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Idi Amin Quotes

Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan politician and military officer. He was the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, and his rule gained notoriety for its sheer brutality and oppressiveness.

Amin was born either in Koboko or Kampala to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother. In 1946 he joined the King's African Rifles of the British Colonial Army. Initially a cook, he rose to the position of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels in the Shifta War and then the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. Following Uganda's independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, Amin remained in the armed forces, rising to the position of major and being appointed Commander of the Army in 1965. Aware that Ugandan President Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, Amin launched a 1971 military coup and declared himself President.

During his years in power, Amin shifted from being a pro-western ruler, enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. In 1975, Amin became the chairman of the Organisation of African Unity , a Pan-Africanist group designed to promote solidarity among African states. During the 1977–1979 period, Uganda was a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. In 1977, when the UK broke diplomatic relations with Uganda, Amin declared he had defeated the British and added "CBE", for "Conqueror of the British Empire", to his title. Radio Uganda then announced his entire title: "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE".As Amin's rule progressed into the late 1970s, growing dissent against his persecution of certain ethnic groups and political dissidents, along with Uganda's very poor international standing due to Amin's support for the terrorist hijackers in Operation Entebbe, led to unrest. When Amin attempted to annex Tanzania's Kagera Region in 1978, Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere had his troops invade Uganda; they captured Kampala and ousted Amin from power. Amin then went into exile, first in Libya and then in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death on 16 August 2003.

Amin's rule was characterized by rampant human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000.

✵ 17. May 1925 – 16. August 2003
Idi Amin photo
Idi Amin: 13 quotes14 likes

Famous Idi Amin Quotes

“Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.”

Idi Amin

Quoted in The Evil 100 (2004) by Martin Gilman Wolcott, p. 78.
Attributed

“Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking. I never had any formal education—not even a nursery school certificate. But sometimes I know more than Ph. D. s because as a military man I know how to act. I am a man of action.”

Idi Amin

Appears in Barbet Schroeder (1974), General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait.

“In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.”

Idi Amin

Quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, 1982, Jonathon Green.
Attributed

“Politics is like boxing — you try to knock out your opponents.”

Idi Amin

Interview, African summit talks, Angola, January 1976. Reported p.A8, Palm Beach Post, January 12, 1976.

“You cannot run faster than a bullet.”

Idi Amin

Quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 51.
Attributed

“I am the hero of Africa.”

Idi Amin

Quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, by James Beasley Simpson, p. 1.
Attributed

Idi Amin Quotes

“My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government.”

Idi Amin

Attributed
Source: Quoted in Uganda, the Human Rights Situation (1978), by United States Congress. Senate, p. 13 - Civil rights - 1978.

“His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

Idi Amin

His full, formal title, which he conferred upon himself. Quoted inAfricana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (1999) by Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates
Attributed

“Hitler and all German people knew that the Israelis are not people who are working in the interest of the people of the world and that is why they burnt over six million Jews alive on the soil of Germany. The world should remember that the palestinians, with the assitance of Germany made the operation possible in the Olympic village.”

Idi Amin

Telegram sent to Kurt Waldheim in 1972 after the Munich massacre.
Attributed

“Introduction to a Discovery Channel documentary about Idi Amin.”

Idi Amin

“He is killer and clown, big-hearted buffoon and strutting martinet.”

Idi Amin

Uganda. Amin:The Wild Man of Africa, March 07, 1977, Time magazine.

“Racist, erratic and unpredictable, brutal, inept, bellicose, irrational, ridiculous, and militaristic.”

Idi Amin

About Amin's regime. Telegram 1 From the Embassy in Uganda to the Department of State, January 2, 1973, 0700Z, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Patrick Melady. US Department of State http://web.archive.org/web/20060610225514/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e6/66834.htm.

“Amin is a splendid man by any standards and is held in great respect and affection by his British colleagues. … He is tough and fearless and in the judgment of everybody … completely reliable. Against this he is not very bright and will probably find difficulty in dealing with the administrative side of command.”

Idi Amin

OG Griffith, 1969 despatch on Amin's promotion to major, released by Public Record Office. Amin hailed as splendid, but not very bright, June 23, 2000, Richard Norton Taylor, The Guardian.

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