I often visited the Nile International Hotel for lunch or dinner on a balmy Kampala night.  I would sit there in the gardens, surrounded by other guests and look up at the Hotel, flags flying in the equatorial breeze, a Marabou Stork vulture would fly overhead toward the trees in the distance reminding me of another vulture that had walked on the same grounds where I sat.  He had an office here and the Hotel became infamous for being a torture and interrogation chamber for a multitude, the end of the road for many others

Fortunately those days are behind for the Pearl of Africa, Idi Amin died today August 16th far from the place where his reign of terror and death took place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  The one who thought he was immortal, at the end of the day, was mortal like all of us and many in Uganda hope, that if there is a hell that he be the latest arrival and join the company of Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, the infamous Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic and many others who have sown terrors in their lands. Today there are no Ugandan flags flying at half-staff for the former self-proclaimed President for Life of Uganda.

In a rare interview Idi Amin was asked what he wanted to be known for when he died. His answer was rather surprising, “a great athlete.”  The reality for Idi Amin is that at his death most of us see him as a butcher, rather than a boxer and athlete.  Which brings up the question: Who was this Idi Dada Amin?  Who was this man who gave himself titles (pure son of Africa, His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal, Al Hadji Doctor, Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular) and medals (Victorian Cross amongst them, self-bestowed) that would drag any man down to the red earth of Africa? 

Idi Amin was a big man, size wise, but in reality a small man of heart.  He pursued power, women, fame, he desired to be loved by the people of Uganda, only to be despised and rejected.  A man deeply insecure that wanted to be taken seriously but often was seen as a bumbling buffoon who never saw that with the titles he gave himself came responsibilities.  He wanted to be served, but in turn never learned to serve those whom he presided over.  He became a laughing stock even in his own country, so he resorted to naked, abusive power, terror and fear to subjugate a country.  He went through life as an intimidator, even British citizen had to bow to him and pledge allegiance. He wanted to be seen as a great statesman and wrote letters of advice to President Nixon at the time of Watergate, asked Queen Elizabeth to come to Kampala and find a real man, him. He offered himself to be King of Scotland, thank God, that was turned down. 

When you study the life of Idi Amin, you see a life that was corrupted by power.  Power, that ran amok, power that was not harnessed, but allowed to reign freely subjugating a people who wanted a servant leader, but got a tyrant, twice the son of hell that Milton Apollo Obote had been, the President of Uganda that Idi Amin overthrew.  He called himself big Daddy, the one who never had a father around him.  His father abandoned the family soon After Amin was born in Kabogo near the Sudanese and the Democratic Republic of Congo somewhere around 1925 (when he died he was between 78 and 80).  His father was a Kagwa, a small Sudanese tribe.  His mother belonged to the Lubarra tribe that lives around the northern town of Arua.

Idi Amin the product of an absent father and a mother that was said to have been a sorceress and traditional herbalist.  From his birth there seems to have been a pact with the devil, a sort of selling of the soul, the absence of heart in the quest for power.  Idi Amin was one that used people to get things, instead of using things to serve people. He wanted to be King and somewhere in this quest he forgot that he was a mere mortal, he as many others before him, saw himself as a semi-deity that was above the rule of law, above common decency.  He even bragged on several occasions to having consumed human flesh, commenting that it “tasted salty.”

Not much is known about his childhood and youth. His mother moved south to the Jinja area where she became involved with a soldier in the “King’s African Rifles.”  A man she was purported to have bewitched when things did not turn out to well in their relationship.  Young Amin might have attended a missionary school for some time, but his early job was selling (mandazis) donuts in Jinja, became a cook for the soldiers at the “King’s African Rifles” barracks where he was inducted as a private because he was a big, burly bully and fit the type of person who the British sought as soldiers in their African Army.

As a soldier his evil side came to the forefront.  He was the kind who showed no mercy, especially if his enemy was helpless.  He left a trail of tears in Kenya, northern Uganda.  He carried out his duties in a most ruthless manner.

Boxing and Rugby became the sports he started to participate in, becoming the heavyweight champion of Uganda and in rugby he was simply an animal.  His British officer would take a hammer to his forehead and prime him for the contest to release his mean streak and competitive spirit and off he went to destroy the competition.

