Real Dictators - Idi Amin Part 2: Warlord In-Waiting...

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

The curtain falls on the British Empire in Africa. Uganda is free. Idi Amin becomes the right-hand man of the nation's new leader, Milton Obote. Committing unspeakable atrocities against civilians, Amin dodges the law and sets himself up as a rogue arms dealer. Obote had better watch his back. A Noiser production, written by Jeff Dawson. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's 1954. A small BOAC Argonaut begins its descent over the East African savannah. From the porthole windows you can just about make out the elephants cantering below, and the hippos bathing in the muddy waters that break up the terrain. In the course of her visit, the passenger on board this plane will have a national park named in her honor. But she's not here to take in the sights and sounds of safari. She has come to East Africa to project power, to show her face in this, one of the tens of territories that make up the Commonwealth. But despite the pomp and ceremony that will accompany Queen Elizabeth's arrival, those

gathered to greet her on the tarmac know that the times they are a-changing and power here is slipping from Britain's grasp. The monarch touches down at Entebbe airport, a place which, years later, will play host to one of the most dramatic scenes of Idi Amin's dictatorship. But right now, in 1954, Idi Amin is miles away from power. Well, in one sense. In another, he's within touching distance of it. He's a soldier, and his regiment will play host to the Queen, Uganda's head of state,

during her visit to the British protectorate. In fact, Amin will even be singled out for commendation for his appearance on parade. In decades to come, as the strongman leader of an independent Uganda, Amin will delight in running rings around the former colonial overlords, because this soldier, perhaps more than anyone else, stands to benefit from the turbulence that is about to shake Uganda to its core. This is part two of the Idi Amin story. And this is Real Dictators. The Protectorate of Uganda has been under the heel of the British since at least 1894. But things are changing now.

Uganda, like neighbouring Kenya, is on the road to self-determination. Nakanyike Musisi is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto. She grew up just outside Kampala and was a student there during Idi Amin's rule. Originally given an English-sounding forename as a child, Nakanyike gave it up in favour of her historic family name. My parents were born during the colonial era. My mother was born in 1929 and my father in 1924. My parents, they don't know anything else. The education system, the cuisine, the dress, what their aspirations are. So my parents were not critical of colonialism. So I had no critique of colonialism

growing up. My parents, they really wanted to upgrade. And they knew if you worked hard, if you planted coffee and cotton and raised cows and did dairy and all of that, then you become rich. Everything British we liked. We wanted the education. We wanted the goods. We wanted everything. I knew that the colonials came. They took over our countries.

They partitioned Africa. I was so proud of being an Anglican. I was so proud of not having gone to the Belugians because we knew that the Belugians cut off people's hands. But then in the university environment, I came to be more critical. And that unsettled me and made me question my Anglicanism and made me question my Anglican name and made me question who I was. And I just decided, no more. I am not this English name.

I am Nakanyike. The Suez Crisis of 1956 is a rude awakening for the mother country. Britain is forced to rethink its role in the world. It is certainly not a superpower. Its international clout pales in comparison to the vast military might of the United States and the Soviet Union. The colossal debt built up during World War II has made Britain's colonies economically unsustainable. In the United Nations and elsewhere, there is a new mood music and a new concept,

decolonization. On February 3, 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, on a visit to Cape Town, makes a landmark speech. He announces that independence will be awarded to all Britain's African possessions. The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not,

this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. And we must all accept it as a fact. And our national policies must take account of it. The cry resounds in Swahili across East Africa and beyond. Uhuru, freedom. It's even felt in Hollywood. A producer named Gene Roddenberry is planning a new science fiction show, Star Trek, about a spaceship bringing liberty to far-flung planets.

The ship's communications officer will be one of American television's first significant black female characters. Her name? Lieutenant Uhura. In Uganda, democratic elections are set for March 1961. Full self-governance will commence the following year. This will set the stage perfectly for Idi Amin's ultimate assault on power. But right now, to him, Ugandan independence seems like a setback.

