The most brutal ruler in the modern history of the Earth was the President of Uganda, Idi Amin. He was nicknamed "Black Hitler" for his love for the German Fuhrer, whom Amin even surpassed in bloodthirstiness. For 8 years of rule, the African dictator killed almost half a million people from the 19 million population of his own country. He personally ate some of them.
Illiterate son of a witch
Idi Amin came to power in a military coup in 1971. According to the official version, then he was 43 years old, although the exact date and place of his birth are not known.
Amin's mother was from the Kakwa tribe and was considered one of the most influential sorceresses in Africa. The father was from a different tribe and abandoned her shortly after the birth of his son. Idi received virtually no education, not even elementary, and, according to eyewitnesses, remained illiterate until the late 1950s. At 18, Amin enlisted in the British Army, where he made a quick career through fearlessness, composure and brutality. After Uganda gained independence, Idi Amin became close to the country's first prime minister and helped him carry out a coup. In gratitude, the new president made Amin the commander-in-chief of Uganda.
Five years later - in 1971 - Amin staged a coup himself: he overthrew the president and appointed himself the new ruler of the country. At first, he tried to win the favor of residents and foreign politicians. He said he was a "soldier, not a politician" and promised to transfer power to civilians after democratic elections. He restored the constitution, disbanded the secret police, freed political prisoners from prisons, and awarded all members of his government with Mercedes cars.
Head in the fridge
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In practice, Amin's promises turned into terror. Having come to power through a coup, the dictator was terrified of conspiracies and saw traitors everywhere. He created special death squads, with the help of which he dealt with the country's highest army command, killing more than 10 thousand people in six months. Then he began repressions against the hated intelligentsia, as well as against unfriendly African tribes and the Christian population.
The executions took place daily and became more and more widespread. Torture was practiced - with the aim of extorting confessions from the "conspirators", and cruel methods of murder - burial alive, dismemberment. The soldiers did not have time to dig graves, so the bodies were often simply dumped into the Nile. There are known facts when it was necessary to temporarily stop the hydroelectric power station in Jinja due to the fact that the corpses clogged the water intakes.
Many researchers believe that Amin suffered from a mental disorder: he had paranoid tendencies, megalomania and other deviations. He … ate some of his political opponents. Amin kept the parts of the bodies of the killed enemies in the refrigerator, which stood near the hall of official receptions.
Amin kept the head of the former commander-in-chief Suleiman Hussein in the freezer as a trophy. During banquets, the black leader sometimes took her out and carried her out to the guests, offering to throw knives at her. The cannibal dictator spoke of human meat as follows: "It is very salty, even saltier than leopard meat."
Idi Amin called his idol Adolf Hitler and even wanted to erect a monument to him, but was stopped by the Soviet Union, with which he maintained friendly relations. For this, Amin was nicknamed "Black Hitler".
Uganda Free and Prosperous
The economic situation of Uganda during the rule of Amin deteriorated catastrophically. The dictator announced a course towards "Ugandization": he expelled from the country 50 thousand wealthy Asians living there, having expropriated their property. The remaining (mostly immigrants from India) were deported to remote Ugandan villages
Caricature of Idi Amin by Edmund Waltmann, 1977.
The Ugandan authorities stopped limiting the amount of money printed, as a result of which they completely depreciated: inflation exceeded 100 percent.
Industry and agriculture fell into decay. No money was allocated for roads, transport, utilities. At the same time, spending on the army accounted for 65 percent of the country's GDP. Uganda has become one of the poorest countries in the world.
Amin himself lived in a luxurious palace (left over from an emigrated millionaire) and drove expensive cars. He loved racing cars and bought them often. In public speeches, Amin constantly repeated: “We all live in peace and security. Uganda is free and its people are flourishing."
All women are sisters
Idi Amin was very fond of women. The nickname "Dada", which means "sister", was even added to his official name. So Amin called all the women who were in his bed.
Idi Amin had seven wives and about 30 official mistresses. He was cruel to them, as he was to everyone else. He killed and dismembered one of the wives, the other was sent to prison, many died under unexplained circumstances. According to Amin himself, by 1980 he had 36 sons and 14 daughters. According to rough estimates of historians, the dictator had 40 to 60 children.
Amin's presidential career ended ingloriously. In 1979, he fled the country after its capital was captured by Tanzanian troops, together with Ugandan and Rwandan guerrillas. He settled in Saudi Arabia, where he calmly lived to be 75 years old and died in a hospital from hypertension in 2003.
According to rough estimates, the victims of the repressions of the bloody dictator were from 300 to 500 thousand people (out of the 19 million population). At the same time, he killed at least two thousand personally.
The Soviet Union turned a blind eye to the bloody "pranks" of Idi Amin, providing humanitarian and military assistance to Uganda. In international politics, Amin announced that he intends to build socialism and fight world imperialism, as a result of which he began to receive support from the USSR. During his reign, a group of Soviet military advisers worked in Uganda.
Author: Elena Rotkevich
