Idi Amin buried

2003-08-16 19:53

Kampala - Dictator Idi Amin has been buried in Saudi Arabia, despite reports he was to be sent home to Uganda, Sky News reports.

The Uganadan government had said it would allow the former leader's body to be buried in the country, but would not be offered a state burial.

However, Amin's son, Ali said: "He is buried. The family decided and we have buried him in Jeddah."

The ceremony was in accordance with the Islamic faith, which Amin followed, where burials are supposed to take place within 24 hours of a person's death.

The exiled despot died in a hospital in Saudi Arabia where he had been on life support since July 18.

Diplomatic sources said Amin's sons were negotiating to have him buried in Uganda where he oversaw hundreds of thousands of murders in the 1970s.

A senior official in Kampala had earlier said: "If they (Amin's family request for the body to be brought back, we shall give them permission.

"If they need assistance in any form, we shall assist them. But as a government, we are not going to recognise Amin as a former head of state nor offer him a state burial."

Saudi medical sources said the sons were also investigating the possibility of burying their exiled father in Mecca, Islam's holiest site.

Ugandan officials said Amin was 80 years old, but other sources say he was born in 1925.

He was in a coma and suffering from high blood pressure when he was admitted to the King Faisal Specialist hospital, where staff said he had suffered kidney failure.

A one-time heavyweight boxing champ and soldier in the British colonial army, Amin seized power on January 25, 1971, overthrowing President Milton Obote while he was abroad.

Amin declared himself president for life and Ugandans had initially celebrated his rise to power.

His frequent taunting of Britain, once a colonial power there, did much to gain favour among his people.

But, despite calling himself a "pure son of Africa", his eight years as president of Uganda were characterised by bizarre and murderous behaviour.

Canibal

Human rights groups say he was responsible for the deaths of up to half a million Ugandans during his 1971-79 rule. Thousands more were locked up and tortured.

Exiles accused Amin of keeping severed heads in the fridge, feeding corpses to crocodiles and having one of his wives dismembered. Some said he practised cannibalism.

Bodies were dumped into the Nile River because graves couldn't be dug fast enough.

At one point, so many bodies were fed to crocodiles that the remains occasionally clogged intake ducts at Uganda's main hydroelectric plant at Jinja.

US President Jimmy Carter said events in Uganda during Amin's rule "disgusted the entire civilised world".

Amin's penchant for the cruel and extravagant became evident in 1972 when he expelled tens of thousands of Asians who had controlled the country's economy.

Suddenly deprived of its business class, the East African nation plummeted into economic chaos.

Amin had been born into the small Kakwa tribe in Koboko, a village in north-western Uganda.

His mother was a self-proclaimed sorceress of the Lugbara tribe and he was in his 30s before he had regular contact with his peasant father.

A semi-literate school dropout, Amin boasted that he knew "more than doctors of philosophy because as a military man, I know how to act."

'Hitler was right' He said Hitler "was right to burn six million Jews," and offered to be king of Scotland if asked.

He challenged his neighbour and frequent critic, Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, to a boxing match, and wrote to Richard Nixon wishing him "a speedy recovery" from Watergate.

The United States and Britain severed ties during Amin's rule. Israel went from staunch military and economic ally to hated enemy for refusing to support his aggressive military ambitions.

Amin, a convert to Islam, fled to Libya in 1979, then Iraq and finally Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to settle provided he stayed out of politics. In later months, he was joined by one of his four wives and some of his 43 children.

They moved into a luxury house in the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, with cars, drivers, cooks and maids paid for by the Saudi government.

Obote returned to power in 1980 and unleashed what many felt was even worse repression than under Amin.

Since 1986, Uganda has been ruled by President Yoweri Museveni.

Uganda remains a one-party state, but has gradually returned to relative peace and normality.

- AFP