Real Dictators - Idi Amin Part 6: The Entebbe Raid

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Four Israeli jets descend on Uganda under cover of night. An audacious commando mission begins. It will spark the beginning of the end for Idi Amin. After a fatally ill-judged war with Tanzania, the tyrant will be ousted. Leaving a grim legacy behind him, he’ll begin a surreal retirement thousands of miles away. 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

TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It's June the 27th, 1976. just after 12.30pm local time. An Airbus belonging to Air France, flight AF139, takes off from Athens airport. Athens is a stopover on the route from Tel Aviv to Paris. So far, so good. It's a routine, uneventful journey.

But within seconds, all that will change. Because among the 248 passengers on board, there are four young people just picked up in Greece, who are about to turn this flight into a living hell. turn this flight into a living hell. This is the final part of the Idi Amin story. And this is Real Dictators. The plane levels out. The passengers are still strapped in, their trays still up. A young man and woman leap from their seats, brandishing handguns. Their names are

Wilfred Boser and Brigitte Kuhlmann, both West German, members of a revolutionary group linked to the notorious Red Army faction. Further back down the rows, two colleagues do the same. They are part of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They bark at the passengers to keep calm, a somewhat ironic statement given the circumstances. Hearing the commotion, the co-pilot leaves his seat and heads back to the main cabin. Bosa seizes his opportunity and forces his way onto the flight deck. He's calm and assured. He explains that he is a qualified pilot himself,

should the captain try anything funny, and that flight AF139 is now under his control. At gunpoint, he instructs the captain to radio ahead and to set a new course for Benghazi, Libya. Colonel Gaddafi's Libya. Two hours later, flight AF139 is touching down. In Benghazi, the passengers endure an agonizing wait. The plane is refueled and various negotiations occur, resulting in the removal of a young pregnant woman who seems to be on the verge of a miscarriage. Seven hours later, they're airborne again. It will be a long, disturbing night.

A red-eye flight in every sense. The perceptive ones know that they are now heading south. They've been told to keep the shades down, but there is still the odd furtive peek into the morning sunlight. From the greenery and rolling hills, they're heading deep into the heart of Africa. There's no mistaking the danger presented by the hijackers, but the leader, Bozer, appears polite. He answers questions respectfully and repeats the mantra to the terrified passengers, that if everyone complies, things will work out all right.

Bozer and Kuhlman refer to themselves as Mr. and Miss Hijacker. All anyone can glean is that they are enacting a plan, something called Haifa One. They are making a plan, something called Haifa One. More than 24 hours after their ordeal began, at 3.15 local time, the passengers find themselves disembarking onto a concrete runway next to a huge lake. The name is emblazoned on the side of the terminal, Entebbe. They're in Uganda. When they see soldiers lining the runway, there's a sigh of relief.

It seems that this whole thing, whatever this thing is, has been resolved. But they're wrong. This is the Uganda of Idi Amin. Their ordeal is only just beginning. Under the watch of the troops, they are herded into an old passenger hall in a disused part of the terminal. Here, more colleagues of Boza are waiting. A radio is made available, from which Boza broadcasts his demands to the world. He and his revolutionary comrades want $5 million in cash, as well as the release of 53 Palestinians currently being held in Israel and other Western countries. Fail to comply and they will begin executing the hostages on July 1st, just three days

time, one every hour from the turn of midnight. In Tel Aviv, an emergency cabinet meeting is convened. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin seeks advice from American President Gerald Ford. Calls are put through to London and Paris. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, shaping up as the go-to Arab leader, is proposed as peacemaker. Though when his advances are rebuffed by Boza, things are set back. Sadat appeals to Yasser Arafat, head of the PLO. He was the inadvertent best man at Idi Amin's fifth wedding. If anyone can sweet-talk the hijackers, he can. Arafat puts a special envoy on a plane

to Uganda right away. But even his advances are rejected. The options seem to be running out. The protracted nature of Arafat's talks does, however, buy some time. Israel asks for a week. The terrorists give them six days. From now until July 4th. So where does Idi Amin figure in all this? The plane is sitting on his runway.

