On this day 32 years ago, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was deposed. Amin had come to power in a military coup in 1971, while the president Milton Obote was away at a Commonwealth conference. Obote had been planning to arrest Amin for embezzlement of army funds, so Amin pre-emptively seized power. The coup was welcomed by cheering crowds because of the unpopularity of Obote’s government, but it soon became apparent that Amin was worse.
Amin systematically persecuted particular Ugandan ethnic groups and, on the advice of another well-known dictator Muammar Gaddafi, expelled Asians from the country, resulting in the collapse of the economy. Amin became famous for his despotic rule and erratic behaviour. Some 300,000 people are thought to have been murdered during his reign of terror. His habit of picking quarrels with neighbouring countries led to his downfall.
In late 1978 Amin invaded the Kagera region of Tanzania, and the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force, in combination with various groups of Ugandan rebels, counterattacked and gradually drove the Ugandan army back. Amin received military assistance from his old friend Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, but it was not enough to prevail and on 11 April 1979 the Tanzanians prevailed, capturing Kampala, with Amin fleeing in a helicopter to Libya and then Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.