Death of the king
Idi amin dada
Rarely have so few mourned the death of a man.
On 16 August Idi Amin Dada, one of the most notorious and brutal dictators in modern history, passed away quietly, in peaceful and luxurious exile far from his native Uganda.
Idi Amin seized power from Milton Obote in a 1971 coup. He arrived on the world scene with the blessing of the British Government, the former colonial power in Uganda. He had served his time in the
British army, playing rugby with British officers, before going on to become one of the first Ugandans to receive the prestigious Queen’s commission. Upon his ascension to the presidency, a British intelligence report described him as ‘benevolent but tough’ and ‘well-disposed to Britain’.
A year later, Amin expelled 40,000 Ugandan Asians. Mostly Indians and Pakistanis, their families had been resident in Uganda for generations since their grandfathers had been put to work on British government construction projects. Those exiled were the backbone of the Ugandan economy and most sought refuge in Britain. The British government of Harold Wilson began to hatch secret (but never implemented) plans to assassinate Amin.
Abandoned by his father as a child and now by Britain, Amin unleashed the reign of terror for which he will be most remembered. Under Amin’s rule, from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979, more than 300,000 people were killed in this country of 12 million. His years in power were marked by widespread torture, ‘disappearances’ and extrajudicial killing. But what brought him to the attention of an international media hungry for macabre figures of African barbarism were the unconfirmed reports of cannibalism, his practice of keeping the heads of his victims in a refrigerator, dropping opponents from planes high over Lake Victoria and singling out entire tribes for ritual humiliation and slaughter. Through it all, Amin forced white residents of Uganda to carry him around on a throne.
Amin will also be remembered for the high farce which accompanied the brutality.
Amin once described President Nyerere of neighbouring Tanzania as a coward, an old woman and a prostitute. Soon after he told the world’s press that he ‘would have married [Nyerere] if he had been a woman’. On the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, Amin let it be known that he expected the British monarch to send him ‘her 25-year-old knickers’ as part of the festivities. He even declared himself the