Did he know of the operation in advance? Is he in cahoots with Colonel Gaddafi on this? Or has he just seized upon the hijacking for a piece of political theatre? Amin is certainly loving the attention. Across the first four days of the Entebbe crisis Uganda's president for life shows up every day His motorcade rolling across the tarmac He makes a great play before the assembled world media

boasting of his work in resolving the crisis He even cracks a few jokes to the bemused hostages But Amin's self-appointed role as mediator is a sham When he brags that he's doing everything he can to help the hostages All he has actually facilitated is the delivery of some water, blankets and a stack of cheap mattresses Whether Amin has a hand in the next move is doubtful But on June the 30th, in a purported show of mercy, the gunmen agree to let some passengers go, the elderly, the sick, and

the children. One hundred and forty-eight are released in total, in two batches. They are flown out on a charter flight to Paris. But they are, pointedly, the Gentiles. The Israeli passport holders have been separated off, shoved into a filthy, dilapidated room, accessed only through a hole knocked through a wall. As a point of honour, the twelve French aircrew choose to remain with them. A joint British-Israeli citizen, Dora Bloch, aged 74, has the misfortune to choke on a

chicken bone in one of the meager meals that is brought in. She is whisked off to Mulago Hospital, becoming the 149th hostage to be freed. Far away in the Middle East, officers of the Israeli Defense Force crack on with their planning. It is decided, they will mount a top secret mission, a special ops raid to rescue the hostages. It will be a huge gamble. Only four years ago, an attempt to save abducted athletes at the Munich Olympics ended in disaster.

Their initial plan is to fly in a crack commando team over Lake Victoria, drop them into the water and have them mount their attack via rubber assault rafts. There's a two-fold problem here. One, Lake Victoria is infested with particularly ferocious crocodiles. Two, releasing the hostages is all well and good, but into whose hands? Idi Amin's? He is proving anything but reliable. No, the 106 remaining hostages must not only be rescued, they must be spirited away. The military strategists work on a plan involving four big military transports.

These Hercules aircraft, as they're known, can not only carry troops, but deliver a small contingent of vehicles and armored cars. They can land a small task force right there on the runway. Getting the planes into Uganda undetected will not be easy. They will have to pass through the radar zones of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, amongst others, and violate the airspace of Sudan and Ethiopia. They will have to fly under 100 feet off the ground the whole way, at night, blind, at 400 miles per hour, for almost 2,500 miles.

A return trip such as this cannot be done without refueling. They'll need a friendly East African nation in which to put the planes down on the return. After negotiations behind the scenes, Kenya grants permission. Meanwhile, the released hostages are debriefed by Israel's intelligence services Mossad. One of the individuals freed is an ex-serviceman. He has an extraordinary military-trained memory. He's able to flesh out a detailed picture of the terminal, of the kidnappers, their weaponry and everything else.

A friendly contact in Kenya flies his small private plane close to Entebbe and sends back recon pictures. And then there are the Israeli engineers who helped extend Entebbe Airport for the Ugandans in the 1960s. They rustle up the old blueprints. On July 3rd, at 6.30pm, as late as they can delay the decision, Operation Thunderbolt gets the green light.

Five hours later, the four Hercules skim in over Lake Victoria, landing ramps open and ready. There is the crackle of a tropical storm, lightning on the horizon, a sense of menace in the air. One of the planes almost overshoots the runway in the darkness, but everything else has been planned to perfection. The mission employs a piece of trickery. Out of the first Hercules rolls a black Cadillac limousine, dressed up with the Ugandan national emblem, the crested crane. Behind it come two land rovers adorned with flags. They are masquerading as Idi Amin's presidential motorcade.

Amin has, in fact, had to leave Uganda temporarily. He's had to forgo his negotiations to dash to an international summit in Mauritius and put in a brief appearance. But he could be returning at any time, and he has a history of unannounced pop-ins. This gives the raiders the perfect cover. In the limo rides Lieutenant Colonel Yoni Netanyahu, leader of the hit squad charged with entering the terminal, while the other troop contingents secure the airport. When they approach a checkpoint, two Ugandan guards stop them.

They are taken out by rifles with silencers. But the element of surprise has been lost. The lead squad presses on. Outnumbered at least ten to one, they make their way into the terminal exactly as planned. The hostages, hearing gunfire outside, are thrown into confusion. But a voice barks at them in Hebrew and in English, urging them to stay down. This is a rescue mission. One young man, overjoyed at the news, stands up.

He's swiftly gunned down, one of three hostages who will die in the course of the mission. As the kidnappers are identified, one of the terrorists tosses a grenade, though it explodes ineffectually. The mysterious Wilfred Boese appears. He seems to have had a last-minute change of heart. He urges the hostages to take cover before being shot dead himself. The remaining kidnappers are found hiding in a side room, where they too are swiftly dispatched. The released hostages, under instruction, hold hands, forming a daisy chain.

They snake their way across the runway to the waiting planes. As they do so, Lieutenant Colonel Netanyahu is fatally wounded. The sole Israeli military casualty, shot by Ugandan soldiers, now positioned on the control tower. Armoured cars are wheeled around to take them out, before turning their firepower on the Ugandan fighter jets on the adjacent military airstrip. Eleven aircraft are destroyed.

