I believe everyone has heard a song of "Glory Days" by the band beyond, which praises the great leader of South Africa, Mr. Mandela, who fought for the equality and freedom of black South Africans all his life, and won the respect of the people of the world.
But if we name some other famous African leaders besides Mandela, most people can only think of "tyrants" such as Kadazzo and Idi Amin. Africa, which is comprehensively backward in terms of ideology and system, is destined to be a place rich in tyrants, and these tyrants have also inflicted untold harm on the people under their rule.
Today we are going to talk about Idi Amin, the head of Africa's "Three Tyrants" and the title of "Africa's No. 1 Demon King", this tyrant who ruled Uganda for nearly ten years has done countless absurd things during his tenure, and his legend is still widely spread today, decades later.
Amin's path to power: from pauper to general to president
Throughout history, China and foreign countries, those famous tyrants are often from military backgrounds, and Idi Amin is no exception, and his path to power can be called a legend.
Around 1925, Idi Amin was born in a small tribe in northwestern Uganda, when Uganda was still under British colonial rule, and the people lived in great poverty.
When Idi Amin was 16 years old, he was given the opportunity to go to school, when a madrasah in Uganda was admitting students, and blacks were able to attend and the tuition fees were relatively cheap, and Amin studied here for four years, and not to underestimate the four years of education, which made Amin more educated than 95 percent of Ugandans.
After leaving school, Amin didn't find any stable employment at first, but his athletic body and amazing athletic talent helped him find a good job, and soon he joined the Nile hockey team and became known as the only black athlete here, and Amin used his athletic talent to earn the respect of the other white players.
From 1951 to 1960, Amin won the Uganda National Boxing Championship for ten consecutive years, and his physical fitness can be imagined, which laid the foundation for his future entry into the army and his achievements.
In 1946, Amin joined the British colonial army in East Africa as an assistant cook, the fourth battalion of the "Royal African Rifle Army".
Armin who entered the army was like a fish in water, he was extremely physical, and he was the brightest star on the stage of the army, which admired the strong, even the white soldiers in the team admired him very much.
In addition, Ah Ming is not a martial artist with developed limbs and a simple mind, in addition to his strong body, his mind is far smarter than the average black man, he speaks very humorously and is also very good at patting the sycophants of his superiors, and often can coax the superior officers very happy with a few words, with this ability, Amin was quickly appreciated by the leaders of the troops.
He rose through the ranks of the army, and two or three years later he was even recommended by a superior officer and was fortunate enough to enter the Wiltshire Infantry School in England for further study. In the military academy, Amin worked very hard, and he successfully learned the most advanced military concepts and combat methods at that time.
At that time, during World War II, Britain's colonies in Southeast Asia were constantly eroded by the Japanese army, and the main British forces were in the European theater at that time, and the Southeast Asian battlefield was insufficient, so some black soldiers were selected from Africa to go to the Burma battlefield, and Amin was among them.
In the face of the Japanese army, Amin also showed great bravery, he not only successfully survived the Southeast Asian battlefield, but also accumulated a lot of military merits.
In the fifties of the 20th century, when the national liberation movements on the African continent were surging, and the colonies were rebelling against the rule of the foreign powers, Amin stood on the opposite side of the African people at this time.
He followed the British colonial army to brutally suppress the uprising of the Kenyan people, and in his hometown of Uganda, he even used tough means to suppress the local ethnic minority conflict, committing countless blood debts. But Amin was appointed warrant officer by the British army because of these "war exploits", which was the highest rank a black soldier could receive in the British colonial army.
However, national independence was the inevitable trend, and British rule in Africa soon collapsed in the midst of heroic resistance from all nations, and Amin's native Uganda declared independence in 1962.
The British immediately changed their faces when they saw that the situation was not good, and they handed over Amin, a "traitor" who had committed countless evil acts against the African people, to Milton Obote, the then Prime Minister of Uganda, in an attempt to exchange the favor of the Ugandan people, but Obote only symbolically punished Amin, and then let Amin stay in the Ugandan army to "make meritorious contributions".
The reason is very simple, poor and backward Uganda needs talents too much, and Amin is definitely a big talent, he is proficient in military theory and has rich combat experience, Obote needs such a general to help him, but what Obote never expected is that his operation is completely luring wolves.
Amin, who entered the Ugandan army, gave full play to his skills, on the one hand, he complimented some high-ranking officers in the army, including Obote, very comfortably, and on the other hand, he fully displayed his military talents, and every time he received instructions from Obote, he was always able to complete the task very well.
