50 years after the coup: who is Idi Amin, “the butcher of Uganda”? | the Chronicle

This Monday is accomplished 50 years of the 1971 coup d’etat led by Idi Amin, nicknamed “the butcher of Uganda”, and this ushered in an eight-year dictatorship, marked by cruelty and eccentricities. According to official calculations during this period some 500,000 opponents were killed.

On January 25, 1971, Amin, until then head of his country’s land forces, took advantage of a trip abroad by the president Milton obote to carry out a coup that opened a period of unusual decisions, persecution of foreigners and a deep economic crisis.

Within hours, he had the country under his command. He promised that constitutional order would return, that this was only an exceptional measure, that as soon as the country was stabilized, it would call an election: “I am a soldier, not a politician”, said. But over the months, the word “elections” disappeared and authoritarianism appeared..

At first it was well received by the West. At that time, European countries and the United States. The Cold War was unfolding and human rights were not high on the global agenda. The main thing was that no emerging country should fall under Soviet influence.

Besides terror, his passage to power was marked by his eccentricities. One day in the early 1970s, Amin boarded his plane and suddenly arrived in England. Protocol was activated quickly and that same evening he had dinner at the royal palace with the Queen and the Prime Minister. The queen in the middle of dinner, with kindness and a bit of cynicism, said: “You should let us know next time so that we receive it accordingly. What brought you to our country?“. Idi Amin continued to eat and without ceasing to chew replied: “In Uganda it is almost impossible to get a good size 48 shoe.”

With his more than 100 kilos, his almost two meters in height, his boxing titles and his gloomy mood, this African dictator, who died in 2003, at the age of 78, He was a avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler and known to have killed his political enemies in the most terrible way. For example, behead them. In fact, when he was kicked out of power, several heads were found in the refrigerators of the presidential residence. same there are versions which indicate that he ate several livers of his victims, following a warlike tradition which aimed to appropriate the value of the dead.

“I like human meat because it is sweeter and more salty “, said the dictator on one occasion. Since then he has come to be known as the “Butcher of Uganda”.

From the start, Amin showed his sadism towards prisoners: torture of all kinds, mutilation of sexual organs, inhuman punishment and extreme persecution were practiced. In this context, he armed a body of 23,000 people for its protection and reinforced the army with the help of Libya and Sudan. And as part of his fears, he expelled the British, Americans and Soviets from the country.

While the number of victims of his dictatorship has never been clear, the Hague Court accused him of genocide. Throughout his years in government he campaigned against tribes other than his own, against Pakistanis and against Indians.

From poverty to wealth

Enriched by the smuggling of gold and ivory, Idi Amin lived in abundance, He had 6 wives and 30 children, at least recognized, although there are publications that speak of 45. Some journalistic notes from that time insist on pointing out that he believed himself to possess incredible sexual potency and repeating the story of an invitation to Queen Elizabeth, whom he suggested he meet “to a real man “.

The official version indicates that he was born into a poor Muslim family in Koboko (northwestern Uganda) in 1925, but there is no record of the time to confirm this. In 1946, when the country was still a British colony, he joined the army by chance.

One day he passed by a barracks and when they saw his imposing physique, they invited him to join. He was 21 and had no profession; He was a bayaye – a person who comes from the countryside to the city in search of work and, as he cannot find it, lives like a vagabond in the street- as the Polish chronicler explains Ryszard Kapuscinski, who worked for years on a biography of the dictator that he never finished writing.

Already in power, he referred to himself by various titles: “lord of all the beasts of the land and fish of the sea”, “conqueror of the British Empire” and “the last king of Scotland” were just a few. some of them.

The cinema has dealt with Amin on more than one occasion. The Last King of Scotland This may be the best-known film, but it’s the documentary General Idi Amin Dada: Self-portrait, from 1974 and by the French Barbet Schroeder, where the dictator is seen in the most curious images: he dances, sings, jokes, leads Ugandan “troops” in a fictitious battle against Israel and suggests doctors not to go to work drunk.

Despite his approval, some time later, Amin locked 200 French people in a hotel to force Schroeder to change parts of the film that did not conform to him.. The manager should have accepted.

Its end: overthrown and exiled

It was sort of the economic debacle, when neither the UK nor the then European Community maintained their aid, that started to push him out of power. Although another key factor must be added to this, his megalomania

The personal hatred he felt for the first president of Tanzania drove him to attempt to invade that country. He was repulsed easily, but the Tanzanian forces not only defended themselves and launched the attack. The brief and almost bloodless offensive (the Tanzanians lost only one tank during the campaign: a testament to the readiness of the Ugandan armed forces).

Finally, El 11 de abril de 1979, el frente Liberación Nacional de Uganda, formado por 18 grupos de exiliados y apoyado militarmente por Tanzania, derrocó a Amin, quien de todos modos se las ingenió para no pasar en la cárcel ni un solo día de his life.

He went into exile first in Libya and then in Iraq, until finally He settled in a luxurious palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on the shores of the Red Sea, where he received care services that he could continue to pay for.

The times he was interrogated away from Uganda, when they asked him if he regretted some of his actions, the man repeated that he had no regrets, “just nostalgia”.

He died on August 16, 2003 in Jeddah at the age of 78 from kidney failure and without being tried for the hundreds of thousands of deaths it caused.