‘Butcher’ dead, Uganda sorry he got away

Idi Amin, a one-time Army boxing champion who became one of Africa’s bloodiest despots, ruled Uganda for eight years with a savagery that shocked and revolted the world. Amin was denounced all over the world for massacring thousands of people. He was driven from power in 1979 by forces from Tanzania and Ugandan exiles, and lived the rest of his life in Saudi Arabia.

Amin was a malevolent clown whose eccentric behaviour created the image of a buffoon given to outbursts and bloodlust. He declared himself the King of Scotland and appeared at a royal Saudi funeral in 1975 wearing a kilt. But he was a ruthless dictator. The International Commission of Jurists said in 1977, had violated every fundamental Human Right during a ‘‘reign of terror’’.

Amin seized power in a 1971 coup while then-President Milton Obote was abroad and embarked on a brutal purge of Army officers from tribes Amin thought loyal to Obote. A year later, Amin expelled 40,000 Asians, saying God had told him to turn Uganda into ‘‘a black man’s country’’.

Idi Amin was born in 1925, to a family of Muslim Kakwa tribe at Arua. As a teenager, he joined the King’s African Rifles. He seized power on Jan 25, 1971, and promoted himself to Field Marshal, awarding himself several WW II medals.

Amin married five times and, suitably for a man who proudly adopted the nickname ‘‘Big Daddy’’, was thought to have at least two dozen children by different women. He fled to Libya and was later given sanctuary by Saudi Arabia in the name of Islamic charity. Amin was buried in Jeddah. ‘‘The family decided and we have buried him in Jeddah,’’ Ali Amin, Idi Amin’s son, said. (Reuters)