In 1966, Amin obtained the rank of brigadier general and became the commander of the Ugandan army and the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ugandan armed forces, and in 1970 Amin officially became the commander-in-chief of the Ugandan army, completely grasping the control of the army.
In October 1970, Obote, who was aware of Amin's corruption and disobedience, ordered Amin to be dismissed from his military duties, but Amin had already developed by this time, and could not be at Obote's mercy.
In January 1971, Amin took advantage of Obote's trip abroad to attend a conference to decisively launch a mutiny, and Uganda was completely controlled by Amin in just a dozen days.
Soon Amin assumed the post of president of Uganda and became the absolute number one person in Uganda, and his road to "tyrant" began from there.
Tyrant Amin: The brutal rule is appalling, and the absurdity is despicable
It took only more than 40 years to become the president of Uganda, Amin, from a small tribe of civilians, which made Amin's vanity burst, and at the same time, the feeling of being in power and no one to balance it also made Amin completely let go of himself, and the desire and nature in his heart were completely revealed.
The first is lust, Amin has thirteen wives, and countless lovers, as long as it is the woman he fancies, he has to try to get it, these women have given birth to countless children for him, and there are more than fifty registered in the register alone.
Secondly, he has a strong desire to control women and children, and if there is a disobedient family member he will use extremely cruel means to kill them, and once one of Amin's wives accidentally angered him, Amin directly executed the wife and divided her body into several pieces and put them in a bag.
Later, on a whim, he ordered his wife's body to be taken out of the bag and rearranged, and asked his other wives and children to watch it, in order to warn his family not to disobey him.
Another time Amin found out that one of his lovers was having an affair, Amin was immediately furious, he immediately ordered his lover's cheating partner to be arrested and killed him immediately, after executing this person, Amin felt still angry, and he ordered the person's body to be cooked for his own consumption.
Once a foreign reporter asked Ah Ming if he had really eaten human flesh, Ah Ming said gloomily: "Human flesh is too salty to my taste." "It was directly confirmed that he had eaten human flesh.
With such brutality towards his own family, let alone outsiders, Amin's power was fully consolidated and he purged the army of disobedient officers, and in just a few months, hundreds of high-ranking officers were brutally executed by Amin's orders.
After the arrest of Brigadier General Suleiman Hosseini, the former chief of the general staff of the army loyal to Obote, Amin sent people to the prison with the butt of a gun to beat him to death, and after Hosseini's death, Amin ordered his head to be transported back to his luxurious palace, after which Amin froze Hosseini's head in the refrigerator and took it out from time to time to admire, in his words, "talk to your enemies." ”
After the complete purge of the army, Amin began to frantically install his cronies in the army, whether it was his driver, his cook, his janitor, all of them were arranged by him to be officers in the army, and Amin's method of appointing people was very simple and direct, he said to whoever he liked: "You are a major today!"
In this way, Amin further strengthened his control over Uganda, but the combat effectiveness of the Ugandan army was greatly weakened, which also laid the groundwork for his future demise.
After the scourge of the army, Amin set his sights on the Asians living and working in Uganda, and the number of Asians living in Uganda at that time was as high as 50,000, and these Asians opened factories, supermarkets, and business networks in Uganda, making great contributions to Uganda's economic prosperity and providing a large number of jobs for the Ugandan people.
And Amin didn't care about economic development, he just wanted to get a lot of wealth in the short term to satisfy his extreme desire for poverty, and these Asian "rich" were his serious and perfect targets for plunder.
In August 1972, Amin issued an order that all Asians must leave Uganda within 90 days and only carry $100 with them. To better serve his purpose, he even ordered soldiers to go directly to the homes and businesses of Asians to carry out robberies.
During this period, he also vigorously advocated extreme racial theories such as "Asians are vampires of Uganda" and spread extreme racial hatred. In just a few months, Asians in Uganda have suffered heavy losses, their property has been looted, and many Asians have lost their lives in the riots.
Amin's actions quickly reaped the consequences, first of all, the limit of international criticism of him has dropped, and one after another has criticized him, and secondly, Uganda's local economy has been completely destroyed with this campaign of racial persecution, Uganda has been without the circulation of goods for a long time, the people have not been able to get much-needed salt, sugar and other daily necessities, and the unemployment rate has also risen dramatically.
However, Amin did not care about the lives of the people, he only cared about his own enjoyment, and after squandering the wealth he had plundered from the Asians, Amin said that he set his sights on the people of his own country. For a time, the people of Uganda had their forced labor and taxes increased several times, and they were completely living in misery and starvation.