Soon the four Hercules are in the air again. The whole raid has taken just 53 minutes. The clock ticks over to July the 4th. It's been completed within a whisker of the deadline. As the planes cross into Kenyan airspace, one of the pilots switches on his long-wave radio. On news stations around the world, the raid is already being reported, and as a stunning success. In the days that follow, some nations, led by Libya, protest to the UN that the Israeli mission is an illegal act. The Organization of African Unity, too, is outraged.

Israel counters by citing Ugandan compliance in the terrorist scheme. Meanwhile, its Western allies express their admiration. To say that Idi Amin is furious is an understatement. Not only has he lost around 40 soldiers and a prized chunk of his air force, but he's also been utterly humiliated on the world stage he was hoping to dominate. The officers in charge of Entebbe's defence, it turns out, were off drinking at the nearby Victoria Hotel. Tebbe's defense, it turns out, were off drinking at the nearby Victoria Hotel.

That it all happened in Amin's absence makes him look an even bigger fool. He lashes out. Fourteen soldiers are branded as Israeli co-conspirators. They're taken off to a barracks room and shot. At Mulago Hospital, the elderly Dora Bloch, hostage number 149, has just undergone surgery. In the most spiteful twist of the story, she is dragged from her bed and beaten to death. The medical staff who tended to her are also killed. Bloch's body is bundled into the boot of a car and dumped in a sugar plantation 20 miles outside Kampala. Her remains will be uncovered there in 1979.

A similar grisly end is reserved for 245 Kenyans living in Uganda. A further 3,000 of their compatriots are sent fleeing back to their homeland. Kenya in turn cuts off Ugandan access to its ports. The Americans move a naval carrier group to sit off the East African coast, just in case Amin decides to take on Kenya itself. Kenya's Minister of Agriculture, Bruce McKenzie, who encouraged his country's backing for the raid, will die in 1978. After a conciliatory meeting with Amin, his plane blows up after a bomb is placed on board. In August 1976, at Uganda's Makarere University, Amin's troops move in and kill a number

of students, for no other reason than they are seemingly of a protesting inclination. If the Entebbe raid was the first domino, then the stack is now falling. Nakanyike Musisi was a student in Kampala at the time. In 76, we demonstrated. We saw the military come in and they were shooting. One of our colleagues was shot. You know, we saw. But what we did was to continue our demonstration,

shaming the administration that had called in the military. We become underground. We become subversive. We would write. We would document what has taken place. We would squeeze lime or lemon. If you put lemon in a fountain pen and write, it looks like it's plain paper. So at night, someone has to put a light here and then they can be able to read. And so we would write and send out subversive messages to our friends or abroad.

Idi Amin even rocks up in person, addressing Nakenike's university. He came and promised that they were going to look into our issues. Idi Amin was a clown. He was very good at acting. And we cooled down. At that moment, my sister told me to leave the university as a resident, stay with her, because now she knew that I was an activist. In Israel, meanwhile, the Entebbe raid is received as a resounding victory.

Lieutenant Colonel Netanyahu becomes a posthumous national hero. His younger brother, Benjamin, himself a special forces captain, will, in 1996, become Israel's youngest ever prime minister. Dr. Tom Lohman. The success of the raid is so substantial and shows up the Ugandan army so enormously that it's a period of enormous embarrassment for Amin. By the late 70s, internally, Amin is in a very precarious position already. News about violence, news about killings has already spread. In the aftermath of Entebbe, you see further violence. And one of the worst and most violent years of Amin's reign

is 1977 in the immediate aftermath. In response to the hostage crisis and the murder of Dora Bloch, both Britain and Israel break off diplomatic relations. There is wide condemnation and huge questions left begging as to Idi Amin's role in the whole debacle. What the hell was he thinking? Dr Mark Leopold. I'm not sure that he realised what a big deal it was internationally

Hijackings weren't that uncommon at that period From our perspective it seems extraordinary But it was quite a feature of the time I suspect he didn't really quite grasp what issues were at stake in it And quite possibly didn't take it as seriously as he would have been wise to. The whole thing has become another of these totally mythicized tales. There are just so many books and stories about it.

