1972, Amin engaged in open discussions with ordinary citizens, dismantled Obote’s secret police, released political prisoners, allowed the return of Kabaka’s body for a royal burial, assembled a cabinet of technocrats, and assured Ugandans that he would restore power to the people.
Amin’s true nature finally came out: he was a complete liar who was ruthless, shrewd, unpredictable, and clever. During the happy years (1971–1972), Amin killed many of Obote’s supporters in the military, mostly Acholi and Langi people. Despite his friendship with the West at the time, Amin issued a decree allowing detention without trial again and ordered the deaths of two Americans, Nicholas Stroh and Robert Siedle, who were investigating massacres at the Mbarara barracks in western Uganda.
Amin quickly turned against Britain and Israel in 1972, even though they had been his closest allies, because they wouldn’t give him money and weapons. When they were hesitant, Amin appreciated that Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, was ready to help him. The deal between Amin and Gaddafi was clear: Amin would get rid of Western interests in Uganda in exchange for Libya’s money.
Amin told Israelis they had to leave the country in three days, on March 27 and again on August 5, 1972. He also told Asians with British passports they had to leave within three months. Amin said that what he was doing was okay because he wanted to get rid of “imperialists and Zionists” and replace them with African businesspeople. Amin’s expulsion of 50,000 Asian traders sparked an “economic war.”. This, along with his anti-Western views, caused problems for Uganda that it has yet to fully recover from.
Amin gave the economy to Nubians and a few Ugandans, but none of them had run a business before. This led to the destruction of Uganda’s previously thriving economy. As soon as it happened, basic things like bread, butter, milk, sugar, and salt became hard to find. People with a lot of economic power made fake shortages and then sold the goods through a system known as magendo, which means “illegal” or “underground economy.”
The economy started to be characterized by corruption. When the foreigners left, Uganda lost tax money and jobs because many of the Ugandans who had worked for them couldn’t find new work. Amin tried to find someone or something to blame for the loss of his “Economic War.” With the help of his secret police, the State Research Bureau, the Public Safety Unit, and the rest of the armed forces, Amin controlled and scared Ugandans.
He killed anyone he thought might be a threat. The cost of living under Amin’s rule was terrible for people. Few intelligent Ugandans stayed in the country because they were afraid for their lives. Most of the country’s money went to the military and Amin’s personal safety. Consequently, the government neglected schooling and the industrial and manufacturing sectors. The situation in Uganda got worse because the country couldn’t get enough foreign aid. A number of skilled foreign ministers tried to change the world’s perception that Amin didn’t have the brains and experience to run the country.
They had some success in this area, as shown by the fact that Tanzania signed the Mogadishu (Somalia) agreement with Uganda in 1972; Amin was elected as chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1975; and African countries were able to stop a UN resolution in 1977 that would have condemned Amin for gross violations of human rights. Instead of using African help to improve Uganda’s bad reputation, Amin’s unstable behavior caused one embarrassing event after another.
Soon after the rapid expulsion of Asians in 1972, Amin ordered the killings of Archbishop Janani Luwum in 1977, Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka in 1972, and Foreign Minister Michael Ondoga in 1974. He also backed the Palestinians, who took over an Air France flight to Entebbe airport in 1976. To deal with this, both the US and UK closed their embassies in Uganda in 1973 and 1976.
Other than its trade with Libya and Saudi Arabia, all of Uganda’s business deals with other countries were short-term or cash-based. Because of its business deals, the country gained a bad reputation around the world, which hurt the economy as a whole. The hardest-hit sector was the tourism industry. The economy was a mess by the late 1970s.
Kenya’s main product, coffee, fell from $3.18 (U.S.) per pound to $1.28 per pound. The problem got worse when the US stopped buying coffee from Uganda in 1978. Arab countries, who had previously provided Amin with significant financial support, began to express concern when he failed to convert Uganda to Islam and became involved in the killing of Muslims.
It was hard for Amin to buy luxury items for his army because the economy was getting worse. In October 1978, Amin ordered an invasion of Tanzania, supposedly because that country wanted to overthrow his government. He did this to draw attention away from the problem. Tanzania was preoccupied with the “Rhodesian questions” at the time and believed that the 1972 Mogadishu Agreement had ended all hostilities between the two countries. They were caught off guard.
As a result, Amin’s soldiers quickly took over the country, killing and destroying many Tanzanians’ property. Even though the OAU tried to get Amin to give up his claims to Tanzania, he refused. Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania from 1961 to 1985, had to tell the Tanzania People’s Defense troops to fight off the Ugandan troops. Exiled Tanzanians and Ugandan soldiers continued their search for Amin until the toppling of his government on April 11, 1979.
Amin ran away to Libya. After that, he went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and new information says he had a good life there. He passed away on August 16, 2003. The ongoing issues Uganda faces are proof that Amin’s rule severely harmed the country’s political, economic, social, and cultural life.
Also Read: Uganda President Yoweri Museveni: A complete Biography
