Idi Amin
“Politics is like boxing—you try to knock out your opponent.”
Country: Uganda
Born/Died: Mid-1920’s - August 16, 2003
Dates in Power: January 25, 1971- April 11, 1979
Also known as: Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular
Other titles held: Light heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda 1951-1960
Standing 6”4’ and weighing 280 lbs. at the height of his political power in 1974, Ugandan strongman Idi Amin challenged the coach of his national boxing team to a few friendly rounds. The former champion fighter-turned-dictator, always eager to display his physical prowess, quickly won the fight with a decisive KO. For eight long years, inside the ring and out, Idi Amin mercilessly beat up on his own people—forcing the opposition up against the ropes and jealously guarding his title.
Idi Amin was born around 1925 in Uganda, which was then a Crown Colony of the British Empire. He joined the King’s African Rifles as a young man, advancing from auxiliary cook to warrant officer by displaying that combination of brutality and obsequiousness that the British so loved in their colonial troops. He loyally helped his masters suppress nationalist uprisings in Kenya and Uganda, earning mild rebuke from superiors for his excessively cruel methods. Upon independence, Amin became commander of Uganda’s armed forces and seized power in 1971. The following day, he began murdering tribal elements in the army loyal to his predecessor. A failed incursion by rebels the following year fed Big Daddy’s paranoia and the killing spread beyond the military. Amin’s security force, known euphemistically as the State Research Bureau, stopped unlucky victims in the street and politely asked them to remove their shoes before they were trundled off in cars never to be seen alive again. Desperate families searched for loved ones in the forests around the capital Kampala. On one occasion, bodies dumped into the Nile clogged the Owen Dam.
Amin became famous in the Western media for his clownish behavior on the international stage. He organized a “Save Britain” food drive in poverty-stricken Uganda to aid impoverished Britons. He sent a telegram to Richard Nixon wishing him a “speedy recovery from Watergate.” Amin publicly praised the murder of Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics—even proposing to erect a monument to Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, his reign of terror at home continued, even turning on his own family. His second wife, suspected of adultery, was found dismembered in the trunk of a car. His own father was forced to flee with thousands of others to Sudan.
Amin declared “economic war” on Uganda’s Asian minority in 1972, expelling thousands from the country and turning over their substantial property to his supporters. The resulting mismanagement left factories idle and shops empty—completing the African dictatorial one-two punch of political violence and economic collapse. With his regime rapidly losing public support, Amin sought a distraction in a long-simmering border conflict with neighboring Tanzania. After Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere declined his challenge to settle their dispute in the boxing ring, Amin started the war that would be his undoing. An invasion force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels took the capital in 1979. Amin fled into exile in Saudi Arabia, where he lived comfortably until his death in 2003.
Crimes & Misdemeanors: Idi Amin’s dictatorship degenerated into an 8-year long orgy of tribal, ethnic, and political violence. 300,000 people were murdered by the regime as he attempted to purge Uganda of opposition. Thousands more fled into exile, even Amin’s sick and aged father.
Legacy: Amin’s son Jaffar, angered by the unflattering portrayal of his father in the 2007 movie “The Last King of Scotland,” started a website to defend Big Daddy’s reputation.
Fun Fact: Idi Amin had a voracious sexual appetite, marrying at least six women and fathering over 30 children. He reportedly ate 40 oranges a day to maintain his sexual powers during his elderly years in exile.