It's become a very central story in the creation of the State of Israel and in its history in all kinds of ways, not least because of the rise of Netanyahu. The Israeli assault on Antebe Airport was, for Amin, an opportunity really to demonstrate that, in fact, his government was involved in a kind of frontline struggle against Zionism, against Israeli imperialism, against outside influences. The weeks and months immediately following July 1976, within Uganda, there's a kind of campaign to make those who died in Entebbe into martyrs. The Uganda government organizes a fundraising campaign in which Ugandans are invited to donate to benefit

the families of those who were killed. They're buried with big public ceremonies in places of honor. There's a wave of letters in the government archives in which earnest Ugandans say, right, we're going to join the struggle, you know, send us where you want, whether to Rhodesia or to South Africa or to the Middle East theater to carry on the struggle that's been opened up in July 76. For some, Amin may remain a heroic figure in a global war against imperialism. For many, he's losing the plot. Amin continues to bluff it out. He resorts to the old crutch, riffing on the anti-colonial theme.

I have been honoured by the highest order, the conqueror of British imperialism in Uganda, he repeats. But it all rings rather hollow now. It's generally accepted that Amin never set out with the grand design of ruling Uganda, and even when he did take power, he only meant to do so temporarily. But the fact is that once he got his size 14 boots under the desk, he rather liked it. There is a certain truism with dictators.

The more you kill, the more you need to kill. To the point where Stalin's old maxim comes to pass. One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. But it's simply impossible to eliminate your opposition in its entirety. Murdering your own citizens merely amplifies the fear. The chaos, creates more resentment, more opposition. Professor Alicia Decker. So many people at this point had been empowered to use violence in various ways. He created so many different types of secret security forces or paramilitary forces. There were so many weapons in circulation. So many people had different alliances that he really lost control of the state. and so many people had different alliances that he really lost control of the state.

Though they're played down, there are actually a number of attempts on Amin's life. In 1975, his car was forced off the road on the outskirts of Kampala, resulting in him breaking his wrist. In June 1976, grenades and shots were aimed at his motorcade as he attended a passing out parade at a barracks in Kampala. Such things merely perpetuate the vicious cycle. I guess it's a question of just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. And there were certainly plenty of people who were out to get Idi Amin.

In principle, he was still the president, he still had the army, he still had the monopoly over the means of violence. But it must have been increasingly clear to him that he wasn't really in control. Plus, when you've come this far, when you have that much blood on your hands, leaving office is simply not an option anymore.

Staying in power is the only thing that matters, an end in itself. A characteristic of many a brutal tyrant is that they are never involved in the tawdry business of ending people's lives. Thuggish associates and rogue underlings take care of that. True, Amin is always careful to cover his tracks. But here's the difference with Idi Amin. Not only does he get involved in the killing personally, he rather seems to enjoy it. If ever there was a man of peace, Archbishop Janani Luwum it is.

From his origins in a humble village among the Acholi people, he starts out as a teacher. By 1974, he has risen to the very highest position within his church, Archbishop of the metropolitan province of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Boga. In February 1977, Archbishop Luwum commits his thoughts to paper. He writes a lengthy, considered letter of protest to Idi Amin, urging him to take pause, to bring an end to the senseless cycle of violence. On February 16th, Luwum is arrested, alongside two of Amin's own cabinet ministers. They had the courage to add their names as signatories. Luwem is arrested, alongside two of Amin's own cabinet ministers.

They had the courage to add their names as signatories. Now they are charged with high treason. They are agents of Milton Abote, it is declared. The men are brought to the plush Nile Hotel, where 2,000 soldiers and TV cameras await. Laid out on the lawn is a massive cache of weaponry, the alleged arsenal with which the Archbishop was set to overthrow Amin. It's the epitome of a kangaroo court. The bemused Archbishop, dressed in his full clerical regalia, is forced to read a confession. When asked what to do with the archbishop and his partners,

the scripted cry from the soldiers goes up. Kinja yeye. Kill them. For about an hour, a civilian read out a letter which was supposedly written by Milton Obote in exile, laying out plans with the archbishop to organize an insurrection against Idi Amin's regime. The reading out of that letter itself is a remarkable piece of theater. The man who's reading the letter himself had been physically abused. At one point, he faints as he's reading the letter. He's so overcome with fear and emotion.

The sound recording tells us that a soldier came up behind him and kind of revived him and eventually propped him up back on his feet. Many Ugandans are on tenterhooks as to whether Amin will go through with the sentence. Then the next day, Radio Uganda reports an extraordinary piece of news. Archbishop Luwum and the two cabinet ministers have been killed in a car crash. In a remarkable turn of events, as the newsreader describes, the three men apparently tried to overpower the driver on their way to the detention centre. The car ran off the road during the struggle.

