"Field Marshall Idi Amin became president of Uganda in 1971. To the rest of the world he was a showman his extravegance was exceeded by his talent for comic buffonery. But behind the grinning face was a calculating monster who brought about a tragedy of monumental proportions. He slaughtered thousands of innocent Ugandans in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and executed his enemies live on television. He mutilated his wife and murdered his ministers keeping their heads in his fridge as a warning to others. He ordered his secret police to torture and kill while Amin kept the pictures for his own sick amusement. By the end of his reign over 300,000 people, one in 60 in the population, had been murdered by Amin. He had turned the prosperous country of Uganda into a disease ridden backwater it's river's choked with the corpses of his victims."

Idi Amin Politics See all quotes by Idi Amin →

React to this quote

More by Idi Amin

“I am the hero of Africa.”

“Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking. I never had any formal education—not even a nursery school certificate. But sometimes I know more than Ph.D.s because as a military man I know how to act. I am a man of action.”

“Racist, erratic and unpredictable, brutal, inept, bellicose, irrational, ridiculous, and militaristic.”

“Politics is like boxing — you try to knock out your opponents.”

“His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

“You cannot run faster than a bullet.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Since it's not considered polite, and surely not politically-correct to come out and actually say that greed gets wonderful things done, let me go through a few of the millions of examples of the bene…"

— Walter E. Williams

Economics1936–2020

#mind

"Take a look at the death toll now , there are almost no children. A nine-month-old baby is the youngest known patient, and the baby's still alive. The youngest patients who died are about 30 years old…"

— Yong Poovorawan

Education1950

#life

"With one eye you are looking at the outside world, while with the other you are looking within yourself."

— Amedeo Modigliani

Art1884–1920

#humor

"I just say to everybody in the country, including everyone in Parliament, the fundamental choice is this: Are you going to side with Jeremy Corbyn and those who want to cancel the referendum? Are you …"

— Boris Johnson

Politics1964

#justice