Relationally this conqueror the British Empire as he proclaimed himself was also a failure.  He had no real friends, only those whom he bought, he eliminated so many of his friends, people who worked with him and for him, from ministers to general, from soldiers to common citizens, anyone who stood in his way to keeping the power, real or imagined, throwing their bodies into Lake Victoria or the Nile River.  The fish in Lake Victoria around Kampala and Jinja grew to enormous size according to some, and the Dam on the Nile was clogged with bodies, the crocodiles became fat and fishermen often pulled in bodies into their nets.  When an enemy was killed he often would spend time with the corpse and perform what a blood rite, a cutting with the knife and a licking the blood off of the knife, a way of appeasing the spirits and causing that person’s spirit to do no harm to him. (During his rule over 300,000 people were murdered by his henchmen)

He had women around him, 5 wives, one of which he had killed and dismembered showing her children what happens to someone who does not obey him.  He is said to have over 34 mistresses and many other encounters resulting in many bothersome STD’s, syphilis being one of them and that might certainly have affected his thinking.  He also had over 20 some children, many of them going into exile with him to Saudi Arabia, one of his boys ran for a local office in Uganda and was defeated in recent times.

Spiritually Idi Amin was a Muslim, but in name only and not in practice.  His life showed outward observance, but no heart conversion.  He used religion as part of his quest for power.  Declaring a holy Jihad to make Islam the state religion (seeking support from Lybia and Saudi Arabia – which he got) which brought great harm to the Churches, ministers being eliminated left and right (Archbishop Luwum amongst them), parishioners harassed and not promoted in state jobs, churches being told what they could not preach about, such as using the name of Israel in sermons.  The churches quit praying for him, but Bishop Festo Kivengere wrote a book around that time entitled “I Love Idi Amin.”  This Anglican Bishop refused to hate and continued to love in spite of the hatred spewed against him and the churches where the secret police would sit in the services and monitor what was going on, often arresting the leadership after the service.  Idi Amin, was given a Moslem burial, but his life is not a testimony to the faith of Islam and its precepts, his actions were not a Holy Jihad, but bloody murder of anyone who opposed him.  He might have kept the art of Islam in its practices at times, but never practiced the heart of Islam.

The rule of Idi Amin lasted for 8 long years until his overthrow in 1979.  Uganda, the fruitful pearl of Africa became a literal wasteland.  Food became short in supply, milk was absent for years, children grew up knowing only their mother’s milk.  The economy was ruined as he expelled all Asians from Uganda, took over their businesses and homes distributing them to his cronies who simply took the goods and often shut down the stores. Medicines were absent, medical equipment looted from hospitals and clinics, Uganda became refuse dump instead of a pearl.

Makerere University the former jewel of higher education became graveyard instead of a place of learning.  This insecure, power hungry maniac bestowed a Doctorate of Law and Philosophy, but could not read well, nor write, but he could talk for hours.

If you look at his life, over and over again it is power exhibited through sheer force, it brought him to the presidency of Uganda and it ended his reign as President for Life, dying this week in obscurity away from Uganda in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where he lived in comfort supported by the Saudis which is sad for keepers of the faith of Islam.

In his quest for power he invaded Tanzania and thought his glorious army would win the day, he hated President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania who was beloved in his country and saw him as weak and challenged him to a boxing match, but when it was all said and done, Idi Amin fled the country, his Army was routed and the Libyan troops sent to aid him went home.

I want your heart. I want to eat your children.

(Idi Amin to an adviser just before dinner)

I ate them before they ate me.

I myself consider myself the most powerful figure in the world.

Amin is also known for allegedly sending the then US President, Richard Nixon, a "get well soon" card just after the Watergate scandal, and telling the then Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, to "pack her knickers".

Even Amin does not know how many people he has ordered to be executed... The country is littered with bodies.

Henry Kyemba, Amin's longtime friend and a former health minister

He raped the whole country of morality, of integrity. He implemented a trend of corruption in a people who were not corrupt. He raised a generation of people who wanted to steal rather than to work for personal gain.

Robert Kayanja, Miracle Centre Cathedral in Kampala, Uganda

Moving from place to place, Amin in a sense moved the state with him; outside of him, nothing happened, nothing existed.

Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski

The people don't have any problem with my father.

Amin's son, Haji Ali Amin