It seems a highly convenient outcome to say the least. While the bodies are never released to the public, those that do view them claim that the broken bones and bruises are more consistent with severe beatings than anything arising from this staged accident. Moreover, the corpses are riddled with bullets. The Archbishop has been shot in the face. More accurate stories start leaking, later confirmed by witnesses.

After the rally, the three men were carted off to an army barracks, where they were beaten almost to death, then summarily executed. And the most potent rumour of all, it was Idi Amin who pulled the trigger personally on the Archbishop, firing the fatal shot. For many Ugandans, certainly in the deeply Christian South, the murder of their religious leader is beyond the pale,

and that it could come at the direct hand of their own president. Archbishop Janani Luwum will swiftly become a martyr. In present-day Uganda, February the 16th is a national day of commemoration. There is a statue dedicated in his honour at London's Westminster Abbey. His death has a galvanising influence. There are international boycotts. The US ditches Ugandan coffee and stops supplying the country with oil. Dissident groups abroad are emboldened. And, in Tanzania, the Ugandan exiles start to coalesce around a far more unified political group, the Uganda National Liberation Front. Bizarrely, in 1977, Amin is appointed to the UN Human Rights Commission,

which gives him scope for some last-ditch moral grandstanding. Big Daddy offers to go and kick the Boers out of South Africa, which gets a few laughs. He offers his commiserations to Richard Nixon over Watergate, which gets a few more. In June 1977, there's a sudden panic in the UK, as Amin declares that he is going to drop in on the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations. Extraordinary measures are taken to head him off at the airports. Virtually every department sent representatives to a committee for getting rid of him.

There were rules of engagement for the army on who they could fire at if he actually landed somewhere. There were rules for what happened if he came in on a commercial airliner. It tied up dozens and dozens of civil servants for about three months. And of course, he never turned up at all. The whole thing was a wind-up from the start, quite clearly.

Amin, as ever, is just toying with his old foe. He rides it out again, just. It's right around that time that there's a frost in Brazil, which kills the coffee crop, which sends the price of coffee globally through the roof, and which means that in 1977 and 1978, Ugandan coffee farmers and coffee marketing boards enjoy a huge, huge windfall. The Ugandan economy pulled itself out of the recessions of the early 70s in large part because of the successes of the coffee

industry in those days. Amin still has friends. The Eastern Bloc and Arab states continue to supply money and arms. Cuba opens up an embassy in Kampala. But while cash continues to be diverted for military purposes, Uganda is in a sorry state. Financing the army has come at the expense of the nation's education system, its transport, its infrastructure. Throw in the collapse of the business class following the Asian expulsion, and Uganda is falling apart. By this point, Amin is said by some to be a functioning alcoholic. Certainly he is a bloated figure, sitting around drinking crème de cacao and nursing bouts of gout, another rumour puts his crazed mental state down to syphilis.

There is one way to revitalise Uganda, to rally the people, to test his army's mettle, to relaunch himself, and that is to start a war. The border region of Kagera, nestled between Uganda and Tanzania, has long been a contested zone. It lies within northwest Tanzania, but a portion of the land sits north of the river which serves as a natural dividing line between the two countries. Laying claim to this territory, the Kagera Salient as it is known, has served Idi Amin well over the years. He's founded a useful dispute to wheel out any time conflict with his Tanzanian

neighbours is required. Quite why Uganda should be provoking Tanzania into a war is a good question. Granted, in 1972, Amin saw off a People's Army invasion launched by Ugandan exiles from across the very same border. But that was an untrained, rag-tag army of refugees. It didn't come with the backing of the significant Tanzanian armed forces. Stirring up trouble in Kagera could lead to another victory for Uganda. Amin might even quash his exiled nemesis Milton Obote once and for all. But there's every suggestion this time that the result could go the other way. In early October 1978, Amin's men begin mounting light raids into the region,

killing a few here and there, trying to goad Tanzania into a reaction. Unfortunately for Big Daddy, the impact of his army purges is about to be laid bare. By now, three-quarters of Amin's cabinet members are from his Kakwa tribe and associated northern peoples, as are 60% of the army's top ranks. northern peoples, as are 60% of the army's top ranks. But at a certain point, Amin's supply pool of northerners ran dry. Gaps have had to be plugged with recruits from the Congo and Sudan, effectively mercenaries. This is not a well-oiled machine. Indeed, there are suggestions later that the Kagera incursion may not be by design at all. Some say that crossing into Tanzania may have come about after a bar fight between Ugandan

and Tanzanian soldiers, maybe even as a consequence of a scrap between women at a local market. It was Napoleon who decreed that he'd take a lucky general over an able one. He'd have been impressed with Idi Amin. When the Ugandan troops cross the border, they find, to their amazement, that they've caught the Tanzanians napping. On October 25th, meeting little resistance, Amin ups the conflict to a full-scale military invasion. Ugandan MiGs, the ones that didn't get destroyed during the Entebbe raid, make noisy but ineffectual bombing raids against clumps of banana trees. At the same time, World War II-era tanks rumble enthusiastically into enemy territory. The ill-discipline, however, is starting to show.

