Decline and Fall

This chapter studies Idi Amin's downfall. It begins by detailing how the death of Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum led to wide international condemnation and galvanised the many competing opposition groups among the exiles. Between February 28 and March 3, 1978, a closed session of the UN Commission on Human Rights finally agreed to launch a formal investigation of human rights abuses in Uganda. By the end of 1978, the Tanzanian army, with a considerably smaller number of Ugandan refugee fighters, had massed in force near the border. In January of 1979, they crossed into Uganda. The key factor in the Tanzanians' victory was the overall weakness of the Ugandan troops. The chapter then explains how Amin's regime had destroyed much of the social solidarity and national feeling which had just about held the country together in the face of ethnic rivalries under the first Obote administration. This became evident in the chaos that followed the Tanzanian invasion, and especially under Milton Obote's second regime. Finally, the chapter describes Amin's retirement and analyses how he survived in power for so long.

The Centre Cannot Hold

This chapter illustrates how most of the killings, 'disappearances', and other human rights abuses people associate with Idi Amin occurred in the central years of his rule. It was then that Amin's eccentric behaviour and statements came to worldwide attention and the first books about him were published; in effect, it was the time in which his myth was created, and he became Africa's icon of evil. However, this period was also one for which there is little primary evidence. Between 1973 and the end of Amin's regime, contemporary sources of information increasingly fade away. Gradually, almost all Uganda's academics, journalists, writers, and other intellectuals left the country. Some joined the exile groups based in Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia, others went to the UK or North America. The British High Commission, whose records are, despite their bias and prejudices, by far the most important source of contemporary material on Amin's Uganda, was operating under severe limitations from 1973 onwards, with frequent expulsions of key staff, and restrictions on travel outside Kampala. Above all, though, it is important to focus on the severe human rights violations that took place in this period.

‘Wrung from the Withers of the Western Nile’

This chapter discusses Idi Amin's childhood and background. Amin's connection with the Yakan movement demonstrates how close in time his birth was to the very beginning of British rule over Uganda. His parents would have spent most of their lives in a pre-colonial West Nile, which was only annexed to the Uganda Protectorate in 1914. This was the world into which Idi Amin was born, and the background he came from. He was not only considered inferior as an African in a land dominated by European colonial power, but doubly inferior, as a member of the 'primitive' Kakwa tribe in a country dominated by the Baganda and other southern groups. It is important to look at the history of his ancestral home area and his family's ethnic background, not least because of the role it plays in explanations for his later political motivations and his approach to government. During Amin's rule, both British and southern Ugandan writers tended to explain him in terms of his tribal origins, as Kakwa, Lugbara or Nubi. These West Nile tribes are almost universally portrayed as not only particularly 'primitive' but also intrinsically 'violent'. Frequently, this characterisation includes the allegation that human sacrifice or cannibalism is characteristic of West Nile society.

‘Martial Music’

This chapter assesses Idi Amin's seizure of power, which was central both to his life story and to his image and myth. For most, including many Ugandans, the 1971 coup represents the key moment in Uganda's post-independence history, at which the country began to slide downwards economically, socially, and politically, towards a penurious despotism. Unsurprisingly, there are widely differing accounts of the actual events of January 25, 1971, even among those who were there at the time and knew many of the participants. At the time, Amin's seizure of state power was widely welcomed in both Uganda and the West. The chapter considers British archive material from the period and later Ugandan analyses of the coup. The evidence suggests that the British High Commission knew little about what was going on, while the Israelis certainly seem to have had greater involvement, and Burka Bar-Lev may well have advised and assisted Amin before and during the coup. This does not, however, mean that the Israelis were 'behind it', rather than simply trying to steer and take advantage of events that were unfolding anyway.

‘He Comes from a Fighting Race’

This chapter examines Idi Amin's career in the British colonial army regiment called the King's African Rifles (KAR). It could be said, with only a small exaggeration, that the KAR made him the man he became. His military life certainly established many aspects of the mythical figure he turned into; his reputation for immense strength, his use of violence, apparent lack of intelligence, and buffoonish sense of humour all date from this period. It was here that he learned to succeed in the eyes of his British masters, and he also learned to kill. For this period of Amin's life, there are some witnesses among the officers he served with, who either published accounts of him or gave information to the British authorities later in his career, some of which has found its way into the archives. It should be noted, though, that these stories were mostly written many years after the events they describe and, crucially, after Amin's takeover of power in Uganda. It should also be noted that one major lack in the historical account is that of other Ugandan voices, those of the African soldiers he served with, rather than the white officers he served under.

A Honeymoon and Four Divorces

This chapter describes the first few days of Idi Amin's rule. The killings that were to characterise his rule started right away, possibly even before Amin himself was aware of the pre-emptive coup. In this phase, most of the deaths were Acholi and Langi soldiers; officers and junior ranks were killed or imprisoned, with the aim of consolidating Amin's power base within the army. While he probably ordered many of the deaths, others occurred as individual soldiers, especially the victorious West Nilers, took the opportunity to settle old scores. Despite these immediate killings, however, the early months of his rule are described by many writers as Amin's 'honeymoon period'. In fact, all the different groups that welcomed the coup — the British and Israelis, the Baganda and other southerners, and the Asians — were to be disappointed at different points over the first two years. By the end of the period, both the Israelis and the Ugandan Asians had been expelled from the country, Amin's relationship with Britain was virtually destroyed, and his fellow Ugandans, especially the southerners, were thoroughly disillusioned. For all four groups, the honeymoon was quickly followed by divorce.

Amin and Obote, 1965–69

This chapter details how, from 1965, for the rest of the decade, Idi Amin's career depended largely on one factor, his relationship with Milton Obote. As the army became more of a Ugandan national force and less an arm of colonial control, the largely uneducated Kakwa officer had to learn quickly that his job was now a much more complex and very political one. To survive and thrive in the fast-changing post-independence world, he had to use all the manipulative management skills he had learned in the King's African Rifles (KAR), while also developing new abilities to adapt to developments. Ugandan politics in this era was extremely complex. Broadly speaking, political divisions ran through a range of different factors. Those of particular importance included: (1) ethnicity, especially the north–south divide; (2) class-based distinctions, particularly a struggle between the old tribal aristocracies built around the southern monarchies, and a new rising middle class; and (3) religious divides. There were also more shifting, but real, ideological differences — with left- and right-wing views aligning only roughly with class position, and an increasing divide between a centrist social democracy and a more radical left, which mapped onto the wider international background of the Cold War.