Amin's success thus far has come entirely under British patronage and within the structure of the colonial armed forces. It is not just the country. The army, too, will be handed back. The 4th Battalion King's African Rifles will become the Uganda Rifles. The complicated ethnic makeup of the military will have long-term implications for this fledgling nation. Professor Derek Peterson Both in Kenya and Uganda, the British viewed Northerners as a kind of more masculine, more warlike, more simple category of person who could be recruited, therefore, into the colonial military. So that's why, at the time of independence, both in Kenya and in Uganda, the military was made up of people who came not from majority tribes or majority peoples who were more fully vested

in the civilian governance of the place, but rather the militaries generally came from places that were on the periphery. In July 1961, in keeping with the transfer, Amin is made a lieutenant. He is one of only two black commissioned officers in the entire army,

along with someone who will turn out to be a long-term rival, a man called Shaban Opalot. The timing of Amin's promotion is extremely convenient for him, for there is a threat to security once again. This time, trouble comes not from rebels, but from cattle rustlers in the Karamojong borderlands of Uganda and Kenya.

In March 1962, it is Lieutenant Amin who is sent to sort out the problem. He does so effectively and uniquely. He threatens to cut off the penis of every male Karamojo refusing to lay down his spear. Northern Uganda and Northern Kenya were both places which the British government in colonial times found it very difficult to govern. Idi Amin's brutality was part of a larger kind of political context in which colonial

government governed the north largely as a military colony, disregarding local people's civil rights, certainly disregarding even their humanity. Dr. Tom Lohman. I think we often have this idea that, oh, after independence, suddenly African leaders and regimes start using the military for their own gain or start using their political office for economic gain. But these things have happened throughout the previous decade. Also, the fact that someone like Amin, who whilst very loyal and very strong and very capable, simply wasn't a literate or sort of bureaucratic man at all in any way, that someone like that can be rapidly placed into senior positions in the Ugandan army after

independence show you how lopsided an institution it was because it had recruited based on strength and loyalty and obedience all these perceived attributes of African soldiers. It had not built capacity as an administrative or bureaucratic organization amongst these soldiers because that had always been done by Europeans and they believed themselves to be the right people to do that. And in the rapid march towards independence, the groundwork to correct that simply wasn't laid. Then, in another incident, under Amin's orders, 118 Turkana tribespeople are killed. They're crowded into cages on top of each other and left to suffocate in the fierce sun.

They're crowded into cages on top of each other and left to suffocate in the fierce sun. For Idi Amin, a court-martial is pending. At the very least, it will mark the end of his military career. In all probability, if found guilty, he will be facing a death sentence. But bringing one of Uganda's new black military stars to book for such a crime The optics are bad Amin is fortunate that the incident gets swept under the carpet Amid the greater upheaval that is about to occur There was an investigation conducted shortly before Ugandan independence

Into what had happened there But it was never the subject of any disciplinary proceedings. The Kenya government was smarting over the bad press it had received during the Mau Mau War and didn't want to reintroduce another story of colonial violence into public life. The Uganda army was disinterested in damaging the reputation of one of its most senior African commissioned officers. So E.D. Amin was not held responsible for what happened there in Turkana. It was plainly a very bloody and inhumane instance in a career that was full of bloody inhumanity. Professor Alicia Decker. Throughout his years in the King's African Rifles, Amin was never really reprimanded for the violence that he committed. In fact, he was celebrated and promoted on numerous occasions. The Ugandan governor at the time said we need to court-martial Amin because of the violence that he's engaged in.

said, okay, you're making a choice not to reprimand him, but in the end, this is something that's going to cost you or something like it's going to come back and bite you in the butt. And those famous words certainly echoed true. The official legend is that Amin's uncompromising style makes him popular with the men. Popular also to the man who has just been elected as Uganda's new prime minister, ready to take over when the British up sticks, a man called Apollo Milton Obote. Obote is a young man too, still in his thirties.

Educated and intellectual, sharp-suited. He has built a reputation as a persuasive anti-colonial orator. As the founder of the Uganda People's Congress, the UPC, he has been a long-time champion of liberation and independence. He's also a fellow Northerner, though not from Amin's tribe, the Kakwa. Milton Obote is from the Langi people. The relationship between these two Northerners will shape decades of Ugandan history.

When they eventually fall out, the effects will ripple out far across the savannah. It's autumn 1962. At the governor's house in the old capital, Entebbe, the Duke and Duchess of Kent arrive for the final display of imperial pomp. It's a good-humoured reception. The mood is celebratory. In the new Africa, one more independent country, the state of Uganda. At Entebbe Airport, Prime Minister Milton Oboti and His Highness the Kabaka wait to greet the Britannia, brings the duke of kent to

represent the queen at the independent celebration at midnight on october the 9th 1962 in a ceremony at the kabaka stadium the union jack is formally lowered uganda and its seven million people are now free. Dr Mark Leopold. I don't think there was very much choice. I think the British, certainly in Africa, had not really prepared for decolonisation. The fact that many of the officers in the army resigned and left the KAR rather than get involved in a transition to independence, they quite clearly had never thought about it.

