He killed as many as half a million people during his eight-year Ugandan dictatorship. Is it possible to distinguish the man from the monster?Idi Amin Dada was born on 16 May 1925 in the West Nile Province of what is now Uganda. The family was deserted by his father when Amin was young so he was brought up by his mother who was a herbalist and diviner.
He grew up in the small Islamic tribe known as the Kakwa ethnic group and received no formal education.
From the small Kakwa ethnic group, he advanced in the Ugandan armed forces from private (1946) to major general (1968). During this period he served in Burma, Somalia and Kenya as well as Uganda. Amin gained a reputation for cruelty often being cashiered for becoming too violent in interrogations. Despite this, he rose through the ranks as he was a skilled soldier.
Between 1951 and 1960, Amin held Uganda's light heavyweight boxing championship proving his athletic prowess.
Army commander
In 1965, Prime Minister Milton Obote and Amin were implicated in a deal to smuggle ivory and gold into Uganda from Zaire. The deal, as later alleged by General Nicholas Olenga, an associate of the former Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, was part of an arrangement to help troops opposed to the Congolese government trade ivory and gold for arms supplies secretly smuggled to them by Amin. In 1966, the Ugandan Parliament demanded an investigation. Obote imposed a new constitution abolishing the ceremonial presidency held by Kabaka (King) Mutesa II of Buganda, and declared himself executive president. He promoted Amin to colonel and army commander. Amin led an attack on the Kabaka's palace and forced Mutesa into exile to the United Kingdom, where he remained until his death in 1969.
Amin began recruiting members of Kakwa, Lugbara, Nubian, and other ethnic groups from the West Nile area bordering Sudan. The Nubians had been residents in Uganda since the early 20th century, having come from Sudan to serve the colonial army. Many African ethnic groups in northern Uganda inhabit both Uganda and Sudan; allegations persist that Amin's army consisted mainly of Sudanese soldiers.
Seizure of power
Eventually, a rift developed between Amin and Obote, exacerbated by the support Amin had built within the army by recruiting from the West Nile region, his involvement in operations to support the rebellion in southern Sudan, and an attempt on Obote's life in 1969. In October 1970, Obote himself took control of the armed forces, reducing Amin from his months-old post of commander of all the armed forces to that of commander of the army.
Having learned that Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, Amin seized power in a military coup on 25 January 1971, while Obote was attending a Commonwealth summit meeting in Singapore. Troops loyal to Amin sealed off Entebbe International Airport, the main airport, and took Kampala. Soldiers surrounded Obote's residence and blocked major roads. A broadcast on Radio Uganda accused Obote's government of corruption and preferential treatment of the Lango region. Cheering crowds were reported in the streets of Kampala after the radio broadcast. Amin announced that he was a soldier, not a politician, and that the military government would remain only as a caretaker regime until new elections, which would be announced when the situation was normalised. He promised to release all political prisoners.
Amin gave former king of Buganda and President, Sir Edward Mutesa (who had died in exile), a state funeral in April 1971, freed many political prisoners, and reiterated his promise to hold free and fair elections to return the country to democratic rule in the shortest period possible.
Establishment of military rule
On 2 February 1971, one week after the coup, Amin declared himself President of Uganda, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Army Chief of Staff, and Chief of Air Staff. He announced that he was suspending certain provisions of the Ugandan constitution and soon instituted an Advisory Defence Council composed of military officers with himself as the chairman. Amin placed military tribunals above the system of civil law, appointed soldiers to top government posts and parastatal agencies, and informed the newly inducted civilian cabinet ministers that they would be subject to military discipline. Amin renamed the presidential lodge in Kampala from Government House to "The Command Post". He disbanded the General Service Unit (GSU), an intelligence agency created by the previous government, and replaced it with the State Research Bureau (SRB). SRB headquarters at the Kampala suburb of Nakasero became the scene of torture and executions over the next few years. Other agencies used to persecute dissenters included the military police and the Public Safety Unit (PSU).
Obote took refuge in Tanzania, having been offered sanctuary there by the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. Obote was soon joined by 20,000 Ugandan refugees fleeing Amin. The exiles attempted to regain the country in 1972 through a poorly organised coup attempt
His relatively brief regime was nonetheless vicious and corrupt; he brutally suppressed other ethnic groups and political enemies, killed what is believed to be nearly 300,000 (most innocent of any wrongdoing), tortured uncounted thousands more, and looted the nation's treasury.
In 1972, he ordered the expulsion of Ugandans of Asian extraction, thrusting the nation into economic chaos. Following the expulsion of Ugandan Asians, most of whom were of Indian descent, India severed diplomatic relations with Uganda. The same year, as part of his "economic war", Amin broke diplomatic ties with the UK and nationalized eighty-five British-owned businesses.
That year, relations with Israel soured. Although Israel had previously supplied Uganda with arms, in 1972 Amin expelled Israeli military advisers and turned to Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and the Soviet Union for support. Amin became an outspoken critic of Israel. In return, Gaddafi gave financial aid to Amin
He was still considered to be a charming and gregarious leader and in 1975 he was voted in as the chair of the Organization of African Unity. This was condemned by the United Nations.
By 1978, the number of Amin's supporters and close associates had shrunk significantly, and he faced increasing dissent from the populace within Uganda as the economy and infrastructure collapsed from years of neglect and abuse.
Tanzanian troops joined exiled Ugandan nationalists to invade Uganda in 1978, and Amin was driven into exile in Saudi Arabia the following year. By this time, inflation had reached 1,000 per cent in Uganda and the international press became aware of his atrocities.
Idi Amin died of multiple organ failure in 2003 and was buried in Saudi Arabia.By the time of his death, he had five wives, three of whom he divorced. Sources differ widely about how many children he had but it is between 30 and 45.
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