Amin's brutal rule finally aroused strong resentment among the Ugandan people, who began to stand up against him spontaneously, and Amin's response was always to kill all opponents.
He ordered all "rebels" to be publicly executed, stripped naked, gouged out of their eyes, and driven hundreds of people to the execution ground, at least 300,000 Ugandans died at his hands during Amin's eight years of rule.
Amin took pleasure in killing, and whenever an opponent he hated was caught and executed, he would drink to cheer up, and sing and dance in the middle of the banquet to show the joy in his heart.
If Amin's rule over the people at home is best described as "brutal", then Amin's actions on the international stage can only be described as "absurd".
This is first of all manifested in his great arrogance, at that time Uganda was very poor, the population was not more than 10 million, and the economy was in shambles, and this configuration did not rank in Africa, let alone in the world.
However, Amin was so confident in Uganda's power that he appointed himself king of Scotland, claimed that Uganda was the center of the planet, and "seriously" suggested that the United Nations headquarters be moved to Uganda. This has left a lot of laughing stock for the people of the world.
Another time Amin touched the heart of England to the Queen of England, and he publicly sent a telegram to the Queen of England: "Dear Queen, if you want to know a real man, come to my capital, Kampala." On the Queen's birthday, he even asked the Queen to take off her underwear and give it to him as a gift. This is really a big joke in the world.
In addition, Amin also brought his extreme racism to the United Nations, and at the United Nations General Assembly he even publicly called for the extermination of the Israeli nation, which directly aroused the dissatisfaction of Jews and Americans.
In this way, Amin has offended people at home and abroad, and it is really not easy for a head of state to do this, but often this situation is really coming, then the person's demise is not far away. Amin is certainly no exception.
Tyrant Ending: Rise in war, perish in war
In 1978, the seventh year of Amin's rule in Uganda, the Ugandan people could no longer be described simply as a poor livelihood, Uganda's economic and social order had completely collapsed in this year, the whole country was plunged into chaos, and the people unanimously demanded that Amin step down.
In this situation, Amin came up with a clever plan to divert the contradictions externally, and he set his sights on neighboring Tanzania, a country that had repeatedly helped former President Obote counterattack Uganda.
In October 1978, tens of thousands of Ugandan troops launched a surprise attack on Tanzania, and the Ugandan army soon occupied the Kagai area on the Tanzanian border. In the face of the victory, Amin optimistically said that "a great historic victory has been achieved" and even publicly mocked Tanzanian President Nyerere.
The tyrannical nature of the Ugandan army after the occupation of the Kagai area was also fully revealed, they frantically plundered the wealth here, raped the women here, and slaughtered the people here, the total number of people in the Kagai area was less than 50,000 at that time, and as many as 8,000 people died under the massacre of the Ukrainian army.
The viciousness of the Ugandan army completely angered the Tanzanian people, and President Nyerere quickly mobilized the strength of the whole country, and in just a few weeks, he gathered 100,000 troops to go to the front, it is worth noting that Tanzania had a very good relationship with China before, and the Tanzanian army was also trained by Chinese soldiers, and the outside world called the "East African Liberation Army".
In just one month, all the Ugandan troops were expelled from the Tanzanian border, and the victorious Tanzanian army marched to the capital of Uganda.
As the saying goes, the wall fell down and everyone pushed it, and Amin, who started by relying on the war, completely lost his majesty after losing the war, not only did the people's rebel army from all over Uganda support the Tanzanian army, but even many of the regular troops under Amin defected to the enemy.
In March 1979, Amin fled Kampala with his wife and children to another city in Uganda, Jinja, and a few days later the Tanzanian army entered the capital, Kampala, welcomed by the Ugandan people.
Since then, the Tanzanian army has remained in Kampala to help the Ugandan people establish a new regime, and on the other hand, it has continued to send troops to Jinja to help the Ugandan rebels regain the country. After the capture of Jinja, Amin was completely desperate, and he was forced into exile with dozens of wives, lovers, and children.
After a short stay in Libya, he traveled to Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other countries, and finally chose to settle in Saudi Arabia, where Idi Amin died in 2003, ending his life full of crimes.
Throughout Idiamin's life, we can know that "a people can carry a boat or sink a boat" and "war can make a man rise or swallow him". Tyrannical rulers are destined to be overthrown, and Amin's life is undoubtedly shameful, and we must always learn from it.