enemy territory. The ill-discipline, however, is starting to show. About 1,500 Tanzanian civilians are killed, homes are looted, cars and cattle stolen. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere bides his time, awaiting his moment. On November 2nd, he declares war against Uganda. This time, the Tanzania People's Defence Force has its act together. The Ugandans prove no match. By January 1979, the Kagera salient has been reclaimed by Tanzania. Idi Amin is left making a mealy-mouthed pronouncement about his own army's withdrawal. If the Entebbe raid made him look foolish, now for the first time he's sounding weak.

By the late 70s Amin is under threat from all sorts of directions. Amin appoints a vice president, a man called Mustafa Adresi, who is another soldier who's quite senior from West Nile. Mustafa Adresi then has a car accident and is quite badly hurt. And in the aftermath of that, pro-Adresi soldiers decide that was probably an attempt to kill him, an attempt by others in Amin's circle to get rid of him. This prompts more inter-army fighting. And Julius Nueri, who's no fan of Amin whatsoever,

very much seizes the opportunity to oust Amin with both hands. Amin offers a unique solution to solving the dispute with Tanzania. He will fight Nyerere in a boxing match, to be refereed by none other than Muhammad Ali. But the jokes are wearing thin. The Soviet Union soon abandons its military support. With Amin refusing to relinquish his claim to the territory, Nyerere goes for broke. The Tanzanian army pushes on into Uganda.

As they trudge over the border, they find evidence of slaughter that is none of their own doing. Ugandan soldiers have been killing civilians and each other. Even the Libyan mercenaries that Colonel Gaddafi sent in to shore up the defences have fled. This is an army in disarray and in retreat. The locals greet the Tanzanians as liberators. Masaka, the first significant town, falls in February. By April 1979, Entebbe and its airport succumbs. Tanzanian troops, alongside their Ugandan rebel allies, enter Kampala on the 10th of the month.

Nyerere doesn't stop until he's in Kampala and he's kicked Amin's army out. The Ugandan army kind of collapses in on itself and runs away basically. And Amin's soldiers do the same, run back to West Nile, and then are chased essentially over the borders and into Sudan, where many of them live in exile for years afterwards. It's the archetypal collapse of the regime in on itself. The circle of people Amin has contrasted, shrunk and shrunk and shrunk, to the point that even the people within the groups of soldiers who first put him in power don't believe in him

and don't really want him there anymore. It is the end for Idi Amin. With Tanzanian planes now bombing the Naka Seru district, home of the State House and his State Research Bureau, he's on the run. After the fall of Kampala, Amin is forcibly restrained by his guards, who deny his wish to die in battle. Instead, he's helicoptered first to Jinja, where he tries to make a last stand, then onto his home turf of the West Nile.

Even when he had been ousted, he would still go onto the radio. He was in Jinja, where he announced on the radio, "'This is General Amin. I'm still in power. Don't listen to the false narratives that are coming out of Kampala. Everything's under control. Everything's fine. There's a funny series of newspaper articles where he said, no problem. Things are a little bit tense, but just everything's under control. Just relax, enjoy your life. And he even made a comment about saying how housewives are very excited that there's a state of emergency declared because now their husbands are staying home with them and they get all this quality time. And so see, this is actually really

a good thing. And so he was the king of spin. You know, sometimes you read these newspaper articles and you laugh out loud. On April the 23rd, at Aroura in the West Nile, a Libyan aircraft arrives to whisk him away. He will never return. There were scenes of jubilation throughout Uganda. There were parades, people waving branches along the road. It's plain that for many people in Kampala, the Tanzanian conquest of the city was an opportunity. There was a lot of looting. Lots of people took advantage of the opportunities of the time

to enrich themselves, that is, and to get hold of things that had been in short supply under the previous administration. Idi Amin, Big Daddy, is given refuge in Tripoli by his old pal, Muammar Gaddafi. Amin doesn't last long in Libya, just a few months. By 1980, he's holed up in Saudi Arabia. He's given the top two floors of a local Novotel. He survives on the dollar of the Saudi

royals, provided with an income to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble. Not long after his arrival, a BBC television crew visits him. He sits casually, a neat silk cravat around his neck, explaining how the Ugandan people love him and that he's ready to come back. They want me to save them from the chaos situation that is now happening in Uganda, he says. His current situation is merely a tactical withdrawal. he says. His current situation is merely a tactical withdrawal. I am not rich. If you check all banks all over the world, you will never find account belong to me because I work for the people of Uganda. If ordinary Ugandans believe they've seen the worst of it, they've got another thing coming. Professor Lule, who was the first of several people to occupy the presidency, enjoyed the support of Buganda.

