Africa's worst dictator!

I watched a documentary of the rule of one of Africa's worst dictators, Idi Amin. Aan who thought he was invincible but his end came like a cock coming home to the roost. Yes! The day Idi Amin met his fate was on the 11th April 1979, this is the day when he was deposed as president of Uganda after his attempt to annex part of Tanzania backfired. Amin undermined the power of the Tanzanian Defence Forces much to his peril. The former stooge of Imperial Britain who , in 1971 had seized power from socialist Prime Minister Milton Obote , was forced to flee for his life by helicopter. And so at last ended the eight- year reign of one of the most brutal dictators of the twentieth century. This puffed - up beefy despot who came to be known as the “ Butcher of Africa ” was responsible for the deaths of up to half - a-million people .

Like Joseph Stalin , he cynically and callously eliminated all real and imagined opponents – including the former chief justice , the Anglican archbishop , the governor of the Central Bank , the vice chancellor of Makerere University and other prominent members of Uganda's intelligentsia, as well several of his own cabinet ministers.
Like Adolf Hitler, he engaged in widespread ethnic cleansing – systematically murdering rival tribes and ordering the expulsion of some 80, 000 Ugandan Asians . Add to that gruesome mix an army of 15, 000 henchmen trained and ordered to rape and pillage in the name of “ peace keeping”, a policy of live televised executions to instill fear into the populace , a sledge hammer to the head for political prisoners and even the alleged murder of his ex - wife . So sadistic was Amin that for years he kept a photographic collection of his mutilated victims, and was said to preserve the lifeless heads of some of his most powerful adversaries in the refrigerator at the presidential palace. So staggering was Amin's death toll that bodies were dumped en masse into the crocodile - infested Nile because graves couldn't be dug fast enough. As the self - proclaimed “ President of Uganda for Life”, “Lord of All Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular” and, famously , “ King of Scotland”, Idi Amin was initially embraced by Britain , America and Israel. But even when his atrocities against humanity could no longer be ignored , the international community failed to intervene. Instead, during his time in power , Amin was light - heartedly portrayed in the West as a comic and eccentric figure. Unbelievably, inexplicably, there was and has never been an attempt by the International Criminal Court to bring Amin to justice. The OAU behaved like a sweet mama pacifying its aberrant child. When his rule came to an abrupt end he was allowed a brief stay in Libya, he was allowed to live out his days as a guest with several wives and at least 30 children in all -expenses -paid luxury in Saudi Arabia. At any time up until his death in 2003, any nation, including Saudi Arabia could have prosecuted Amin and held him accountable under international law, but, no one was willing to hold the dictator accountable. Maybe this adage explains it much better, "If you kill one person, you go to jail, if you kill twenty, you go to an institution for the insane, if you kill twenty thousand you get political asylum. Such is the nature of African politics. There are several others who have killed but the got away with it. Thousands died in Rwanda during 1994 genocide, thousands died during the Gukurahundi epoch in the Zimbabwe, thousands have died in post election violence in a considerable number of African countries. My premise is, are those responsible so invincible to such an next that even the regional and international justice system can not hold them accountable? It is as clear as a pikestaff that such people have created a bad precedent which is being followed by today's leaders. A new crop of dictators has been bred in Africa, and lawlessness is being tolerated by the African Union and other regional blocs. Yoweri Museveni is tormenting opposition members in his country, human rights and political activists are disappearing without trace in Zimbabwe, Omar al-Bashir was allowed to attend a summit in South Africa and was assisted to leave the country by the South African government despite the fact that he was on the run for gross human rights violations in his country, the South African government's police massacred striking miners at Marikana Mine with impunity. The list is endless. What then should be done?