Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada Oume (May 17, 1924 to August 16, 2003) was a military head of state power in Uganda in January 25, 1971 and April 11, 1979. He left the image of a crazed dictator, violent and bloody.
His youth
There is uncertainty about its date and place of birth. Idi Amin did in his lifetime never published nor authorized official biography. Most sources indicate he was born in 1923 or 1924 to Koboko in West Nile Province, north-west of the country. But according to researcher Fred Guweddeko of Uganda's Makerere University, Idi Amin Dada was born Idi Awo-Ongo Angoo Kampala May 17, 1928. His father Nyabire Andreas (1889 - 1976), the Kakwa ethnic group and religion Roman Catholic, converted to Islam in 1910 and he has changed his name to Amin. Other sources indicate that Dada was not the name of his father but gained a nickname Amin later in the army (see below).
His father served in the army as a private in a British colonial regiment and joined in 1921 as a thug, the Ugandan police. His mother, according Guweddeko is called Assa AATT (1904 - 1970), ethnicity Lugbara. She is the daughter of a tribal leader Leiko Iruna, a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a specialist in medicinal plants and shamanic practices and, among others, treats the Buganda royal family. The world of magic where Amin spent part of his youth, then played a large role in his life and the influence it has on many Ugandans. Between 1924 and 1929, she Patient Lady Irene Druscilla Namaganda, the Nabagereka of Buganda and the Kabaka Sir Daudi Chwa. His parents separated in 1931 and Idi Amin Naayma is abandoned by his father who had suspected the Kabaka Daudi Chwa of being the real father.
Idi Amin was raised in his mother's family in Mawal near Semuto (Current Luwero district). His brother and sister died in 1932. Between 1936 and 1938, he keeps goats. From 1938 to 1940, he lives in the house of Sheikh Ahmed Hussein in the town of Semuto then in 1940 moved to Bombo to live with his maternal uncle Yusuf Tanaboo. According to Fred Guweddeko, it seems he has not attended primary school in the city because of discrimination against the Nubians, he has participated in revolts against the Nubians and discrimination is a fight against students Makerere University in Wandegeya. He joined an Islamic school at Bombo in 1941, where he excelled in reciting the Koran.
His mother moved with her son in the region Lugazi, north of Lake Victoria, where many people of his ethnic group working in the fields belonging to a wealthy Indian family, the Metha. Then she moved close to Jinja, which is quartered a regiment of the King's African Rifles of the British colonial army in Africa. Idi Amin Dada did odd jobs before being recruited in this regiment as assistant cook in 1946. A British officer would have noticed when he was a porter in a hotel in the city.
His military career
Amin worked in the barracks in Jinja Magamaga of the kitchen and laundry. His physique and stature (1.91 m plus 100 kg) impress where he took military training is then sent as a soldier in 1947 in Kenya to Gilgil where he served in the 21st Infantry Brigade in Somalia and KAR in Belet Huen to combat raids on livestock Shift.
In 1950, the unit of Idi Amin returned to Fort Hall in Kenya. He then trained with the military band of the Scottish regiment. In 1951 he briefly returned to Jinja before returning to Kenya the same year. In 1952, his battalion was engaged in suppressing the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya. Amin became corporal and sergeant in 1953 for his role in mobile patrols in the forest occupied by the Mau Mau. During this period he has two children, a girl and a boy with Kikuyu women. Idi Amin is considered a skilled soldier, obedient, but cruel. Illiterate (he read with difficulty thereafter), he can arouse the empathy of his superiors by a mixture of zeal and buffoonery. He passes a platoon leader in 1958. The following year he was made Effendi, the highest grade for blacks in the British colonial army in Africa, almost equivalent to the first officer rank. Anecdotally, some say the nickname "Dada" it could have come from this period in Kenya military, which frequently surprised at the camp with two girls in his tent, while only one was allowed, he had become accustomed to meet British officers that one was his dada (sister in swahili).
Amin returned to Uganda in 1954 in Jinja. He was chosen to lead the parade during the visit of Queen Elizabeth II. It was he who also heads the following year the honor guard welcoming his return from exile King Mutesa II. He then went on the Lango district where he managed to lead a squadron to defend the Langi against Karimojong raids. He has another child with a woman Langi. The same year he was sent into southern Sudan to counter a military mutiny, which it does successfully. In 1957, he was rebuffed a request to increase his pay, he also fails to test for promotion. In 1958, another failure to test but passes the field exercises and was promoted in December 1959. In July 1960, following the death of a British officer, killed by the Turkana in Karamoja, Idi Amin Dada is sent in this region and will be welcomed by the command of the British army for having "restored the prestige of the law order in the region of Karamoja. He would run three Turkana warriors and would have to align the other sex on a table by threatening to cut them off if they did not disclose where they had hidden their weapons.
In July 1961, two years before independence, he became one of only two Ugandans come to be appointed officers with the rank of lieutenant. The same year, he is part of the group to find a political compromise with Edward Mutesa II was the only favorable independent kingdom of Buganda. He convinced Mutesa the Ugandan army will never act against the kingdom. The mission of negotiation is successful.
Idi Amin was sent back against the nomadic Turkana in 1962 to address their disputes over cattle with the Karamojong of Uganda. His squadron then committed a massacre in several villages. A British survey in Kenya Turkana discovered that several were killed, tortured, some burned alive. While this act ought to have argued the court martial, his good relations with the British officers, and especially independence ahead, explain that they do him a reprimand.
Some historians of colonization, the British military authorities (as also the French), the approach to the decolonization of Africa, have fostered the promotion of poorly educated soldiers on which they hoped to retain influence to indirectly control future national army.
During this period the army, Idi Amin was an accomplished athlete: swimming champion, he is also champion of Uganda boxing in the heavy-weight category through 1951 to 1960.
At the head of the army after independence
After independence in October 1962, Milton Obote, Prime Minister of Uganda, from the northern region Nilote like him, Idi Amin reward for his support by naming him captain in 1963 and Deputy Commander (Deputy Commander) of the young Ugandan army in 1964. He was sent to Israel to undergo parachute training. This country is so very active in East Africa and will for some years a valuable military support to Amin. In 1965, Obote and Amin were implicated in a case of smuggling of gold, coffee and ivory from the Democratic Republic of Congo. A parliamentary investigation demanded by President Mutesa II (also King of Buganda, powerful Bantu South region) is Milton Obote on the defensive. In 1966, it sent the army into Buganda and lay the king and the country's president with the support of his new chief of staff, Idi Amin Dada, just appointed to that position and rank of general. He stopped several ministers, suspended the 1962 Constitution by abolishing federalism and kingdoms. He then proclaims himself the new president and establishes a presidential system to a single party. President Mutesa was forced into exile in Britain where he died in 1969. This political change and this centralization also mark the takeover of the northern tribes, formerly disadvantaged ethnic groups respond to central and southern Bantu.
Amin began recruiting men of his tribe for the Ugandan army, but also Muslims in the region of West Nile region of north-western Uganda, near the Sudanese border. His relations with Obote began to deteriorate.
In December 1969, an assassination attempt against President Obote fails. Brigadier General Pierino Okoya, deputy commander of the military and only military rival Amin, told the latter that Obote and is close to arrest the culprits. On January 25, 1970, Okoya and his wife are murdered in their home. The relationship between Idi Amin and Milton Obote deteriorated sharply after the murder. In November, having been some time under house arrest, Amin loses command in the army to occupy an administrative function.
Read also Adolf Hitler
wikipedia
