Why Uganda should normalize ‘living’ with Idi Amin

Forty-four years after he was deposed and 20 years after his death Amin, a soldier like President Yoweri Museveni who came to power by the gun, has ‘refused’ to go away. 

A letter surfaced showing President Museveni turning down a ‘request’ to permit the establishment of the Idi Amin Institute. The request was by the former MP of Obongi County in West Nile, Mr Hassan Kaps Fungaroo, to the National Council of Higher Education in the West Nile region.

Museveni took exception to Amin’s coming to power through a military coup on January 25, 1971 that overthrew Obote’s ‘constitutionally elected’ government. In fact Obote was also in power illegally having overthrown the 1962 Constitution and disingenuously came up with ‘his own’ in 1967 that put him in an unassailable position or so he thought.  

Museveni, who like Amin has no exact recorded date of birth, also shot his way to power on  January 26, 1986. He also fought against Milton Obote’s government for allegedly rigging an election (and the Okello Lutwa military government that followed.)

He ignored the constitutional option of going to court. The other case Museveni has against Amin is the killing of people Like Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka and members of the Acholi and Langi tribes.

That aside, it is safe to argue that Amin, who was born anywhere between 1923 and 1928 and died in exile in Saudi Arabia on  August 16, 2003 is among the most famous or infamous and consequential Ugandans to have ever lived since the idea of the State of Uganda was dubiously conceived by the British in 1894.

Amin is the most written about Ugandan both locally and globally. He elicits both hate and admiration in varying degrees especially as time goes by.

There are tens of titles on him as a subject, the likes of Idi Amin Lion of Africa by Manzoor Moghal, Idi Amin by Michael Beaver, Culture of the Sepulcher; Idi Amin’s Monster Regime by Madanjeet Singh, The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden, General Amin by Martin David, War In Uganda; the Legacy of Idi Amin by Martha Honey and Tony Avigan, I love Idi Amin by Festo Kivenjere, A State of Blood by Henry Kyemba, President Idi Amin; A Narrative of His Rule (1971-1979) by Charles William Muwonge etc. There are also many films and documentaries on Amin like The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, The Last King of Scotland, Bwana Joggo, etc. 

Many are divided as to whether most of these are not embellished and attempts at misinformation. The motive of this distortion of history is to allegedly place all Uganda’s ills on the shoulders of one Amin.

The proponents of this argument like Timothy Kalyegira, who fiercely defends Amin, come up with several angles claiming that during the regime of Amin there were several agent provocateurs and even Trojan horses that committed heinous crimes to put blame and pressure on the Amin government.

They give the example of a tactic in which exiles would write letters or call innocent people knowing very well that the State Research intelligence unit would read them and listen respectively. In there, they thanked them for the ‘assistance,’ and promised to bring down the government. The State would then arrest those who did not report the letters to the authorities and kill them.  

They further argue that those Amin killed in the firing squads was after ‘exhausting’ due process. It happened in the military tribunals of soldiers with very debatable judicial abilities. Amin has been accused of being responsible for the killing and disappearance of over 500,000 people, something which Timothy Kalyegira and researcher Fred Smutts Guweddeko, whose own father died during the regime, contest.

Others have said Amin was an economic hero. That he brought indigenous Ugandans from the provinces and thrust them into commerce and industry where they had been unfairly barred right from the colonial era, thus empowering them. It is notable that today many indigenous Ugandan businesses are struggling and foreign investors are given precedence allegedly to weaken the locals politically.  

There are other arguments that paint Amin as a patriot citing the building of several embassies around the world in prime areas like the one in New York and several properties around the world.

Many of which properties have either suffered disrepair or have been sold in mysterious circumstances. They talk about Uganda Airlines and Uganda Railways, free education and Medicare among others which are no more.

All these things need to be subjected to serious intellectual debate and scrutiny not  to be left to conjecture and innuendo.  

Certainly it should not just be forgotten, especially if we do not have anything to hide.  We shall not learn if we don’t record and review the history simply by claiming Amin has been forgiven.

On the contrary many who lost loved ones have never forgiven him and still have questions that need answers.  The majority of Ugandans are less than 30 years old and many of them glorify Amin. 

They need to be taught this history as objectively as possible. So if those proposing the institute are sincere, they do not need to go to the government. This is unless they simply want to be ensconced with the government and the president - who is against the idea.

He is already biased so if he pays he will call the turn. They may come up with a virtual institute which rhymes with the times of the ICT revolution. They may upload documents, photos and hold intellectual debates online which gives access to many opinions globally.

We have a lot of such arrangements on Twitter or X spaces daily. It will also stop the habit of physically interfering with debate like it happened in Parliament when Mr Ssemujju Nganda referred to Gen Moses Ali as ‘Amin’s Minister of Finance,’ leading to disruption of a parliamentary sitting.  

In that virtual institute we may once and for all take a skull count of Idi Amin’s victims, when and how they died. This will rest the ‘500,000 victims’ debate once and for all and bring us closer to whether Amin was a hero or a villain. 

Mr Sengoba is a commentator on political and social issues
X: @nsengoba