Idi Amin: The Butcher of Uganda
Idi Amin ruled over Uganda for almost a decade (1971-1979). Over the years of his rule, the self-declared president for life murdered an estimated minimum of 300,000 Ugandans, and expelled the Asians from Uganda, resulting in the country’s economic collapse. Born circa 1925 in northwestern Uganda, Amin was raised by his mother an herbalist and diviner, after being abandoned by his father. He joined the King’s African Rifles of the British colonial army in 1946 as an assistant cook with little formal education. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming known for his “overzealous and cruel military interrogations.” Amin “stood at 6 feet, 4 inches tall and was a Ugandan light-heavyweight boxing champion from 1951 to 1960.”
Prior to Uganda’s independence in 1962, Amin became close with Milton Obote, the soon to be prime minister and president of a free Uganda. Conflicts quickly arose between them, leading to Amin staging a military coup while Obote was attending a meeting in Singapore in 1971. He began his rule by freeing political prisoners while simultaneously sending out “killer squads” to hunt down and murder Obote’s supporters. He was a devout nationalist and heightened tribal tensions by predominantly killing members of the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups. His victims quickly expanded under his paranoia.
His rule came to an end shortly after declaring an attack on Tanzania in October 1978. The Tanzanian army, supported by Ugandan nationalists, overpowered the Ugandan army and led to the fleeing of Amin from the capital on April 13, 1979. He escaped first to Libya and settled in Saudi Arabia where he would die on August 16, 2003 from multiple organ failure. Idi Amin was never tried for the atrocities he committed and the ghost of his rule still shadows Uganda (g24 & g41).
The Last King of Scotland: A Depiction of Idi Amin
The Last King of Scotland is a loosely based film on the events of Idi Amin’s rule. It begins with the coup that brought him to power and ends with the hijacking of a French airliner in Entebbe. While the creation of his physician and primary advisor, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), was a ploy to gain access to the insights of Idi Amin, the depiction of the dictator by Forest Whitaker (who won an Oscar for the role) is the film’s saving grace. Despite its inaccuracies and stretching of history, The Last King of Scotland offers audiences a closer look at the mind of a man who would be happy and joyous one moment, to enraged in the next. The man who freed prisoners and killed opposition in the same breath. This charismatic portrayal of Amin shifts between a man worth caring for, to a man despised. When the inaccuracies are acknowledged and fact checked, the film is an honest depiction of a man who became the “Butcher of Uganda,” but if they are not, The Last King of Scotland simply adds to the ghosts of its past as it worsens the lens that the nation is externally viewed through (g27).