The history of Uganda between 1971 and 1979 consists of Uganda's history during the Idi Amin military dictatorship over Uganda.
Uganda's economy was devastated by Idi Amin's policies, including the expulsion of Asians, the nationalization of business and industry, and the expansion of the public sector. The real value of salaries and wages fell by 90% in less than a decade. The number of people killed by the regime is unknown; estimates from international observers and human rights groups ranged from 100,000 to 500,000.
Video History of Uganda (1971-79)
Take power
From Uganda's independence from Great Britain in 1962 to early 1971, the Milton Obote regime has been terrorizing, harassing, and torturing people. A frequent food shortage has caused food prices to explode on the ceiling. Obote's persecution of Indian traders has caused this. During the Obote regime, striking and widespread corruption has emerged. The regime is disliked, especially in Buganda where people suffer most.
In January 1971, Milton Obote, then president of Uganda, was ready to escape the potential threat posed by Idi Amin. Departing to the 1971 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Singapore, he delivered an order to Langi officials who were loyal that Amin and his supporters in the army would be arrested. Various versions emerge from the way this news is leaked to Amin. Also, the role of foreign powers in the coup has been debated until recently. Documents announced by the UK Foreign Office revealed that, contrary to previous speculation, it was not directly facilitated by the United Kingdom but benefited from secret support by Israelis who saw Idi Amin as an agent to stabilize Sudan's Islam. But the documents reveal a positive assessment of Amin's personality by the British authorities as well as recommendations of arms support and sales to the new regime.
However, Amin decided to prevent Obote and attack first. In the early hours of January 25, 1971, mechanical army units loyal to him attacked strategic targets at Kampala and the airport in Entebbe, where the first shot by the pro-Amin tank commander killed two Roman Catholic priests in the airport lounge. Amin's troops easily overcame the irregular opposition to the coup, and Amin immediately started mass executions against the Acholi and Langi troops, whom he believed to be pro-Obote.
Amin's coup was warmly welcomed by most people from the Buganda kingdom, whom Obote had been trying to dismantle. They seem willing to forget that their new president, Idi Amin, has become a tool of military oppression. Amin made a plain statement about his government's intention to play a "caregiver role" only until it could recover sufficiently for civilian rule. Amin rejects non-aligned foreign policy, and his government is quickly recognized by Israel, Britain and the United States. In contrast, the president Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) initially refused to accept the legitimacy of the new military government. Nyerere, in particular, opposes the Amin regime, and he offers hospitality to the alienated Obote, facilitating his efforts to strengthen and regain power.
Maps History of Uganda (1971-79)
After power
Amin's military experience, which is his only experience, determines the character of his government. He renamed the Government House "Command Post", formed a defense advisory council composed of military commanders, placed military tribunals on a civil legal system, appointed soldiers to the top of government and parastatal institutions, and even informed the new civilian cabinet minister induced that they will be subject to military discipline.
Uganda later became a military dictatorship which, in fact, was organized from a collection of military barracks scattered across the country, where battalion commanders, acting like local warlords, represented the government's coercive arm. The Ugandan Public Service Unit (GSU), an intelligence agency created by the previous government, was dissolved and replaced by the Ugandan State Research Bureau (SRB). SRB headquarters in Nakasero became a place of torture and execution for the next few years.
Regardless of the outward appearance of the military command chain, the Amin government is practically more consumed with competition, regional divisions, and ethnic politics than the replaced Ugandan People's coalition (UPC). The army itself is a deadly competition arena, in which losers are usually eliminated. Inside the officers corps, those trained in Britain are against the people trained in Israel, and both oppose the untrained, who soon eliminate many of the most experienced officers. In 1966, long before the Amen era, northerners in the army had invaded and harassed soldiers from the south. In 1971 and 1972, Lugbara and Kakwa (the Amin ethnic group) of the West Nile massacred northern Acholi and Langi, identified with Obote. Then Kakwa fought against Lugbara. Amin relies on Nubia and former Anyanya rebels from southern Sudan.
Amin recruited his followers from his own tribe, Kakwas, along with Sudan and Nubia. In 1977, these three groups formed 60% of the 22 highest generals and 75% of the cabinet. Similarly, Muslims make up 80% and 87.5% of these groups even though they are only 5% of the population. This helps explain why Amin survived eight attempted coups.
Uganda's army grew from 10,000 to more than 25,000 in 1978. The Ammon army was largely mercenary troop. Half of the soldiers are Sudanese, 26% of the Congo, only 24% of Uganda, most Muslims and Kakwa.
On August 7, 1973, Idi Amin decided Swahili was Uganda's official language. 12 out of 20 districts have chosen this, 8 others want Luganda.
