page_title: Idi Amin
section_title: Seizure of power
hierarchical_section_title: Idi Amin / Biography / Seizure of power
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Cropped version of Bundesarchiv Bild 183-76054-0003, Leipzig, Kenia-Tag, Gerald Götting.jpg
context_page_description: Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan military officer who served as the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Popularly known as the "Butcher of Uganda", he is considered one of the cruellest despots in world history.
  Amin was born in Koboko to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother. In 1946, he joined the King's African Rifles of the British Colonial Army as a cook. He rose to the rank of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels in the Shifta War and then the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and Amin remained in the armed forces, rising to the position of major and being appointed Commander of the Uganda Army in 1965. He became aware that Ugandan President Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, so he launched a military coup in 1971 and declared himself President.
  During his years in power, Amin shifted from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable support from Israel to being backed by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, the Soviet Union, and East Germany.
context_section_description: Eventually a rift developed between Amin and Obote, exacerbated by the support Amin had built within the Uganda Army by recruiting from the West Nile region, his involvement in operations to support the rebellion in southern Sudan and an attempt on Obote's life in 1969. In October 1970, Obote took control of the armed forces, reducing Amin from his months-old post of commander of all the armed forces to that of the commander of the Uganda Army.
  Having learned that Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, Amin seized power in a military coup on 25 January 1971, while Obote was attending a Commonwealth summit meeting in Singapore. Troops loyal to Amin sealed off Entebbe International Airport and took Kampala. Soldiers surrounded Obote's residence and blocked major roads. A broadcast on Radio Uganda accused Obote's government of corruption and preferential treatment of the Lango region. Cheering crowds were reported in the streets of Kampala after the radio broadcast. Amin announced that he was a soldier, not a politician, and that the military government would remain only as a caretaker regime until new elections, which would be announced when the situation was normalised. He promised to release all political prisoners.
  Amin held a state funeral in April 1971 for Edward Mutesa, former King (Kabaka) of Buganda and President who had died in exile; freed many political prisoners; and reiterated his promise to hold free and fair elections to return the country to democratic rule in the shortest period possible.
caption: Milton Obote, Uganda's second President, whom Amin overthrew in a coup d'état in 1971
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