Libyan troops to blame for Amin's fall

Lt. Col. David Oyite-Ojok of the Kikoosi Maluum force loyal to Obote, made the announcement over Radio Uganda on April 11, 1979.

Earlier on his way from Soroti to Nakasongola before flying to Libya, Amin made a series of broadcasts via his field radio linked to Radio Uganda. The significance of these broadcasts will one day dawn on Ugandans who, to this day, remain unaware of what was really going on during his rule.

Amin, speaking in Luganda, English, and Kiswahili, insisted over and over again that “I am innocent! I am an innocent man!”

In that final, dramatic address to Ugandans before he left, Amin said he had given Ugandans “all the milk and honey” they needed to become a prosperous country. “You have turned around and spat in my face. I am going to ask God, who knows my innocence, to keep me alive….I will die a natural death. While I am there [in exile presumably] I will monitor how wonderful life will be for you after me, if you do not become total slaves. I removed your country from foreigners and gave it to you…”

It must be reiterated that the refusal or failure to view Idi Amin as a historical figure, with significant ideas and information of his own, the failure to form an accurate picture of Amin as a highly efficient man (so different from the images of buffoonery and brutality portrayed in books like A State of Blood and films like The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin and The Last King of Scotland), is the reason Uganda is paying the price of omitting Amin’s point of view from the formal historical record, as this series will show when we get to the post-Amin era.