The army, which has progressed progressively under Obote, is duplicated and multiplied under Amen. Recruitment is mostly, but not completely, in the north. There is periodic cleansing, when battalion commanders are seen as potential problems or a real threat. Each cleanup provides new opportunities for promotion from rank. The Ugandan Air Force commander, Smuts Guweddeko, previously worked as a telephone operator; the unofficial executioner for the regime, Major Malyamungu, was once a curfew officer. In the mid-1970s, only the most reliable military units were allowed to carry ammunition, although this ban did not prevent a series of rebellions and murders. An attempt by an American journalist, Nicholas Stroh, and his colleague, Robert Siedle, to investigate one of these barrack outbreaks in 1972 at the Simba battalion in Mbarara caused them to disappear and, later, death.
Muammar Gaddafi and the Soviet Union
Amen never forgot the source of his power. He spent most of his time rewarding, promoting, and manipulating Ugandan army officers and soldiers. Financing his growing military spending is a continuing problem. In early 1972, he reversed foreign policy - never a major problem for Amin - to get financial and military aid from Muammar Gaddafi from Libya. Amin expelled the remaining Israeli advisers, to whom he owed much, and became anti-Israel. To persuade foreign aid from Saudi Arabia, he rediscovered his previously neglected Islamic heritage. He also commissioned the construction of a large mosque in Kampala Hill in the capital, but it was never completed during his reign as much money was intended for it to be embezzled. In 2008, Amin's dream of building one of the largest mosques in Africa became a reality, and the construction finally finished more than 30 years after its inception.
Following a reversal of its foreign policy in 1972, the Soviet Union became Amin's biggest arms supplier.
East Germany helped build Amin's secret police. During the Tanzanian invasion in 1979, East Germany sought to wipe out evidence of his involvement.
Expulsion of Asians and nationalization
In August 1972, Amin gave most of the 80,000 Asians 90 days to leave the country, and confiscated their property, home and business. At the time of expulsion, there were about 80,000 people of South Asian descent in Uganda, of which 23,000 had their applications for citizenship both processed and accepted. Although the latter was ultimately relieved of the expulsion, many chose to go voluntarily. The expulsion occurred against the background of Indophobia in Uganda, with Amin accusing a minority of Asian populations of disloyalty, non-integration and commercial malpractice, the Indian leaders' claims disputed. Amin defended his expulsion by stating that he gave Uganda back to ethnic Uganda.
Many of the expellas were citizens of the British Empire and the Colonies and 27,200 later emigrated to England. Of the other IDPs recorded, 6,000 went to Canada, 4,500 refugees ended up in India and 2,500 went to nearby Kenya. In total, about 5,655 companies, farms, agriculture, and agricultural estates are allocated, along with cars, homes and other household items. Although Amin proclaims that "ordinary people" are the beneficiaries of this drastic action - which is proving very popular in Uganda and most of Africa - actually Ugandan troops are emerging with homes, cars, and businesses from Asian minorities. The expropriation of these foreign properties proved to be disastrous for a declining economy. With the economy now run by army officers and supporters of the Ugandan army (many of whom have no experience in running the business), all local businesses and shops soon fell to the ground due to mismanagement and abuse of power, cement plants in Tororo and Fort Portal collapsed due to lack of maintenance and negligence, and sugar production stalled because the machine is not permanently maintained jammed.
Uganda's export crops are sold by the government's parastatal, but most of the foreign currency they generate buys arms and imports for the army. The most famous example of this is the so-called "walking whiskey" to Stansted Airport in England, where expensive Scotch whiskey planes, transistor radios, gold Rolex watches, and other luxury items are purchased for Amen to be distributed at between the officers and the soldiers.. Amin later confirmed that he respected and indulged the Ugandan army by quoting an old African proverb, which concluded that Amin treats his troops: "A dog with a bone in his mouth can not bite."
With Uganda's shaky economy, African farmers and farmers, especially coffee, are turning to smuggling, especially to Kenya. The problem of smuggling became an obsession with Amen; towards the end of his reign, he appoints his military and paid advisor, former Briton Bob Astles, to take all necessary steps to eliminate the problem. These measures include orders to the Ugandan police and soldiers to shoot visible smugglers.
Terror
Another obsession approaching Amin is the threat of counterattack by former president of Obote. Shortly after the expulsion of Asians in 1972, Obote made such an attempt across the Tanzanian border into southwestern Uganda. His little squad of twenty-seven trucks set out to capture a southern Uganda military post in Masaka but instead settled down to await a general uprising against Amin, which did not happen. The planned airport pickup at Entebbe by soldiers in an East African Airways passenger plane suspected of being hijacked was canceled when the Obote pilot blew up a plane tire and remained in Tanzania. Amin was able to mobilize his more reliable Mechanical Regimen and expel the occupiers.
Though delighted at his success, Amin realizes that Obote, with the help of Nyerere, may try again. He has an SRB and a newly established Public Safety Unit (PSU) redoubling their efforts to uncover subversives and other imagined enemies of the state. Fear and general insecurity are a way of life for people, because thousands of people are lost. In an unpleasant round, people sometimes learn by listening to the radio that they "will disappear."
State terrorism is evidenced in a series of spectacular incidents; for example, Supreme Court Judge Benedicto Kiwanuka, former head of government and leader of the forbidden DP, seized directly from his courtroom. Like many other victims, he was forced to take off his shoes and then bundled into the trunk of the car, never to be seen alive again. Whether counted or not, the symbolism of a pair of roadside shoes to mark the passing of human life is a strange but piercing form of state terrorism.
