Idi Amin

The myth and reality of Idi Amin have become so entangled that it is often particularly difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty what is one or the other. This is because, among other things, his character and regime lend themselves so perfectly to fictionalisation (as in, for instance, Rise and Fall of Amin, and The Last King of Scotland) and propaganda that what is, for narrative, or dramatic, or political purposes, a variation on, or an extrapolation from a known fact about, Amin or his regime, even a complete fabrication has come to be accepted by many as historical reality, even more so in the absence of authoritative works on the subject. This book dispassionately disentangles the myth from the reality of Idi Amin and his regime while making an interdisciplinary sense of his political-military biography and trajectory from cook to President and beyond. This book takes the reader from Amin's birth between 1923 and 1928, through his humble beginnings in the British colonial regiment, King's African Rifles (KAR); his rapid rise through the ranks of successively the KAR and Uganda Army to become Army Commander; his Israeli-sponsored coup against his former mentor, Apollo Milton Obote; his one-man rule of Uganda, which was characterised by unprecedented mass killings and the general collapse of the socioeconomic infrastructure; his overthrow by combined Tanzanian and Ugandan-exiles forces; and his flight into exile in Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003. This book will appeal to readers desirous of knowing the true nature of the Amin regime and how it was possible.