|
 Idi Amin, born Idi Amin Dada Oumee, liked to call himself ‘Conqueror of the British Empire’ and ‘Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea,’ but today, his murder count supersede these titles, and he’s simply known to many as ‘The butcher of Africa.’ With the blood of nearly three hundred thousand people on his hands, this former Ugandan president is usually considered a monster of human history.Idi Amin’s exact year of birth is undetermined, but many sources place it between 1923 and 1925. Born in the Kawka tribe in Koboko, Uganda, it is said his father was a Muslim farmer, and his mother a sorceress from the Lugbara tribe. Soon after his birth, Amin’s parents separated. His mother, a camp follower of the King’s African Rifles, a regiment of the British colonial army, raised him. The third of eight siblings, Amin only received a rudimentary education, but would excel in sports and convert to Islam at an early age.
Rather than beginning his military career in the heat of battle, Amin joined the African Rifles in the heat of the kitchen as an assistant cook in 1946. In the span of ten years, he would rise through the ranks to become a sergeant-major and platoon commander. As the 1951 heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda, he would defend his title for nine years while serving his country militarily.
By 1959, the colonial army had given him the rank of ‘effendi,’ a position created by the colonial army for Africans with leadership potential. A couple of years later, he would be promoted to lieutenant, becoming one of only two native Ugandans to be commissioned during British rule.
In 1971, ten years after Amin helped Uganda gain independence from Britain, he staged a coup to overthrow the sitting president, Milton Obote. Ugandans initially supported the coup, and with promises to abolish Obote’s secret police, free all political prisoners, introduce economic reforms, and quickly return the country to civilian rule, he was declared president and chief of the armed forces.
"I am not an ambitious man, personally," Amin said after taking power, "I am just a soldier with a concern for my country and its people."
Initially pro-West, Amin’s first overseas trip was a state visit to Israel, followed by a separate state visit to meet with Queen Elizabeth II. Towards the end of 1971, however, his position towards Western powers would change after a trip to Libya.
Returning to Uganda determined to make it “a black man’s country,” he expelled 40,000 to 80,000 of the country’s Indians and Pakistanis, justifying his actions by receiving a message from God in a dream.
As his relationship with former Western allies weakened, Amin broke relations with Israel and started supporting the Palestinian liberation movement. Promising to make Uganda an Islamic state, Amin replaced lost western aid with Libyan aid.
From 1975-1976, he became the rotating leader of the Organization of African Unity, but was mostly seen as an embarrassment. A year later, Uganda was appointed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
By 1978, the price of coffee fell dramatically further damaging Uganda’s struggling economy. To divert attention from Uganda’s internal problems, Amin launched a failed attack on Tanzania. Assisted by armed Ugandan exiles, Tanzanian troops counter-invaded and took Kampala in April 1979. Defeated, Amin fled to Libya taking his four wives, several of his thirty mistresses, and about 20 of his children.
Asked to leave Libya, Amin and his family moved to Iraq before settling in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Given permission to stay provided he kept out of politics, Amin received a monthly allowance of $1,400, a modest house, domestic servants, cooks, drivers, and cars from the Saudi government.
Aside from an astounding death toll, he left Uganda with an annual inflation rate of 200%, a national dept of $320 million, a tattered agricultural sector, abandoned factories, and ruined businesses.
In 1993, he gave an interview to a Ugandan newspaper saying he liked to play swim, fish, play the accordion, recited from the Quran and read. Expressing no remorse for the actions of regime, he is reported saying, "I'm very happy now, much happier now then when I was president."
In 2001, he expressed interest in returning, but the Ugandan government said he would have to “answer to his sins” and would be dealt with according to law. Speaking of Amin’s death, then Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was reported saying, "We shall not give him state honors. He will be buried like any other ordinary Ugandan."
Amin died due to multiple organ failure on August 16th, 2003. An hour after his death, he was buried in a small ceremony. He was survived by three wives and between 32 to 54 children. View Gallery 
|