Amin, Idi , president of Uganda (1971-1979), also known as Idi Amin Dada, whose brutality and disregard for the rule of law led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and plunged the country into chaos and poverty.

     Idi Amin was born in Buganda to parents who came from northwestern Uganda. He received little formal education and pursued a career in the army from a young age . Amin gained the attention and admiration of his superiors by becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda, a title he held from 1951 to 1960 . Once in power, Amin appointed well-qualified administrators to most of the positions in his first cabinet, but he paid no attention to their advice. To control the army, Amin relied on the support of soldiers he had recruited from the northwest corner of Uganda.
    In his first year as president Amin ordered massacres of  large numbers of Langi and Acholi troops who were suspected of being loyal to Obote. After Amin's demands for large increases in military assistance were rebuffed by Israel and Britain, he expelled all Israeli advisers in 1972 and turned to the Arab Republic of  Libya, which gave him immediate support. In doing so, Amin became the first black African leader to renounce ties with the Jewish state of Israel and side instead with Islamic nations in the Middle East conflict over. Subsequently, Amin made a number of anti-Semitic declarations, including praising German dictator Adolf Hitler for killing Jewish people during World War II. To cover up an army mutiny in southwestern Uganda, Amin invaded Tanzania, seizing a strip of Tanzanian territory north of the Kagera River in late 1978. The Tanzanian government swiftly mobilized its army and forced out the Ugandan soldiers. Then, accompanied by a small contingent of anti-Amin Ugandan rebels, the Tanzanian army invaded Uganda in early 1979. By April they had fought their way to Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and overthrown Amin's government.
    Amin fled to Libya where he was offered asylum, but after an altercation between his security guards and the Libyan police, he was forced to leave at the end of 1979. He then accepted asylum in Saudi Arabia, settling in Jiddah. He made one known attempt to return to Uganda, in early 1989, getting as far as Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he was identified and forced to return to Saudi Arabia. Amin's rule had many lasting negative consequences for Uganda: It led to low regard for human life and personal security, widespread corruption, and the disruption of economic production and distribution.