The idea that Africans might rule themselves had not really occurred to certainly the military side of the operation. of the operation. And then suddenly they're faced with a depleted Britain dependent on US aid and the Americans effectively telling Britain to give up the empire. It was, in a sense, hurried and unprepared for. And in another sense, it was far too late and should have been done long before. far too late and should have been done long before. It certainly would be difficult to justify saying Britain should have kept its African empire longer in order to educate the natives into how to run their country, which was the position taken by some of the British colonial officers at the time. But it's certainly true that it was a rushed and messy affair,

probably because the people who were doing it didn't want to do it and had been forced into it. The army is now under Ugandan control, albeit with a rump of British officers still entrenched in senior positions. Idi Amin has been divested of the shackles of the colonial military hierarchy. He becomes a captain. Idi Amin has been divested of the shackles of the colonial military hierarchy. He becomes a captain. In November 1963, he's promoted to major. A year after independence, Uganda declares itself a full republic, though it maintains its Commonwealth membership and keeps the Queen as head of state, in name at least.

Despite the optimism, there are evident growing pains in this new independent nation. The new Ugandan leader, Milton Obote, wants to pursue a policy of Africanization. This means repatriating government into Ugandan hands. But it's not running entirely smoothly. Professor Mariam Mufti. The gravity of how uneven economic and political development had been in the Ugandan British colony hits home only after the British depart.

And the British justified that to themselves by saying, hey, African nationalism is on the rise and we are giving Africa back to the Africans, and we're doing them a good turn, so to speak, and let them fend for themselves now. They think they can rule themselves better than we ever did, so let them have it. Abote has only just taken office, but already his position is precarious.

It's no surprise that his government is finding independence a challenge. In the absence of the imposed order of colonialism, there is no external force to hold this artificial construct, the Republic of Uganda, together. Take the West Nile, the region from whence Amin hails. It was only added to colonial Uganda in 1912. It had formerly been part of the Belgian Congo, then the Sudan. The frontiers of the Ugandan protectorate were not finalized until 1926. The country, in its present shape, has been around for barely 30 years. A mere blip. Of course, the Ugandan people have a shared historical experience.

But viewing the peoples of East Africa through a narrow colonial lens is to ignore thousands of years of their story. Before the British arrived, the land we call Uganda was a patchwork quilt of independent kingdoms, as well as independent tribal areas. There have been fierce rivalries, sometimes armed conflicts, between Buganda and Bunyoro, between the West Nile tribes on one side and the Lange and Acholi on the other. A few mere decades of British rule were never going to put a stop to that. This new arrangement, Uganda?

It feels, as one commentator puts it, more like an arranged marriage than a genuine love match. Obote's power relies on his ability to balance out different tribal interests. Uganda is now being run according to a federal system. This means regional voices and political groupings are very significant. are very significant. The problem in Uganda, like in many other ex-colonies, is that 70% of the population is occupied in the rural sector, however they generate only 20% of the growth.

Well, that's just problematic. It's problematic, well, because how do you generate the kind of economic growth that is required for an ex-colony to thrive once the colonial master has removed all of its patronage and removed the defensive capacity of the colony. What you've left behind are simmering ethnic identities, people who dislike each other tremendously, and an economic sector that has been ravaged. Abote has barely gotten his feet under the desk. But already there are grumblings, as there are elsewhere within the former East African colonies,

not least in military circles. We're generally agreed that the colonial project itself brings all kinds of problems and creates all kinds of challenges and has a real negative side. At the same time, the speed with which colonialism ends, the process of decolonisation is rapid. Uganda has only been a protectorate for some decades. I think abandonment is actually a very useful term to have in mind here because there is an extent to which this is abandonment.

This is Britain giving up on a project that it had just started in many ways for some of these countries. And whatever the moral questions around it, and these are very important, the long-term effects on nation and state building are undeniably going to be ones that have a damaging effect because you've got institutions that have barely existed for very long. You've got militaries that have only just been formed within which there's only a handful of trained officers that have until now been dominated by British officers who are now gone. So you have extremely unprepared institutions. And this is definitely the case in Uganda. That's not to justify colonialism. It is simply to say

that colonialism set in motion a set of processes that had only been going for a very short time before it was then ostensibly ended. And there will be consequences to that. To demonstrate firm leadership, Abote knows there must be a display of brawn to go with his brains. There is an obvious candidate as his enforcer. In 1964, Idi Amin is promoted to colonel. He is now deputy commander of the Ugandan army. Amin repays the favour immediately.

