Titans of History

As a boy, Amin was abandoned by his father, and received little in the way of formal education. In 1946 he enlisted in the King’s African Rifles, and went on to distinguish himself by his marksmanship and sporting abilities—he was nine times heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda. In the 1950s he participated in the suppression of the anti-British Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya, serving with distinction but attracting suspicion for using excessive brutality. Nevertheless, he was promoted to warrant officer, and in 1961 became only the second native Ugandan to receive a commission.

After Uganda gained its independence from Britain in 1962, Amin emerged as a high-ranking military officer under Prime Minister Milton Obote, becoming deputy commander of the army in 1964. This was a period of economic boom and an era in which the new federal constitution balanced the desire for regional autonomy with the centralizing impulses of national government. Yet all of this was destroyed by Obote, who in 1966 arrested several government ministers and suspended Parliament and the constitution. In their place Obote installed himself as executive president with vast powers; Amin was made overall commander of the army and played a leading role in suppressing the opposition to Obote’s coup, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

In January 1971, when the president was out of the country, Amin seized power, encouraged by his patron Britain. Initially he was welcomed by many who had grown resentful of Obote’s growing tyranny. Such supporters were further encouraged by Amin’s early acts of reconciliation: political prisoners were released, the emergency laws relaxed, the secret police disbanded. Amin also promised free elections.

However, the killing soon started. An abortive invasion from Tanzania by Obote supporters in 1972 prompted Amin to create Special Squads to hunt down suspected opponents. He created an all-powerful secret police, the Public Safety Unit, dominated by Muslim Nubian and southern Sudanese tribesmen who delighted in killing. As he gradually killed more and more ministers, lawyers and anyone of any prominence, he created a further special murder corps called the State Research Unit under Major Farouk Minaura, a Nubian sadist. Massacres followed—targeted initially against Obote’s Langi tribe and the neighboring Acholi clan. But anyone suspected of harboring dissent was deemed a legitimate target. Amin’s victims included Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka, Joseph Mubiru, the former governor of the Ugandan central bank, Anglican archbishop Janani Luwum and two of his own cabinet ministers. Rumors began to emerge that Amin practiced blood rituals over the bodies of his victims, even indulging in cannibalism. Many of the bodies, dumped in the Nile or on the streets or found hooded and tied to trees, were sliced open with organs missing, clearly the victims of tribal rites. Amin himself often asked to be left alone with bodies in the morgues, which he visited frequently, and it was clear he tampered with the cadavers. “I have eaten human flesh,” he boasted. “It is saltier than leopard flesh.” The terror extended to his own wives: the beautiful Kay died during an abortion, but Amin had her body dismembered and then sewn together again. Lesser women suspected of disloyalty were simply murdered.

Increasingly, Amin ruled by autocratic whim. In addition, huge amounts of money were diverted to secure the support of the Ugandan military. As money ran short, Amin simply ordered the central bank to print more. Inflation soared, economic life entered on a downward spiral and consumer goods ran short.

With his popularity plummeting, Amin sought a scapegoat and settled on Uganda’s wealthy Asian community, who controlled much of country’s trade and industry. In August 1972 he ordered Asians with British nationality to leave the country within three months. As some 50,000 fled, including much of the country’s skilled workforce, the economy began to collapse.