Africa-Press – Uganda. For me I think (and that’s bad English!) a DNA test needs to be made to confirm if Hussein Lumumba Amin is truly the son of former president Idi Amin Dada.
The boy has come out strongly to condemn the Museveni administration for the widespread State-inspired violence: the killings with impunity, the kidnappings by State operatives…with people turning up dead or disappearing permanently – virtues which for many years were branded as a monopoly of Idi Amin’s regime.
There is absolutely no need for any such test with regard to the kids of a pick of Uganda’s current leaders. Those whose parents are known to pinch public resources and elections… are doing just that. Looks consistent to me! Those who parents are known to commit human rights abuses – kidnaps, tortures and disappearances – are heading outfits that are busy doing exactly that. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!
Hussein’s message, suggesting a case of the apple that did fall a good distance from the tree, trended quite a bit on social media. Had I been a “drunko”, I’d have quit drinking immediately, believing that I was now “seeing things”. But the strongest drink I ever sipped is Pepsi and it hasn’t carried me away to such glorious heights yet, ahem!
These juxtapositions may seem meaningless at first, for those who didn’t know Idi Amin…and those are pretty many! That’s why it would be a good idea to read The World’s Most Evil Men by Bruce Jones and Neil Blandford (1989). One of the names that come up quite easily, in the same breath as Cambodia’s Pol Pot and Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Haiti’s Papa Doc, Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, Mongolian Genghis Khan and Russia’s Ivan the Terrible, is our own “Big Daddy”, Gen Idi Amin Dada, who ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979. In fact, Idi Amin’s story is the very first – or second – in the book.
Let the record reflect, however, that evil as Amin was, no one can ever point a finger at his children, for the simple reason that, unlike the case of…ahem! (just clearing my throat)… Amin’s children were too young to have played any part in the atrocities of their father. And this Hussein boy, we must admit, does appear very polished, intellectual and humane, even if most of us feel unable to agree with his very diligent attempts to exonerate his father on the human rights front.
The statement of Amin’s son tells a simple story: we are back to where we were in Amin’s regime, in terms of the human rights violations and having to choose between the two leaders is just about where the Israelites were at, wondering which, between Pharaoh behind them and the Red Sea ahead, was better. Honours even!
We are talking about two full-blown military dictatorships on the table! The main difference is that Amin was a wolf who attacked the sheep, dressed as a wolf! He didn’t pretend to be no sheep! He saved the taxpayer lots of money by declaring himself president for life. We didn’t waste trillions of taxpayer’s money on pretending we had a Parliament.
There was no need organising sham elections designed to be won by only one person, with opponents and entire campaign teams being jailed on trumped up charges. There was no need to spend taxpayer’s money bribing Members of Parliament to remove term limits, then remove age limits, then pass this or that law. The country, therefore, saved plenty of money by being run – and by identifying itself – as a dictatorship.
Amin seems, within his limited frame of reference (because of limited education) to have had a heart for the country. He didn’t steal public property, or interfere with the systems the colonialists had left in place. So we had a functional public transport system, hospitals actually worked and people attended the university free of charge.
At this rate, something tells me that a few years from now when a new edition of The World’s Most Evil Men is written, there just might be a new name entered in, from the land where the Nile begins its journey to Egypt.
Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda [email protected]
