Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. He rose through military ranks until he became commander of all Ugandan armed forces in 1970. In 1971, he overthrew president Milton Obote, subsequently ruling as a dictator. His administration carried out human rights abuses, including mass killings, and collapsed the Ugandan economy. He was ousted from power in 1979 after launching an unsuccessful war on Tanzania. He lived in exile for the rest of his life.
Amin was born to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother. In 1946, he joined the King's African Rifles, part of the British Colonial Army, as a cook. He rose to the rank of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels and then the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and Amin remained in the army, rising to the position of deputy army commander in 1964 and being appointed commander two years later. He became aware that Ugandan president Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, so he overthrew Obote in 1971 and declared himself president.
During his years in power, Amin shifted from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable support from Israel to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. In 1972, Amin expelled Asians, a majority of whom were Indian-Ugandans, leading India to sever diplomatic relations with his regime. In 1975, Amin assumed chairmanship of the Organisation of African Unity, an intergovernmental organization designed to promote solidarity among African states. Uganda was a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1977 to 1979. The United Kingdom broke diplomatic relations with Uganda in 1977, and Amin declared that he had defeated the British and added "CBE" to his title, for "Conqueror of the British Empire".
As Amin's rule progressed into the late 1970s, there was increased unrest in Uganda, prompted on the one hand by his persecution of political dissidents and certain ethnic groups and on the other by the country's very poor international standing, a result of Amin's support for the 1976 hijacking that led to Israel's Operation Entebbe. He then attempted to annex Tanzania's Kagera Region in 1978. Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere ordered his troops to invade Uganda in response. Tanzanian Army and rebel forces successfully captured Kampala in 1979 and ousted Amin from power. Amin went into exile, first in Libya, then Iraq, and finally in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003.
Amin's rule was characterized by rampant human rights abuses including political repression and extrajudicial killings as well as nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. International observers and human rights groups estimate that between 100,000 and 500,000 people were killed under his regime. His brutality and atrocities towards Ugandans has given him the nickname, "The Butcher of Uganda".
Early life
Virtually all retellings of Amin's early life are contradictory, as he did not write an autobiography and never authorized a written account of his life. British governmental records put Amin's birth year in 1925; however, no records were kept for native Ugandans at the time. In a 1972 interview with Judith Hare, Amin gives his birthplace as the village of Koboko and his age as 46, which would put his birth year as 1926. In a book published in 1977 by Little, Brown and Company and written by a British advisor in Uganda using the pseudonym David Gwyn, Amin was born in Buganda with his age given as 48, placing his birth year in 1928. The most comprehensive biography of Amin comes from his family based on oral tradition, which has some authority but its details ultimately cannot be confirmed. Family tradition and Saudi authorities in Jeddah puts his birth date as 10 Dhu al-Hijja 1346 in the Islamic calendar.Early childhood and family
According to Amin's family, Ugandan oral tradition, and his Saudi death certificate, Idi Amin Dada Oumee was born on 30 May 1928 around 4 a.m. in his father's workplace, the Shimoni Police Barracks in Nakasero Hill, Kampala. He was given the name Idi after his birth on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. According to Fred Guweddeko, a researcher at Makerere University, Amin's birth name was Idi Awo-Ango Angoo. There is disagreement on the meaning of the name "Dada", with some arguing that it meant "sister" or "effeminate" in Kiswahili, but most sources agree that "Dada" was a clan within the Kakwa tribe which was observed over thirteen generations.Amin was the third son born to Muslim parents, Amin Dada Nyabira Tomuresu, an ethnic Kakwa, and his second wife, Aisha Chumaru Aate, an ethnic Lugbara. His father, born a Christian, was christened as a Roman Catholic and born with the name Andreas Nyabira Tomuresu. According to British journalist David Martin, Nyabira spent most of his life in South Sudan. Andreas converted to Islam in 1910 after being conscripted as a bugler by the colonial British army under his uncle, the Kakwa tribal leader, Sultan Ali Kenyi Dada, as a six-year-old child soldier and was given the name Amin Dada. He joined the Protectorate Police Force in Kampala's Nsambia Police Barracks in 1913.
