Idi Amin: The Bully of Kampala

"I'm only sorry that the Israelis couldn 't have shot Amin along with the hijackers. Africa would have been better for it."

That blunt comment by one of black Africa's most respected statesmen reflects a widespread conviction that Uganda's President Idi Amin Dada is the most grotesque national leader in power anywhere today. His credentials as bully and buffoon go back well before Entebbe. The nonstop reign of terror that the massive (6 ft. 4 in., 280 Ibs.) former Ugandan heavyweight boxing champion and army sergeant major has unleashed since he seized power more than five years ago is thought to have cost the lives of at least 50,000 and perhaps as many as 200,000 Ugandans. Survivors of Amin's jails tell horror stories of prisoners sledgehammered to death by fellow inmates who were then forced to eat the flesh of those they had just killed. There are reports that whole villages have been machine-gunned, and the bodies fed to crocodiles. The Entebbe embarrassment will yield its own crop of corpses: the four air controllers and radar supervisors who had the misfortune to be manning the airport tower when the Israelis landed were later shot by Big Daddy's soldiers.

Amin, 48, long ago eliminated any semblance of freedom in Uganda. Parliament was abolished (he rules by decree and was recently named President for Life), the judiciary and civil service were completely purged, and the military was given extraordinary powers of arrest and summary execution. Soldiers frequently loot shops, commandeer cars and extort money from civilians.

Ever fearful of the kind of lightning coup with which he, as armed forces commander, ousted Milton Obote from the presidency in 1971, Amin often moves about under tight guard--usually trusted mercenaries who are themselves watched by a troop of undercover enforcers known as the Public Research Unit. Amin has survived at least eight assassination attempts, including one last month, when grenades were tossed at his car as he left Kampala's police headquarters. His driver was killed and 37 bystanders were injured but Amin was barely scratched, probably confirming his belief that "God is on my side and the most powerful witchcraft cannot hurt me."

Although Amin sometimes displays a peasant's earthy shrewdness--he was born into a poor farm family of the Kakwa tribe and dropped out of school after fourth grade--his impulsiveness and brutality have turned Uganda's economy into a shambles. There are constant shortages of goods, a rampant black market and soaring inflation (current rate: about 80% a year). He did not help the economy by expelling some 50,000 Asians in 1972, thereby depriving the country of most of its merchants, technicians and entrepreneurs. To keep Uganda economically afloat, Amin has toadied to oil-rich Arab states in return for financial aid; this could explain his fanatical anti-Israeli policy. For arms, he has turned to Moscow.

Amin's public rhetoric pushes bombast to its limits. He has praised Adolf Hitler and plans to erect a memorial to der Fuehrer in Kampala. Constantly lecturing world leaders, Amin has (in 1973) wished Richard Nixon "a speedy recovery from the Watergate affair"; advised President Gerald Ford to choose a black as U.S. Vice President; told Arab states to "train kamikaze pilots [to] beat Israel"; and denounced Julius Nyerere, the President of neighboring Tanzania, as "a whore who spreads gonorrhea all over Africa."

For good reason, therefore, do many of Africa's most respected leaders privately express their revulsion for Amin. At last week's annual summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity, where Amin's one-year term as chairman ended, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda pointedly refused to shake his hand. Several days later, a Kenyan government statement probably best summed it up, with some exaggeration, when it pitied "the peace-loving people of Uganda" for living under "the world's greatest dictator."

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