AMIN, IDI

born 1924/25, Koboko, Uganda Amin in full Idi Amin Dada Oumee military officer and president (197179) of Uganda. A member of the small Kakwa tribe of northwestern Uganda, Amin had little formal education and joined the King's African Rifles of the British colonial army in 1943. He served in the Allied forces' Burma (Myanmar) campaign during World War II and in the British action against the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya (195256). Amin was one of the few Ugandan soldiers elevated to officer rank before Ugandan independence in 1962, and he became closely associated with the new nation's prime minister and president, Milton Obote. He was made chief of the army and air force (196670). Conflict with Obote arose, however, and on Jan. 25, 1971, Amin staged a successful military coup. He became president and chief of the armed forces in 1971, field marshal in 1975, and life president in 1976. Amin ruled directly, shunning the delegation of power. He was noted for his abrupt changes of mood, from buffoonery to shrewdness, from gentleness to tyranny. He was often extreme in his nationalism. He expelled all Asians from Uganda in 1972, an action that led to the breakdown of Uganda's economy, and he publicly insulted Great Britain and the United States. A Muslim, he reversed Uganda's amicable relations with Israel and befriended Libya and the Palestinians; in July 1976 he was personally involved in the Palestinian hijacking of a French airliner to Entebbe. Amin also took tribalism, a long-standing problem in Uganda, to its extreme by allegedly ordering the persecution of Acholi, Lango, and other tribes. Amidst reports of the torture and murder of 100,000 to 300,000 Ugandans during Amin's presidency, Uganda was invaded by Ugandan nationalist and Tanzanian troops in October 1978. When the invasion forces reached Kampala, Uganda's capital, on April 13, 1979, Amin had fled the city. Escaping first to Libya, he finally settled in Saudi Arabia. Additional reading Biographies include David Martin, General Amin (1974); and Henry Kyemba, A State of Blood: The Inside Story (1977), by a former cabinet minister under Amin.