Nyabira was forcibly conscripted into the British King's African Rifles in 1914. He fought in the First World War as part of the East African campaign in Tanganyika before being honorably discharged in 1921 and given a plot of land in Arua District. The same year, he joined the Protectorate Police Force in the Nsambia Police Barracks. He was transferred to the Shimoni Police Barracks in 1928, where, according to his family, Amin was born. He was later transferred to the Kololo Police Barracks before retiring from the police force in 1931, whereafter he worked at the Office of the Resident District Commissioner in Arua District.
His mother, Aisha Aate, was born to a Kakwa mother and Lugbara father. By all accounts, Aate was a traditional healer, herbalist, and a midwife. Ten years before Amin's birth, Aate joined the Allah Water movement, which was an anti-colonial alternative medicine congregation centered on a "water of Yakan" that was infused with a psychedelic daffodil plant locally known as Kamiojo, described as the "LSD of Central Africa". The movement was repressed by British colonial authorities, who had judged it as rebellion. Despite being largely described as a cult, Amin's family claims that Aate was a priestess in the "Yakanye Order" which they explained as a "secret African society", of which Idi Amin was also a member, that used "sacred water and other mystical powers" for warfare.
According to Amin's family, Aate had cured Irene Drusilla Namaganda, then Queen of Buganda and wife of Daudi Cwa II of Buganda, of her infertility. Aate's high-ranking role in the Allah Water movement allegedly gained the interest of the Bugandan royal family and her alleged connection to the family led to rumours of Amin's biological father being Daudi Chwa II. These rumours were reportedly spread by Nyabira's childless senior wife, who was spiteful of Aate bearing two children.
According to Amin's family, Idi Amin was given the title Awon'go, in reference to rumours about his alleged paternity. Idi was reportedly chosen to take a 'paternity test' as an infant by tribal elders, which involved abandoning him for four days in a forest near Mount Liru in Koboko where they returned to find Amin still alive. The elders attributed this apparent miracle to Nakan, a sacred seven-headed snake in Kakwa folk religion. His brother and sister died in 1932, when Idi was four years old.
Amin's parents divorced when he was four, and most accounts suggest that he moved in with his mother's family in 1944 in the rural farming town of Mawale Parish, Luweero District, in north-western Uganda. The divorce of his parents was reportedly due to the lasting rumours regarding Idi's paternity, which angered his mother. Despite this, his family insists that he moved with his father per Muslim tradition in Tanganyika Parish, Arua District, while his mother continued to practice healing in Buganda.
Boyhood and education
While living with his mother's relatives, Amin reportedly worked as a goat farmer from ages eight to ten. In 1938, he moved to the home of Sheikh Ahmed Hussein in the nearby town of Semuto and began memorizing the Quran through recitation until he was 12. In 1940, Amin moved to Bombo and lived with his maternal uncle, Yusuf Tanaboo. He attempted to register for primary school but was rejected, this was reportedly due to Amin's paternal Nubian heritage.The same year, Amin was injured while participating in Nubian riots against discrimination at Makerere University in Wandegeya. He was enrolled in the Garaya madrasa in Bombo and continued memorizing the Quran under Mohammed Al Rajab until 1944, and reportedly won honours in recitation in 1943. Amin was conscripted by the colonial army alongside fifteen other students before being discharged for being underage.
In 1945, he moved to the Kiyindi Parish in Bwaise Parish and worked different odd jobs, including a stint as a doorman and concierge assistant at the Grand Imperial Hotel in Kampala.
King's African Rifles
Amin joined the King's African Rifles in 1946 as an assistant cook, while at the same time receiving military training until 1947. In later life he falsely claimed to have served in the Burma Campaign of World War II. He was transferred to Kenya for infantry service as a private in 1947, and served in the 21st King's African Rifles infantry battalion in Gilgil, Kenya Colony until 1949. That year, his unit was deployed to northern Kenya to fight against Somali rebels. In 1952, his brigade was deployed against the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. He was promoted to corporal the same year, then to sergeant in 1953.In 1959, Amin was made Effendi Class 2, the highest possible rank for a black soldier in the King's African Rifles. Amin returned to Uganda the same year and received a short-service commission as a lieutenant on 15 July 1961, becoming one of the first two Ugandans to become commissioned officers. He was assigned to quell the cattle rustling between Uganda's Karamojong and Kenya's Turkana nomads. According to researcher Holger Bernt Hansen, Amin's outlook, behavior and strategies of communication were strongly influenced by his experiences in the colonial military. This included his direct and hands-on leadership style which would eventually contribute to his popularity among certain parts of Ugandan society.