Idi Amin
Today is the 41st anniversary of the deposition of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada (1925 – 2003). I remember Idi Amin because Africa was a major unit in my geography class at school at the time. There was a power struggle going on in the Ugandan military and government, and a 1979 border war with neighbouring Tanzania was the last straw to an unstable, topsy-turvy, bloody regime.
Amin was frequently compared to Adolf Hitler and every day seemed like a litany of atrocity news in the media. In the eight years he was in power his regime killed, or “disappeared” over 300,000 Ugandans. And, predictably, towards the end they began disappearing at a faster rate as things got a little weird. I’m sure that some of what was going on in Uganda at the time probably had to do with inter-tribal competition and vendetta. Tribal factions with competing private armies. Chronic grudges. Studying the current events of Africa was one feature of my geography classes, so in the 1970s I got a brain full of Idi Amin, plus Rhodesian war news - Ian Smith, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, etc., plus South Africa - Apartheid, P.W. Botha, Soweto, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, etc., plus Cubans in Angola.
Amin was Muslim, and he spent the rest of his life in exile in Saudi Arabia as a guest of the Saudi royal family.
He was one hell of a bizarre, bloodthirsty dude, portrayed by Forest Whitaker in the Academy Award-winning 2006 movie “The Last King of Scotland,” directed by Kevin Macdonald. Generally speaking, I don’t like forest Whitaker, but I admit he delivered a great performance in that movie.