Environment
For eight years under Amin's rule, Uganda's environmental and ecological systems were subjected to harassment and destruction by widespread poaching and deforestation perpetrated by smugglers and soldiers of the Ugandan army. It was reported that Uganda lost 75% of its elephants, 98% of its rhinoceros, 90% of crocodiles, 80% of lions and leopards, in addition to many bird species.
Palestinian Air France Flight Flight 139
Amin attempted to establish a relationship with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations in June 1976, when he offered to the Palestinian Air France hijackers from Tel Aviv a protected base at the old airport in Entebbe, from which to press their charges in exchange for hostage release Israel. The dramatic salvage of the hostages by Israeli commandos was a severe blow to Amin. Humiliated, he takes revenge against an old hostage - 75-year-old Dora Bloch - who was hospitalized in poor health at the time of the raids and abandonment. Bloch was kidnapped from the hospital bed and murdered on the orders of Amin, along with the entire civilian staff of Entebbe airport.
Government
The Amin government, by an erratic private proclamation, continues. Because he was illiterate all his life - a defect suffered by most of his military and soldier colleagues - Amin delivered verbal command and policy decisions over the telephone, over the radio, and in rowdy speeches in which state officials were ordered to pay attention. The bureaucracy soon became paralyzed because government administrators were afraid to make what might prove to be a wrong decision that would disappoint or irritate Amin in the slightest that would result in direct arrest and imprisonment or summary execution.
Shortly after Amin seized power, the Defense Minister demanded, and was given, the command of the Department of Education office building, but then the decision was canceled by Amin for no apparent reason. Important educational files are lost during their transfers back and forth by wheelbarrows. In many ways, the Amin government of the 1970s resembled the reign of the nineteenth-century African kings, with the same problem in enforcing orders from a distance, controlling competing factions in the palace, and rewarding loyal followers with plunder. The Amin regime may be less efficient than pre-colonial rulers.
Religious conflict is another characteristic of the nineteenth-century Amen regime. After recovering his Islamic loyalty in an effort to gain foreign aid from Libya and Saudi Arabia, Amin began to pay more attention to the Muslims who were previously deprived in Uganda, a move that turned out to be a blessing for them. Muslims begin to succeed in what economic opportunities are left, especially if they have relatives in the army. Construction work begins at Bukit Kibuli, the most prominent mosque site in Kampala. Many Ugandan Muslims with a sense of history believe that the Christian defeat by Christians in 1889 was finally restored. Christians, in turn, feel that they are surrounded as a religious group; It is clear that Amin views the church as the center of potential opposition. A number of priests and ministers disappeared in the 1970s, but the problem culminated in a formal protest against army terrorism in 1977 by Ugandan Church ministers, led by Archbishop Janani Luwum. Although Luwum's body recovered from an awkward "car accident", subsequent investigations revealed that Luwum ​​had been shot dead.
This latest in a long line of atrocities was met with international condemnation, but despite the continued trade boycott initiated by the United States in July 1978, verbal condemnation was not accompanied by action. In September 1978, Amin banned almost all the activities of the Christian Church for their subversiveness. In early 1978 the circle of Amin's close associates had shrunk significantly - the result of defection and execution. Because of his harsh temperament and uncertain and unpredictable behavior, the risk is getting too close to Amin, as the vice president and his former trusted colleague General Mustafa Adrisi said. When Adrisi was injured in a suspicious car accident, forces loyal to him became agitated. The Malire Mechanical Regiment was once rebellious, just like any other unit.
In October 1978, Amin sent troops still loyal to him against the rebels, some of whom escaped across the Tanzanian border. Amin later claimed that the President of Tanzania Nyerere, his eternal enemy, has been at the root of his problems. Amin accused Nyerere of fighting against Uganda, and, hoping to divert attention from his internal problems and rally Uganda against foreign enemies, Amin invaded the territory of Tanzania and officially annexed a passage across the Kagera River on November 1, 1978.
Uganda-Tanzania War
Declaring the official state of the war against Uganda, Nyerere mobilized a reserve of its citizen soldiers and struck back, joining the Ugandan exiles united as Uganda's National Liberation Army (UNLA). The Ugandan army retreated steadily, spending much of its energy by looting along the way. Gaddafi Libya sent 3,000 troops to help Amin, but the Libyans soon found themselves on the frontline, while behind them Ugandan Army units used supply trucks to bring their newly robbed wealth in the opposite direction. Tanzania and UNLA took Kampala on 11 April 1979, and Amin fled through the air, first to Libya and then to permanent exile in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The five-month war, which has cost about $ 1 million a day in Tanzania, has ended.
See also
- Uganda-Tanzania War
- The Last King of Scotland , a book and movie about living close to Amin
References
- Life Under Idi Amin: The Story of Theresa Nanziri Bukenya
- This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/. - Uganda
Note
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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