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Few Ugandan newspapers mourned the death of Idi Amin (Photo: Marco Longari/AFP-Getty Images). |
Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin died on Aug. 16 in a hospital in
Saudi Arabia, where he had been in a coma since July 18. Amin’s illness and
death sparked a hot debate in Africa about how the exiled strongman should be
remembered. Ugandans argued over whether Amin should be granted the right to
burial on his native soil, and whether he should be pardoned or prosecuted for
the brutality he visited on Uganda.
“There is renewed interest in Amin because people who suffered under him in one
way or another—and that means most Ugandans—feel that, by his death, justice
will finally have been done,” wrote Michael Okema in The East African
(July 28).
Amin, who had lived in comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia for a decade, was never
charged with crimes committed under his 1971-79 regime, during which up to
400,000 people were killed or “disappeared.” In addition, some 60,000 Ugandans
of Asian origin were expelled from the country, and army officers from the
Acholi and Langi tribes—thought by Amin to be hostile to him—were systematically
murdered.
Amin, who had lived in comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia for a
decade, was never charged with crimes committed under his 1971-79 regime, during
which up to 400,000 people were killed or “disappeared.” In addition, some
60,000 Ugandans of Asian origin were expelled from the country, and army
officers from the Acholi and Langi tribes—thought by Amin to be hostile to
him—were systematically murdered.
Amin’s rule was “one of the most memorable, infamous, absurd, nightmarish,
dramatic, and crucial in modern world history,” wrote Timothy Kalyegira in
The Monitor (July 28). Rumored to be a cannibal, the sexually rapacious
Amin once wrote to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, “Dear Liz if
you want to know a real man, come to Kampala.” In
1974 he stunned the United Nations General Assembly by condemning
Israel and praising Adolf Hitler.
“Forget that crap about a person being presumed innocent until proven guilty. It
just doesn’t arise in the case of Amin,” wrote Uganda’s presidential press
secretary Mary Karooro Okurut in the Sunday Vision (July 27). Others
criticized President Yoweri Museveni’s government for failing to bring Amin to
justice before he lay on his deathbed. “If the... government felt so strongly
against Amin’s atrocities, how come there was no attempt to extradite him from
Saudi Arabia [previously]?” wrote James Tumusiime in The Monitor (July
29).
Prior to Amin’s death, his supporters argued that he should receive a
presidential pardon in the name of national reconciliation. But, as Moses
Byaruhanga pointed out in the Sunday Vision (July 27), “the president
can only pardon a person...after a conviction by a court of law.” Now that he is
dead, Amin cannot be tried posthumously.
On July 27, the Sunday Vision reported that Amin’s relatives were
preparing a grave for him at Tanganyika, Uganda. “He’s an old dog that can’t
bite, and he’s on his deathbed, so he can’t be of any harm,” Kampalan driver
Leonard Ssanguuda told the Mail & Guardian (July 25).
Others disagreed. “I shudder to think that a genocidal tyrant can purchase his
immunity...by living to a ripe old age in exile and gorging himself to death,”
wrote Austine Ejiet in The Monitor (July 28). “This is not acceptable.”
From the October 2003 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 50, No. 10)
http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/1502.cfm
