Idi Amin Dada — The ‘Butcher Of Uganda’
Keystone/Getty ImagesDespite his tyrannical, violent rule, many Ugandans cherish Dada’s legacy to this day.
Some people revere Idi Amin Dada as a liberator, a man who had helped rid Uganda of its imperialist past and carried into a better future. Others, however, view him as a violent tyrant responsible for killing an estimated 300,000 people in a country whose population was only 12 million.
Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle — a charismatic man of the people who danced with commoners and also happened to eat human meat and ordered 4,000 disabled people to be thrown into the Nile.
Amin came to power alongside Milton Obote, working together to overthrow the Ugandan Parliament with Obotoe declaring himself president and granting the charge of Uganda’s entire military and police force to Amin.
When Obote left to attend a conference in Singapore, Amin took the opportunity to seize total control of the country, forcing his former companion into exile.
During his rule, he had soldiers from tribes he believed to be loyal to Obote slaughtered in their barracks. When Israel denied his request for assistance in fighting Tanzania, he went and asked Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi instead.
Idi Amin Dada then ordered 500 Israelis and 50,000 South Asians with British citizenship to be expelled from Uganda, giving their businesses to his supporters and dramatically sinking the country’s economic stability.
Jean-Claude FRANCOLON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesIdi Amin Dada speaking at the 15th Summit of Uganda in Khartoum, Sudan on July 22, 1978.
Throughout his rule, he became increasingly erratic, corrupt, and paranoid. He switched out his personnel often, suddenly changed his travel schedules, and rarely slept in the same place twice.
All the while, he continued to order the execution of tens of thousands of Ugandan citizens for ethnic, political, and financial reasons.
He then infamously permitted Palestinian terrorists who had hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris to land in Entebbe, providing them with troops and supplies as they held over 250 people hostage.
And after a team of elite Israeli commandos successful liberated of a majority of the hostages, Amin ordered the execution of a 74-year-old British-Israeli hostage who had fallen ill and was being treated in a Ugandan hospital.
By the late 1970s, the British had severed all diplomatic ties with Uganda, and Amin referred to himself as the “Conquerer of the British Empire.”
His ego had, by this point, grown so massive that in order to pass the buck, he blamed Uganda’s deteriorating economy and unrest on Tanzania and launched an invasion of the country.
Instead, Tanzanian forces fought off the invasion, and then subsequently launched their own invasion of Uganda, capturing the capital and overthrowing Amin’s regime.
Amin lived the rest of his life in exile until his death in 2003.