In January that same year, at Jinja, a place he knows well, there is a mutiny brewing. The soldiers in the barracks there are locked in a wage dispute. They are frustrated too at the pace of transition to African leadership. British troops are on standby in Nairobi, prepared to come to Abote's aid. There is also a company of Royal Marine Commandos waiting on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, just in case.

Calling on aid from the old colonial master would be a humiliation. But it could be necessary, given the circumstances This is make or break for Obote For their part, the rebels are even holding the Minister of the Interior, Felix Onama, hostage They force-feed him cornmeal, their standard ration to make a point They then steal his chauffeur-driven Mercedes and drive it drunkenly around the parade ground. This is the first real test for independent Uganda. The way it's portrayed today, when Amin steps in, the mutiny does not last long. He persuades the men to return to their billets peacefully. The soldiers' pay

demands are met. He even requisitions for them a new set of sprung mattresses, rather than the old boards they were forced to sleep on. Amin, it is said, is a man to whom they are happy to pledge their loyalty. Official records will show that it was not as straightforward as that, and that British troops were summoned anyway. Perception is everything. There were 450 British soldiers who quelled the rebellion, not Idi Amin, absolutely. was part of these regiments and he proved himself to be, supposedly proved himself to be indispensable to quelling the rebellion. I'm not sure precisely what he did or what his role was, but at the end of the mutiny, what ends up happening is a purging and the government responds two days later by dismissing several hundred soldiers from the army,

several of whom were subsequently detained. In July 1967, based on what Idi Amin had done, Milton Abote then creates a military police force under Idi Amin and Amin then becomes Abote's right-hand man. And so Idi Amin remained untouched. You see, so it's not just that he's being rewarded for his violent acts. It's also that his superiors don't know how to, well, get rid of him or to even tame him because, well, he's the only one who's managed to get to this point. Idi Amin is the iron fist inside a bote's velvet glove. They're a good combination, an adept, if odd, couple.

He's relatable, but at the same time, he's not educated. He doesn't walk the walk of the political and economic elites. Really what helps Idi Amin succeed is this kind of, it's been referred to in the literature as a peasant cunning. So he's not intelligent. He's not educated. He's not from the elites. But he is shrewd. And that shrewdness, I think, is coming from having a sense of how to interact and manage with people who, the common people. And certainly does help him succeed. It helps him attract followers.

It helps him build a base. After starting out as a humble cook, Idi Amin, a tribesman from the remote northwest, already wields extraordinary power. It has been a phenomenal ascent for someone from a background such as his. But this is only the beginning. Right now, this partnership with Milton Obote serves Idi Amin's interests. But who's to say how long the arrangement will bear fruit? Obote had better watch his back. At the same time as navigating the tricky political terrain in the new independent country, Prime Minister Obote needs to keep the Bagandan royal family on side.

Uganda, if you remember, was the ancient kingdom around which the British formed Uganda. The Bagandan monarchs, the Kabakas, still carry considerable influence in the country's affairs. still carry considerable influence in the country's affairs. The current kabaka, to give him his full name, is Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luangula Muteza II. Muteza II, for short, or King Freddy, as the British call him. Muteza II is an erudite fellow, a graduate of Magdalen College, Cambridge.

He's an honorary captain in the Grenadier Guards, as well as the grand and official channeler of the power of the sun, the queen termite, and father of all twins. Quite the array of titles and stylings. It was with the cooperation of Muteza II's father that the British were able to establish the protectorate in the first place. In return, the British granted Buganda certain privileges. But with the arrival of Ugandan independence, this old favouritism no longer applies.

