Idi Amin Dada Oumee

Idi Amin rose to power from the lower ranks of Uganda's military. He was from rural peasantry, and unlike other Africans who took leadership positions at the end of colonialism, he grew up with only two years of primary education. In the 1950s, when Uganda was still ruled by the British, he fought under the British against the Mau Mau uprising, and he was promoted to sergeant. By 1962, he was a platoon commander, and early that year he led an assault on a village across the border in Kenya. The government of Kenya demanded that Amin be tried for atrocity. Three Kenyans had been murdered and the town unnecessarily brutalized, but the nation's leader, Milton Obote, and the British command in Uganda chose to not to prosecute Amin, because he was one of only two commissioned officers at that time in Uganda, other officers being trained in Britain.

Uganda became independent in 1962, and Amin rose to deputy commander in the army. Uganda remained a nation divided ethnically and difficult to govern. Uganda's border was an artificial creation from the late 19th century. The north, where Amin came from, differed ethnically from the south. Men from the north dominated the military, police and paramilitary. The north was more agricultural; the south more where economic power lay. And from the south came Uganda's intellectual elite, academics, judicial and administrative elite, religious intellectuals and leaders, and its political leader: Obote.

In 1966, ethnic divisions and heavy-handed governing by Obote led to unrest and ethnic violence that lasted until 1971, when Amin drove Obote into exile and took power. Across Uganda he was hailed as a hero and a savior. Amin let all the praise go to his head, and, rather than choose to support civilian rule, he decided to continue to play the role of national hero and to stay in power. He was to rule approximately eight years.

Uganda had about 75,000 from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, many of whom had risen in commerce, and who had preferred to keep their British passports. Amin drove them out of the country -- an ethnic cleansing of sorts. The Asians had contributed to Uganda's welfare -- to the creation of hospitals and schools -- but the old distrust and dislike by peasants for merchants existed, and ethnic cleansing was a popular move in Uganda. The wealth that the Asians left was confiscated by the government and distributed to black Ugandans.

Amin's former ally, the British, were aghast. And Amin turned against the British and against another nation that had been friendly -- Israel, which had been in Uganda helping in humanitarian projects and in military training. Amin was a Muslim, and he turned for support to the anti-imperialist Muammur Kaddafi of Libya, and to others, including the Palestinians. The 10,000 or so European professionals in Uganda, and the Israelis, left.

Amin was politically primitive and naïve, like some of ancient Rome's soldier-emperors and other emperors, and like Caligula. He developed an intolerance of any opposition or source of humiliation. The police were given additional powers. Respected people who began to oppose him were murdered. Among the murdered was the Anglican Archbishop Luwum. And Amin banned twenty-six Christian organizations that had been working in Uganda.

While trying to combat his enemies, Amin was making more and more enemies. And, overconfident, he launched an attack into an area in northwestern Tanzania that he claimed had once been a part of Uganda. Obote, in exile in Tanzania, joined forces with others, and they pushed into Uganda. Amin was no longer popular enough to put a force together that could hold off his enemies, and they drove him into exile, Amin ending up in Saudi Arabia.

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