During his reign, Amin declared over hundred thousand foreigners prohibited immigrants, using presidential powers/orders/decrees!
And having nothing to explain to anybody about anything, he went on to confisticate their businesses and gave them to his friends, family, colleagues and stooges (well, as you may have guessed, all the businesses soon collapsed bringing down with them the economy). Extra judicial killings were the order of the day, such that by the end of his reign, an estimated half a million citizens had been executed without trial. Many citizens were said to have just disappeared whilst in police/military custody. Many ‘committed’ suicide or were ‘found/discovered’ dead by soldiers/intelligence personnel (he preferred the intelligence over the ordinary police force).
Oh! By the way, the intelligence often fed him with wrong information, the one he wanted to hear. Just like they told Bush that Saddam was keeping some weapons of mass destruction when, in fact, it was not true.
This intelligence was actually made up of fools who tapped people’s phones and believed everything people said in their lines, even if it was said just to fool them to chase the wind!
Upon assumption of power and just having declared to all and sundry that he was not a politician but a soldier (and would in no time return the country to politicians) he suspended the constitution and overlooked parliament and instead created some advisory council composed of military persons only!
Most of these military dictators like claiming that they either don’t like politics or that they were pushed to lead! He assigned soldiers to head most parastatals as well as important government ministries and departments. He even abolished the intelligence wing he found in operation when he took over power and created new ones. The ones he trusted. The ones he would use even in none official matters. Do you see any comparisons elsewhere in Africa?
Idi Amin’s rule was characterised by abuse of state media. He used to hold government journalists at ransom to broadcast his personal news. When he divorced some of his wives, it was announced live on national radio. Here again, I lay it all bare in your hands, compare and contrast if you like.
Many journalists, especially in the private press, disappeared without a trace during Amin’s reign. And this is the guy who Africa thanked by making him some Chairman of the bogus Organisation of African Unity! (now African Union).
If Amin wanted somebody’s wife and the husband refused to let go, he (husband) would just disappear. In that spirit at the time of his death Amin had fathered over fifty children.
He authorised draconian laws and ruled by decree. He ordered that some national features like rivers and dams be named after him. He respected no law but the Law of Amin, which was the law of brutality and viciousness.
Just like Mugabe who once retorted ‘I do not take orders from the courts, I am the constitution itself!’ the man was the constitution itself. There are other mortal constitutions in other parts of the world and especially in Africa south of the Sahara!
Having gone to school at the age of 17 or so and dropped after a few years to do some casual jobs, he later joined the army where he rose through the ranks until he reached the highest possible title in the land (President of Uganda for Life). He conferred upon himself every other meaningless and stupid title and even adorned himself with all sorts of medals and ornamental paraphernalia of expensive material. He enjoyed being mobbed by people who admired him for his well built body and foreign made clothes. He enjoyed dishing out alms to the needy. Idi Amin Dada!
At the beginning of his reign, he succeeded in building a whole team of sycophants who waited upon his orders but within just eight years things began to fall apart. There was dissent even from his closest allies (the ruling elite). No comment!
Some of his closest allies went into exile and started scripting flak about him and his splintering government. He was later to be dethroned by Tanzania’s Julias Nyerere (with the help of Ugandans in exile in Tanzania) and he was an unambiguous candidate for the International Criminal Court, had it not been for the Saudi Arabian government that gave him asylum until his death in 2003. That was Idi Amin. The above facts have not been invented.
Comrade Q.K.J.