He was the first president of Uganda to be a Muganda, to be from the Buganda kingdom. He was succeeded by another Muganda, Godfrey Binaisa. He was succeeded by another Muganda, Godfrey Binaissa. Godfrey Binaissa stayed on as president for some time in 1979 into 1980 when he was displaced by the chair of the Electoral Commission, a man named Paulo Mwanga. This period of 1980 is a very confusing time. There were a whole number of different people exercising legal and political power. Binaissa was a man of the moment who recognized the historic need to deal with the traumas of the 70s. His removal from power by Paula Mwanga and his colleagues,

I think, was a tragedy for Uganda's future because that reckoning has never happened. That reckoning with what happened in the 70s never really took place in the years following Amin's overthrow. A year later, Milton Obote is back in Uganda. After a rigged election, he resumes power in December 1980. This ushers in a period known by Ugandans as Obote II, a particularly egregious sequel, during which time, by some estimates, more Ugandans are killed than ever they were under Idi Amin.

Amin fitted the model. Yes, of course, he was a nasty dictator. On the other hand, he was probably, to say the least, no worse than some of the other leaders Uganda has had. And he certainly wasn't the worst dictator in Africa at the time in terms of the number of people he killed, imprisoned and so on. And yet he's gone down in history as the archetypal African dictator, which I think is fundamentally to do with the way he appeared to be so very African, the way he had in exaggerated form the characteristics that the West attributed to African men. And he fitted the picture of this stereotype in a way that someone like Milton Abote, with his degrees and his diplomatic experience,

he never fitted this model. And so it didn't really matter, matter perhaps how many people he killed. Not that this should detract for one moment from the horrors committed by Amin. Soon fighting will break out between factions of the Uganda National Liberation Front, between supporters of Obote and those of rebel military commander Yoweri Museveni. Obote and those of rebel military commander Yoweri Museveni. The ensuing civil war, the Ugandan Bush War, will ultimately bring in the reviled Lord's Resistance Army in the north of the country, with its drugged-up child soldiers. The Bush War takes its place among the tragic plague of conflicts which will curse the region,

culminating in the millions killed in the genocide in neighboring Rwanda. It is a part of the world where strongmen and warlords, men like Idi Amin, never seem to go away. Yoweri Museveni sweeps to power in 1986. He's been there ever since. So what of Idi Amin? Was he just mad, after all?

I certainly don't think he was mad. The British and American governments consulted endless psychologists and psychiatrists and psychoanalysts to try and get an angle on this, and many of them were really convinced he was mad, but they could never really find medics who were prepared to back this up. It means government lasted a long time. It lasted for eight years in the 1970s, a time during which in other parts of the world, price inflation and economic collapse endangered the welfare of governments and led to the, you know, Jimmy Carter lost his election. A whole host of rulers lost their seats in that era in the face of the prevailing economic

headwinds. Why is it that the Amin regime stayed in power for as long as it did? And the answer that I think I would offer is to say that the Amin government was popular in a great number of ways. The women that I interviewed, most of them were ordinary grassroots women, market women, traders and whatnot. They would say, you know, Amin, actually, we really loved him. He was the man of the people. He was down to earth. He would come and drive around without security people. We really loved him. The only problem is that he killed people and made them disappear. But then they would go on to talk about all the good things. And so for me, that was a really interesting hook. So what do you mean the only bad thing about him is that he killed people and made them disappear. But then they would go on to talk about all the good things. And so for me, that was a really interesting hook. So what do you mean the only bad thing about him

is that he would kill people and make them disappear, but otherwise he was great? And so trying to figure out what is it about this man that 30-some years later you're still drawn to, even though we know the magnitude of the violence that's associated with his rule. Professor Mariam Mufti. Yes, the dictator is the bad guy.

Yes, they should be held to account. Yes, they should be accused, rightfully so, for all the harm that they have caused. But they came to power because of a certain context. They came to power due to a certain set of factors that allowed them to then get away with murder. Very often, dictators end up using tactics to perpetuate their own rule that end up hurting them in the long run.

