January 25, 1971 – Idi Amin seizes power in a coup in Uganda
On January 25, 1971, Ugandan President Milton Obote wasoverthrown in a military coup while he was on a foreign mission. Fearing for his safety, he did not return to Uganda but flew to Tanzania,Uganda’ssouthern neighbor, where Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere gave him politicalsanctuary. President Nyerere’s action,however, was not well received by General Idi Amin, the leader of the Ugandancoup, and relations between the two countries deteriorated.
In Uganda,General Amin took over power and established a military dictatorship, and namedhimself the country’s president and head of the armed forces. He carried out a purge of military elementsthat were perceived as loyal to the former regime. As a result, thousands of officers andsoldiers were executed. General Aminthen formed a clique of staunchly loyal military officers whom he promotedbased on devotion and subservience to his government rather than on merit andcompetence. In lieu of local civiliangovernments, General Amin set up regional military commands led by an armyofficer who held considerable power. Corruption and inefficiency soon plagued all levels of government.
Africa showing location of Uganda and Tanzania and nearby countries.(Taken from Uganda-Tanzania War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 3)
Military officers who had been bypassed or demoted fromtheir positions became disgruntled. Manyof these officers, including thousands of soldiers, crossed the border to Tanzania and metup with ex-President Obote and other exiled Ugandan leaders. Together, they formed an armed rebel groupwhose aim was to overthrow General Amin. The rebels were well received by the Tanzanian government, whichprovided them with military and financial support.
In 1972, the rebels launched an attack in southern Uganda and came to within the town of Masaka where they triedto incite the local population to revolt against the Ugandan government. No revolt took place, however. General Amin sent his forces to Masaka, andin the fighting that followed, the rebels were thrown back across the border.
Ugandan planes pursued the rebels in northern Tanzania, butattacked the Tanzanian towns of Bukoba and Mwanza, causing somedestruction. The Tanzanian governmentfiled a diplomatic protest and increased its forces in northern Tanzania. Tensions rose between the two countries.Through mediation efforts of Somalia,however, war was averted and the two countries agreed to deescalate thetension, and withdrew their forces a distance of ten kilometers from theircommon border.
The insurgency provoked General Amin into intensifying hissuppressive policies, especially against the ethnic groups of his politicalenemies. All social classes from theserival ethnicities were targeted, from businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and theclergy, to workers, peasants, and villagers. Even members of General Amin’s Cabinet and top military officers werenot spared. General Amin’s secretpolice, called the State Research Bureau, carried out numerous summaryexecutions and forced disappearances, as well as tortures and arbitraryarrests. During General Amin’seight-year reign in power, an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 Ugandans werekilled.
General Amin also expelled the ethnic South Asian communityfrom Uganda. These South Asian Ugandans were thedescendants of contract workers from the Indian subcontinent who had beenbrought to Ugandaduring the British colonial period. South Asians comprised only 1% of the total population but werepredominantly merchants, traders, landowners, and industrialists who held adisproportionately large share of Uganda’s economy; other SouthAsians were wealthy professionals, held clerical jobs, or were tradesmen.
After the expulsion, the South Asians’ businesses andproperties were seized by the government and distributed to the generalpopulation in line with General Amin’s program of promoting the social andeconomic advancement of black Ugandans. However, many of the assets ended up being owned by General Amin’smilitary and political associates, most of whom had no knowledge of running abusiness. Soon, most of these operationsfailed and closed down.
As a result, Uganda’seconomy deteriorated. Poverty andunemployment soared, and basic commodities became non-existent or in very lowsupply. Coffee beans, the country’s mainexport product, were required by law to be sold to the government. But as the government failed to pay orunderpaid the farmers, the smuggling of coffee beans to nearby Kenya (whereprices were much higher) became widespread and carried out by farmers andtraders at the risk of a government-issued shoot-to-kill order againstviolators. Eventually, however, coffeebean smuggling operations came under the control of the army commandersthemselves.
Initially, the Western media was fascinated by GeneralAmin’s idiosyncratic behavior and outrageous statements, making the Ugandanleader extremely popular in foreign news reports. But as his brutal regime and human rightsrecord became known, Britainand the United States, both Uganda’straditional allies, distanced themselves and ended diplomatic relations withGeneral Amin’s government. Uganda then turned to the Soviet Union, which soon became the Ugandan government’s main supplier ofweapons. Ugandaalso strengthened military ties with Libyaand diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
By 1978, Ugandahad become isolated diplomatically from much of the internationalcommunity. Despite outward appearances,the government was experiencing growing dissent from within. A year earlier, General Amin was nearlyousted in a coup carried out by high-ranking government officials, underscoringthe growing political opposition to his rule.
Then in November 1978, Uganda’s Vice-President, Mustafa Adrisi,was wounded in a car accident, which might have been an assassination attempton his life. Adrisi’s militarysupporters, which included some elite units, broke out in mutiny.
