Idi Amin's Rule in Uganda 1971-1979: Coup, Terror and Expulsion

Idi Amin ruled Uganda as a military dictator from January 1971 to April 1979. His regime became notorious for the expulsion of tens of thousands of Asians, for killings carried out by state security agencies on a vast scale, and for an erratic personal style that made him one of the most infamous rulers of the 20th century. His rule ended in a war with neighbouring Tanzania that he himself started.

Background

Uganda became independent from Britain on 9 October 1962, with Milton Obote as prime minister. The new state was a fragile union of kingdoms and regions, above all the powerful kingdom of Buganda. In 1966 Obote suspended the constitution and sent the army, commanded in the field by Idi Amin, to storm the palace of the Kabaka (king) of Buganda, who fled into exile. Obote made himself executive president and abolished the kingdoms in 1967.

Amin was born around 1925 in north-western Uganda into the Kakwa ethnic group; his exact birth date is unknown. He joined the British colonial army, the King’s African Rifles, in 1946, served in Kenya during the Mau Mau emergency and rose through the ranks. He was also Uganda’s heavyweight boxing champion during the 1950s. By the late 1960s he was army commander, but his relationship with Obote had broken down over missing military funds, Amin’s private links with recruits from his home region and suspicions of a plot.

The 1971 coup

On 25 January 1971, while Obote was attending a Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Singapore, troops loyal to Amin seized Kampala and the airport at Entebbe. Many Ugandans, especially in Buganda, celebrated in the streets, and Britain and Israel were among the first to deal with the new government. Amin promised a return to civilian rule and free elections, and released political prisoners.

The promises were soon broken. Within months soldiers from the Acholi and Langi groups, seen as loyal to Obote, were massacred in barracks across the country. Amin ruled by decree, suspended political activity and built up the army with recruits from the north-west and from southern Sudan.

The expulsion of the Asians

In August 1972 Amin announced that Asians who were not Ugandan citizens had 90 days to leave the country. Around 80,000 people of South Asian origin lived in Uganda, many descended from labourers and traders who had come during British rule. They dominated much of the retail and wholesale trade, and resentment against them was widespread.

The order was soon applied in practice to almost all Asians, including many with Ugandan citizenship. By the November deadline most had gone, allowed to take only a small sum of money. About 27,000 settled in Britain, which accepted holders of British passports, and several thousand went to Canada, India and other countries. Amin called the measure an “economic war”. The businesses and property left behind were handed out, often to soldiers and supporters, and many soon failed.

Terror and the security state

Amin’s government relied on several overlapping security bodies, among them the State Research Bureau and the Public Safety Unit, which arrested, tortured and killed suspected opponents. Victims included soldiers, civil servants, lawyers, academics, clergy and ordinary people caught up in local feuds. The former prime minister and chief justice Benedicto Kiwanuka was abducted from his court in September 1972 and murdered.

In February 1977 the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, was arrested after church leaders protested about the killings. His death was announced as a car accident, but it is widely accepted that he was killed in custody. Former minister Henry Kyemba, who defected in 1977, published a detailed account of the regime’s violence.

The total number of victims cannot be known. Estimates from human rights organisations and historians generally range from about 100,000 to 500,000 people killed over eight years.

Foreign policy and isolation

At first Amin had good relations with Britain and Israel, but in 1972 he expelled Israeli advisers and turned to Libya under Muammar Gaddafi and to other Arab states for money and arms. He also obtained weapons from the Soviet Union. In 1975 Uganda hosted the summit of the Organisation of African Unity, and Amin served a year as its chairman.

His public statements, self-awarded titles and medals made him a figure of ridicule in parts of the Western press, but this image hid the scale of the violence at home. In 1976 he declared himself president for life. That summer, Palestinian and German hijackers brought an Air France airliner to Entebbe with Amin’s cooperation, leading to the Israeli rescue mission known as Operation Entebbe. Britain broke off diplomatic relations soon afterwards.

The economy declined sharply. Coffee, the main export, was smuggled abroad, inflation soared and basic goods disappeared from shops. In 1978 the United States Congress voted to ban imports of Ugandan coffee.

War with Tanzania and the fall of Amin

Relations with Tanzania had been hostile since the coup, because President Julius Nyerere sheltered Obote and other exiles. In October 1978, amid unrest and reported mutinies in his own army, Amin sent troops across the border into the Kagera Salient in north-western Tanzania and announced its annexation.

Tanzania mobilised and drove the invaders out, then advanced into Uganda with Ugandan exile forces united as the Uganda National Liberation Army. Libya sent troops to support Amin, but they were defeated, notably at Lukaya in March 1979. Kampala fell on 11 April 1979. Amin fled to Libya and later to Saudi Arabia.

Key people

Idi Amin (c. 1925–2003) was the army officer who became president. He lived in exile in Jeddah until his death on 16 August 2003 and was never tried.

Milton Obote (1925–2005) was Uganda’s first prime minister and president, overthrown by Amin. He returned to power after disputed elections in 1980 and was overthrown again in 1985.

Julius Nyerere (1922–1999), president of Tanzania, refused to recognise Amin and ordered the counter-offensive that ended his rule.

Janani Luwum (1922–1977), Archbishop of Uganda, is commemorated as a martyr, and a statue of him stands among the 20th-century martyrs at Westminster Abbey.

Consequences

Amin’s fall did not bring stability. A series of short-lived governments followed, Obote returned to power in 1980, and the guerrilla war that followed caused further mass deaths until Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army took Kampala in 1986. The expulsion of the Asians cost Uganda much of its commercial and professional class. From the 1990s the government invited them back to reclaim confiscated property, and some returned.

In Britain, the arrival of the Ugandan Asians became a defining moment in the story of South Asian communities, many of whose members went on to prominent careers in business and public life.

Timeline

• 1962, 9 October: Uganda becomes independent, with Milton Obote as prime minister.
• 1971, 25 January: Idi Amin seizes power in a military coup.
• 1972, August: Amin orders the expulsion of Uganda’s Asians within 90 days.
• 1972, September: Former chief justice Benedicto Kiwanuka is abducted and killed.
• 1976, June–July: The Entebbe hijacking ends with an Israeli rescue raid.
• 1977, February: Archbishop Janani Luwum dies in custody.
• 1978, October: Ugandan troops invade the Kagera Salient in Tanzania.
• 1979, 11 April: Tanzanian and Ugandan exile forces capture Kampala; Amin flees.

Why it matters

Amin’s Uganda is a standard example of how a military coup in a newly independent state could turn into personal dictatorship and mass killing. It also shaped the debate over African sovereignty, since Tanzania’s invasion, unusual for its time, was the act that removed him. Set against the optimism that followed Ghana’s independence in 1957 and the Year of Africa, his rule shows how quickly the promise of independence could be betrayed.