I think they end up, you know, shooting themselves in the foot. Well, I guess you could say Amin's legacy in Uganda is shown in the fact that it has never had a peaceful transition of power in the history of its independence. Every change of leader has been through violent rebellion. The legacy continues. We still wear it the moment you say you are from Uganda. The first thing that anybody will say is that this is Ida Amin. Daniel Kalinaki. of the eight years of Idi Amin. The instability that had happened under Idi Amin was not just military, it had very serious social and economic consequences. One of the things that I remember as a young child

was the scarcity of basic goods. So Idi Amin was like a shadow that continued to hide the sun, even after he had been deposed from office. As a young child in school, I'll tell you, I learned about the prairies in North America. I learned about the French Revolution, but I never learned about my history. If you drive through Kampala today, you have Prince Charles Drive, you have Elizabeth Avenue. I think many young people in Uganda and elsewhere

have woken up to the realisation that they probably haven't been told the full story. In later decades, after Amin's removal from office, some Asians will return to Uganda. One positive and completely unintended legacy was that he gave Britain one of the most successful migrant groups in its entire history in terms of economic, social, cultural success. Rupal Rajani. It's kind of made me realise just how resilient the Ugandan Asian community have been, not only moving once but twice from India to Uganda, from Uganda to wherever they went.

Resilience is the word that really comes to mind, that they've made such an impact, they have survived so many traumas. such an impact. They have survived so many traumas. For his part, Idi Amin sees out his days in a 15-room house in Jeddah, alongside his sixth wife and 25 of his children, living off a $30,000 a month stipend. He really went into retirement. Usually when dictators are deposed, they try to scheme from neighboring countries in the way that Abote did in order to overthrow the people who overthrew them. Amin was wholly uninterested in any of that politicking. He seemed quite happy to give up ruling Uganda, going to the supermarket, going to the mosque, hanging out with his kids, swimming every day

and living on a Saudi government pension. I'm sure they told him, no politicking, just keep your head down. I'm sure they said that. But many other dictators wouldn't have done it, even if they'd agreed with it. The ultimate tin-pot tyrant, rabid megalomaniac, mass murderer, becomes a devout and observant Muslim, and also a fruitarian, living on nothing but oranges, or so it's said. The locals give him a new name, Dr Jaffa.

He drives around in a white Cadillac, enjoys fishing, and watches sport beam via a succession of satellite dishes. My personal preference would have been to have him stand trial, pay the penalty for the crimes that he committed. I also think that him standing trial, his record being examined, would have raised very many uncomfortable questions. I believe that many people in power today were probably happier that he didn't come back and contest his legacy or try to clear his legacy. To many young Ugandans, Idi Amin is a mythical character. It's something you watch on Netflix. It's not something that you touch and feel.

Idi Amin dies in Jeddah of kidney failure, aged somewhere in his late 70s, on the 16th of August 2003, possibly or possibly not the date that he always predicted. It takes time for the full extent of the horrors to be brought to light. In the post-Amin Uganda, mass graves are uncovered. But after living out his days in quiet luxury, Amin is never made to answer for a single one of his crimes. Nor does he express one iota of regret. In the next episode of Real Dictators, we're in a scarcely known country in a little understood part of the world.

Turkmenistan in Central Asia. A far-flung frontier of the Soviet Union. Somewhere unremarkable, you might assume. But you'd be wrong. Because away from prying eyes, an extraordinary story unfolded here. In 1948, an earthquake rips through the land. An eight-year-old boy called Sapomurat Niyazov loses his entire family, but he will gain a country. In the decades to come, out of the rubble of the Soviet Union,

Niyazov will fashion not just a one party, but a one-man state. As Turkmenbashi, or head of the Turkmen, he will rule through the 1990s and into the 2000s. In the age of the internet, he'll seal off his country from the outside world. He'll ban beards, dogs and smoking, outlaw opera and theatre, and change the names of the month to honour himself. Power was really served to Niyazov on a plate. There was no opposition to speak of, just people cowering really in corners. And it was very difficult to find anyone who was an opponent. So I think power was already concentrated in his hands and it was only his to lose.

He smelled a whiff of opposition. He could shut down mobile phones, He could shut down the internet. Turkmenbashi's power over his citizens was absolute. An eccentric medieval-style tyrant operating in the 21st century. Master of one of the most repressive regimes that the world has ever seen. So how is a modern dictator made?

The Turkmenbashi story. That's next time on Real Dictators. Real Dictators will return after the holiday season, with the Turkmenbashi story launching on Wednesday, January 19th. After that we'll return to 1920s Germany to pick up the Adolf Hitler story. If you enjoy Real Dictators, then check, Real Pirates, Real Narcos, and Deathbed Confessions.