The impact of British colonial rule is to draw these very different, very diverse linguistic and ethnic communities together more tightly than ever before. It's not that connections didn't exist between them. I think we always want to be careful. We don't want to treat these groups as too static. But what the British colonial project does is it draws new borders and boundaries around these groups of people and it implants new kinds of institutions onto them and draws them into these institutions. In the Ugandan case,

it's the big, powerful, stratified kingdoms of the South who are overwhelmingly the people that the British Colonial Project collaborates with. The Uganda are almost benefiting in some ways from the establishment of Uganda. It's named after their kingdom. They end up in this very dominant position, this big, powerful southern kingdom. Andin lies a bote's problem the kabaka conducts himself as if he were king of

uganda as a whole he's not slow to speak his mind in 1953 king freddy was even exiled by the british for a couple of years after pushing for greater bagandan autonomy. For a small Faye fellow, he's rather self-important. At Queen Elizabeth II's coronation at Westminster Abbey, he caused a royal stink at being placed behind the Queen of Tonga and the Sultan of Zanzibar in the regal pecking order, though he's made up for it since. At the Ugandan independence ceremony in October 1962, it was Mutesa II who played the

grand host to the British dignitaries, as if he were the father of the new free nation. Such behavior was always going to put the Kabaka on a collision course with Milton Obote. Obote, like his enforcer Idi Amin, is a northerner. He is a member of the Langi ethnic group. His party, the Uganda People's Congress, the UPC, draws its support from the north. It goes against Obote's very soul to cozy up to the Kabaka. He's built his reputation on not being part of the sanctified southern elites. He detests them. But he must bite his lip. But there is a fundamental truth.

No one can rule Uganda without the Kabaka in their pocket. As the old saying goes, better inside the tent than without. A Botez UPC has only secured power by way of a marriage of convenience, a coalition with the Kabaka-Yeka party, the king-only party. In the first free general election, Abote's political rivals, the Democratic Party, actually scored more seats than the UPC. But the Democratic Party refused to play the game of Bagandan exceptionalism.

Plus, they're Catholic. The Bagandans are Protestant. So, despite losing the popular ballot, Abote's UPC was in prime position. He has proved willing to bend to the Kabaka's wishes, to an extent, on the basis that it's allowed him to form a government. It's a pragmatic move,

but one that comes at a price. In October 1963, he creates a new governmental position, a figurehead for the Republic, that of a president, which he awards to Mutesa II. With this title is granted a degree of Bagandan autonomy. This ancient kingdom is being recognized as a somewhat separate entity within this new nation. The Kabaka will act as a ceremonial Ugandan premier, while he, Abote, as prime minister,

will take care of the politics. Abote is keeping everyone happy for the moment. Milton Abote has to strike an alliance with the Bugandans because he realizes that if he is to set the country on a path of national prosperity, well, he has to rely on these so-called agents of imperialism and rely on the very same individuals who had helped to consolidate British colonial rule. These are the individuals who are well-educated. These are individuals who are well-versed in the British tradition of democracy, representation, liberalism, and so forth. And if he is to bring about any kind of economic growth,

he has to rely on people who understand how neoliberalism works. And so he has to form an alliance with the Bugandans. Milton Abote has done it the hard way. He's earned his political spurs and risen through the ranks to head up the independence movement. He's a highly capable political operator. But there is something else about Abote that we will soon learn.

He is utterly corrupt. If you think Idi Amin has been quiet for a while, it's because he's been busy. To the west of Uganda, the jungles are near impenetrable. These remote wilds lie within the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo. But they are beyond governance. Two thousand miles from Congo's own capital, Kinshasa. They've become renowned as a hideout. All sorts of people can stash themselves away up the Congo River and the myriad tributaries

that spring from deep in the unknown. This is a lawless zone and always has been. Perilous trips up the river in gunboats provided the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel Heart of Darkness and its later screen interpretation removed to the jungles of Vietnam Apocalypse Now.

In the mid-1960s, while the real Vietnam War rages there are armed men camped out in the wilds of the Congo. For there is trouble brewing in Uganda's neighbouring state. The old Belgian Congo, under the stewardship of King Leopold, was an exercise in the most brutal kind of colonial rule. But since 1960, the nation has been independent. It is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC. Control of this fledgling state has been seized in a coup by a man named Joseph Desire Mbuto, and he's not been shy in continuing King Leopold's butchery. and he's not been shy in continuing King Leopold's butchery.

