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Examines why Tanzania's overthrow of the Ugandan Government of Idi Amin was greeted with almost tacit approval compared to Vietnam's reception in overthrowing Pol Pot. International society did not endorse the principle of humanitarian intervention in this case, but it did show by its reaction that it understood the moral context in which Tanzania had acted.

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.

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.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Idi Amin Dada, the president of Uganda between 1971 and 1979. More than forty years after his overthrow and eighteen years after his death, he remains a key point of reference in Ugandan culture and politics. Elsewhere in the world, his name has become synonymous with brutal and psychotic African dictatorship. In many of the popular and sensational texts, a racist anthropology relates Amin's atrocities to the supposed traditional ways of the Kakwa tribe; in some of the more academic work, his origins link his actions, through deep historical roots, to aspects of Nile Valley history and the wider North-East African past. Most Ugandans and historians of Uganda agree that his rule, covering eight years in the 1970s, was a crucial period in the collapse of the Ugandan economy and society, though the process worsened after his departure. The chapter then explains that Amin's image as an icon of evil came about because he fits, almost parodically, the long-standing stereotype of African masculinity as intrinsically violent, irrational, autocratic, and dangerous.

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.

This chapter focuses on the first half of the 1960s, which was an eventful and pivotal time for Idi Amin. He began the decade as a colonial soldier, and Ugandan independence, which arrived on October 9, 1962, at first changed little in the military life. As the new East African nations gained their independence one by one, their King's African Rifles (KAR) battalions took on new, national names. The Ugandan 4th Battalion, as a new independent national army, reverted to its early colonial designation 'the Uganda Rifles', but it continued to be run by white British officers more or less as before, though there was, of course, an increased push towards 'Africanisation' of the senior ranks. Gradually, over the first half of the 1960s, Amin rose from being a very junior officer under British rule to become the powerful head of independent Uganda's armed forces. His role became increasingly political rather than military, as he was more and more embroiled in the lively and often acrimonious politics of post-independence Uganda.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This chapter explains why a local pharmaceutical sector did not emerge in Uganda in the 1980s, and why it was fragile when it ultimately did emerge in the 1990s. Uganda’s political-economic situation during Idi Amin’s military dictatorship between 1971 and 1979, and until the end of the civil war in 1986, was inhospitable for both state-owned and private pharmaceutical manufacturing. Moreover, when Amin expelled Indians in 1972, Ugandan entrepreneurs’ ties abroad were severed, delaying the emergence of a private pharmaceutical sector in the country. A ration kits program was launched in Uganda only in 1986, and it did not have a local component. A pharmaceutical sector cautiously emerged only in the 1990s. The vacuum created during the Amin regime now enabled broader access to the pharmaceutical field, including indigenous Africans on the one hand and non-Ugandans on the other. However, without ties abroad, in addition to lack of state support or foreign assistance, many pharmaceutical firms that opened at the time were quite fragile.

After the end of the Cold War, many in the West viewed Africa as a testing ground for the solidarist argument that sovereignty was no longer an absolute principle and that the international community could intervene to protect individual from human rights violations. This argument seems particularly challenging in the African context, given the continental leadership’s historic commitment to territorial integrity and non-intervention. However, as the author shows, African leaders from 1945 to 1990 were largely upholding the pluralist international norms of the time. In other words, the case for humanitarian intervention – and the problems posed by the practice – are not region-specific. The early 1990s, during which the United Nations intervened in Somalia, seemed to confirm the solidarist position. However, the failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, and the more recent experience of interventions in Sierra Leone, present a more mixed picture. Humanitarian intervention remains a controversial practice because of its coercive means, and its tendency to attribute blame or responsibility in what are often very complex civil conflicts.

This chapter discusses Israel’s involvement with Uganda, with which it engaged in activities of both a ‘normal’ diplomatic and clandestine nature. Israel had established relations with Uganda upon its independence in October 1962—a relationship which endured until Idi Amin severed the connection in March 1972. Israel pursued four strategic objectives in Uganda. First, it sought access to the White Nile River. Second, it was concerned with the security of Uganda, as a ‘hinterland’ to Ethiopia. The third was a route to the Anya Nya movement in southern Sudan, which Israel supported in order to destabilise the regime in Khartoum. Lastly, Israel cultivated a security connection with Uganda.

To set the background for the civil war in northern Uganda and the interfaith organization that was created to work for its resolution, the present chapter reviews the history of the region. Beginning with indigenous populations organized into kingdoms and ethnic communities, the slave trade that linked East Africa with the Middle East, and the competition among European powers for regional control, the chapter traces the transition from British protectorate to independent nation and the tumultuous period that followed, under the repressive regimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin.

This chapter considers the Queen’s role in Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGMs) during the 1970s. It begins with the Singapore conference of 1971, the one occasion when the Queen was formally advised not to attend a CHOGM by her British prime minister. It looks at the way in which, from 1973, the threatened appearance of Idi Amin at CHOGMs aroused British concerns about the Queen’s attendance. It considers the 1977 London CHOGM, which coincided with the Silver Jubilee celebrations. Finally it examines the Queen’s role at the Lusaka summit of 1979, which proved extremely important in resolving the crisis in Rhodesia

The Second Five Year Plan (1969–1974) included many commitments to ujamaa, and ambitious lists of investments to be undertaken in state farms, infrastructure improvements, and manufacturing. By 1980, Tanzania had become one of the major recipients of foreign aid in Africa, receiving support from the US, the World Bank, the Scandinavian countries (especially Sweden), China and many other countries. Within Africa, Tanzania gave moral and material support to liberation movements from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola and Namibia. It opposed Idi Amin, who took power in Uganda in 1971. In 1978, Ugandan forces invaded and occupied a small part of North Western Tanzania, after which Tanzania invaded and removed Amin from power in 1979. The Third Five Year Plan was not published until 1978. Prepared under difficult circumstances, it committed the country to a ‘basic industry strategy’ involving industrialization based on factories with strong linkages to other local factories.

This chapter recounts a long history of abusive rulers that found safe havens abroad once they were no longer welcome in their countries. It introduces Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who had presided over the killing of several thousand people in 1979 and was then exiled in Saudi Arabia. It refers to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who retired to Hawaii when the People Power Revolution toppled him following a fraudulent election. It also explains why recent leaders like Muammar al-Gaddafi, Laurent Gbagbo, and Bashar al-Assad desperately clung to power whereas past leaders such as Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos, and François Duvalier were willing to spend their days in exile. It discusses proponents of international justice that were frequently mocked as out-of-touch idealists.