Who ousted Idi Amin? The Rise and Fall of General Idi Amin Dada of Uganda🇺🇬
Idi Amin came to power in Uganda through a military coup d’état on January 25, 1971, while President Milton Obote was attending a Commonwealth conference in Singapore. He ruled Uganda for eight years, from January 1971 to April 1979.
He lost power in April 1979 when Tanzanian forces, combined with Ugandan exiles (the Uganda National Liberation Army), invaded Uganda and captured the capital, Kampala. His downfall was triggered by a failed 1978 invasion of Tanzania—meant to annex territory—which prompted a massive counter-offensive by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.
Amin publicly claimed the Kagera River was the “natural” border between the two countries, arguing that the land north of it actually belonged to Uganda. The Tanzanian military also believed Amin’s ultimate goal was to annex a larger portion of northern Tanzania to gain access to the sea (the Indian Ocean) via the city of Tanga for trade purposes.
This broader conflict h strained relations since 1971, when Idi Amin overthrew Nyerere’s ally, Milton Obote. After the initial Ugandan invasion, Tanzania mobilized its forces, expelled the Ugandans from its territory, and then launched a full-scale invasion to overthrow Amin’s brutal regime. Nyerere also mobilised Ugandan rebels loyal to Obote and Yoweri Museveni to weaken Amin’s regime.
Meanwhile, on September 18, 1972, Amin ordered the Ugandan Air Force to bomb villages near the Tanzanian border in retaliation for the Tanzanian-backed Ugandan rebels, and Tanzania also deployed troops near the border. Before the conflict escalated into full-scale war between Uganda and Tanzania, the two countries A cease-fire was agreed upon under the mediation of the Somali president, and a treaty was later ratified in Mogadishu to defuse tensions .
However, this greatly worsened relations between Uganda and Tanzania, which had been bad before,.Nyerere ordered his troops to invade Uganda in response. Tanzanian Army and rebel forces successfully captured Kampala in 1979 and ousted Amin from power. Amin went into exile, first in Libya, then Iraq, and finally in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003.
Courtesy : Tee Saigon
Leave a Reply