Idi Amin

Idi Amin
Idi Amin
3rd President of Uganda
	In office; 25 January 1971 – 11 April 1979
Vice President	Mustafa Adrisi
Preceded by	Milton Obote
Succeeded by	Yusufu Lule
Personal details
Born	Idi Amin Dada; 1925; Koboko, Uganda
Died	August 16, 2003 (aged 77); Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Nationality	Ugandan
Spouse(s)	Malyamu Amin (divorced); Kay Amin (divorced); Nora Amin (divorced); Madina Amin (widow); Sarah Amin (widow);
Profession	Soldier; Boxer
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom; Uganda
Branch/service	British Army; Ugandan Army
Years of service	1946–1962 (UK); 1962–1979 (Uganda)
Rank	Lieutenant (UK); Field Marshal (Uganda, self-styled)
Unit	King's African Rifles
Commands	Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
Battles/wars	Mau Mau Uprising; 1971 Ugandan coup d'état; Uganda-Tanzania War

Idi Amin Dada (c. 1925^[1] – 16 August 2003) was a repressive dictator who ruled the African country of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He lost power after trying to take over some Tanzanian land. The President of Tanzania at the time, Julius Nyerere, invaded Uganda. After Tanzanian forces took control of Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, Amin fled.

Amin was famous for forcing all Asians to leave Uganda. He thought that Asian people living in Uganda (who were mostly Indians and Pakistanis) were taking jobs away from Ugandan workers. After Amin lost power, many of the Asians who had left Uganda came back.

He was a convert to Islam.^[2] He supported the cause of Palestinian freedom. This caused the hijacking of an Air France flight that landed in Entebbe, Uganda.

Amin became known as a very brutal leader, and in the 1970s he was compared to historical persons such as Caligula, Hitler, Beria and Himmler. In several of the neighboring countries he was viewed as a "sadist, murderer, fascist and oppressor."

In 1979, Amin was thrown out of Uganda and barred from ever returning. He fled to Libya, then to Saudi Arabia.

Amin was put on life support on July 18, 2003. When his organs began to fail, his family decided to take him off of life support. He died in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from multiple organ failure, one day before his 78th birthday. He was buried without any memorial in a simple grave without a headstone.

The Last King of Scotland (2006) is a movie about Amin's government. Forest Whitaker, who played Amin, won an Academy Award for best actor.

Related pages[change | change source]

Operation Entebbe

References[change | change source]

↑ Many sources, like Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta and the Columbia Encyclopedia, hold that Amin was born in Koboko or Kampala circa 1925, and that the exact date of his birth is unknown. Researcher Fred Guweddeko claimed that Amin was born on 17 May 1928,[1] Archived 2008-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, but that is disputed.[2] The only certainty is that Amin was born some time during the mid-1920s.
↑ The Idi Amin I knew

[birth_date_place-1] Many sources, like Encyclopædia Britannica, Encarta and the Columbia Encyclopedia, hold that Amin was born in Koboko or Kampala circa 1925, and that the exact date of his birth is unknown. Researcher Fred Guweddeko claimed that Amin was born on 17 May 1928,[1] Archived 2008-04-23 at the Wayback Machine, but that is disputed.[2] The only certainty is that Amin was born some time during the mid-1920s.

[2] The Idi Amin I knew

[1]

[2]