That Scottish Idi Amin

So the the spectre of Idi Amin has been raised yet again. I have just read a report on the making of a feature film in Uganda, presenting this latest reincarnation of Africa's number one dead despot - due for release on Friday, January 12. Titled `The Last King of Scotland' and directed by Kevin MacDonald (there's a good old Scottish name) the report has brought one pretty depressing observation to light: Stephen Robinson was rightly perturbed to discover that `The visitor to Uganda soon finds that those who were not directly targeted by his henchmen speak of Amin with a certain pride...After Nelson Mandela, Amin is the most famous contemporary African, and Ugandans seem rather proud that he made their country known to the rest of the world, albeit for the wrong reasons`. I suppose the estimated 300 000 deaths of his countrymen under Amin's despotic rule, coupled with his shocking treatment of his Indian citizens brands him as possibly the most infamous African of modern times. But what has prompted me to ruminate over his history is that I believe Robert Mugabe is giving Idi Amin some strong competition for the premier position among African despots.
Fellow African leaders whose performance is less than salutary are hanging on to a blind pride in Mugabe's performance. Overlooked is his responsibility for the killing, under his rule, of a mere 20,000 fellow Zimbabweans who were dwellers in Matabeleland and who spoke in that Southern part of the country the only African language other than Mugabe's majority MaShona people. If he lives long enough to stand trial for his crimes against humanity, the details of all this will no doubt fascinate future filmgoers. But for now, he and his cronies are still hanging tenaciously on to power while millions of innocent men, women and children, trapped in once-prospering Zimbabwe, face possible death by attrition. The majority throughout Zimbabwe are threatened with rampant disease and, if nothing changes, the prospect of slow starvation. Only because about a quarter of the population have chosen to flee to places where they can earn sufficient cash to remit to families - who would probably die if left unassisted - is there no film footage of Ethiopian-style skeletal babies and stick figured mothers in today's Zimbabwe. And of course there has been no blood-letting for two decades. That would get the world's attention. Mugabe is no buffoon. At a few weeks off 83 he is still the articulate, even eloquent and cunning politician who came from nowhere to head the guerrillas who caused the collapse of white rule in Rhodesia. Yes I know about his past. I consider myself something of of an authority on the details, having been closely acquainted with many of the most worthy of his contemporaries. He was raised a Catholic but like the despotic Hitler, for one example, he had severe psychological problems arising out of his personal health problems and family tragedies and setbacks. Future film-makers will be free to put whatever spin they choose on the details of all that but I am sure that the story of his destruction of a country he claimed to set free will set a whole lot of hares running to prove that he has outdone Amin in the top-despot stakes.
I have more to say about the Amin story as described in the Telegraph report, but not in this blog.
Copyright © 2004 Diana Mitchell