Mobutu has been complicit in the execution by firing squad of Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba's supporters, meanwhile, have retreated to the jungles to gather an army. The young soldiers rallying to the cause call themselves Simbas, Lions, and theirs is the Simba Rebellion. Among revolutionaries they are a cause celeb. Even Che Guevara has turned up in the jungle with a cohort of Cuban mercenaries in tow. The Simbas' preference for left-wing ideology is a turn-off for potential backers from the

West. With fear of Cold War contagion, the United States and old overlords Belgium have instead backed Mobutu and the army of the DRC as they hunt down the rebels, pushing deep into the jungle after them, bombing their bases. But the DRC government forces are sloppy. In one incident, they attack two villages which actually lie across the border in Uganda's West Nile district, Idi Amin's home turf. The Simba rebels need arms, and fast. Uganda, which had previously taken a measured approach to the conflict, now has no qualms about supplying them. In late 1964, alongside

the governments of Kenya and Tanzania, they agree to ship in munitions. Though to avoid international controversy, they will do it off the books, supplying the weaponry for goods rather than cash. It's an exchange that is ripe for exploitation. Idi Amin and Milton Obote are about to become embroiled in an old-fashioned political scandal. The Congo gold crisis, as it will be known, will threaten to end Amin's political career before it's even begun. The Congolese gold issue was basically about Milton Obote and Amin's political career before it's even begun. The Congolese gold issue was basically about Milton Obote and Amin using the Uganda army to extract mineral wealth from the eastern Congo for their private enrichment. It was an important episode showing how Amin had kind of instrumentalized

military power. Obote is increasingly obliged in some sense to bend the knee to Amin's military ambitions. The new parliament building in Kampala, home of the National Assembly, is a striking piece of concrete brutalist architecture. In late 1965, there is a fevered buzz echoing around its cavernous halls. A Kabaka Yeka MP has brought before the National Assembly an extraordinary piece of information. Back in February, it is revealed, Colonel Idi Amin opened an account with the Ottoman Bank.

24 days later, 340,000 Ugandan shillings were deposited into it. More than a man of his rank can earn in a decade. This detail has been uncovered by the Kenyan authorities. They've just seized an illegal shipment of 75 tons of Chinese military hardware, being transported across their territory to Uganda. Not part of any agreed supply plan. A secret investigation probes further. Insights are corroborated by the Simba military commanders in the Congo.

Colonel Idi Amin, seemingly with Abote's backing has not just pocketed cash from an arms sale he's built a massive smuggling network. He has been selling on weaponry personally in return for shipments of gold, ivory and coffee. He is effectively a rogue arms dealer, and a rather successful one at that. The president, Mutesa II, King Freddy, demands an official inquiry. Armed with its damning conclusion, he declares that Abote is complicit

in the scandal, and thus illegitimate as Prime Minister. Uganda is plunged into a huge political crisis. Abote appears unconcerned. He denies any wrongdoing. Conveniently, he dispatches Amin out of town and takes

a break himself. But the Kabaka, the president, is not going to let this slide. In February 1966, with Abote away, the issue is put to the floor of the National Assembly. Presented to the House by the Kabaka-Yeka Party, it is called the Gold Allegations Motion. It is called the Gold Allegations Motion. Abote and two of his cabinet ministers are directly implicated in Amin's scam, it is declared. They must go, and go now. On his return to the capital, Abote goes on the offensive.

The gold allegation is just a shameless Bagandan plot, he claims. He commissions an inquiry of his own and orders the arrest of five of the Kabaka's loyalist ministers. He puts troops on the street. On a row, Abote goes further. On March the 3rd, he suspends the constitution and the National Assembly. The next day, he declares himself president. The Kabaka is not going to take this lying down. On May 20th, he gives Obote's government 10 days to remove themselves from his kingdom.

This is a tricky proposition given that Kampala is the capital of the republic as a whole. The Kabaka assembles a personal militia to guard himself, and gives the order to eject Abote and Amin from office. Loyalists set up barricades, roadblocks, they wave machetes. It's as if Buganda has declared unilateral independence. But the Kabaka has played his hand badly. He comes across as someone sowing chaos, not upholding order. Abote wastes no time in depicting him as a rogue force, a man leading an armed insurrection

against the authority of a legal sovereign state. Neither side is backing down. It's a deadlock. But Abote has one more card to play. Just days later, at Abote's behest, a column of armoured vehicles winds its way up one of Kampala's seven hills. Standing up in the lead jeep is Colonel Idi Amin, preening like a military commander straight out of central casting.

He is on his way to kick out the Kabaka by fair means or foul. And if he can't take him alive, then Idi Amin will bring him in dead. In the next episode of Real Dictators, Amin wages war on Buganda's king as the Aboti administration firms up its grip on power. But all is not well. After Aboti survives an assassination attempt by mere inches, rumors will swirl as to the identity of the perpetrator. The two old allies will become nemeses as Idi Amin shapes up as Abote's main rival and prepares to

make his own grab for power. That's next time on Real Dictators.