L
Lloyd Miller
Guest
[Lloyd sez:]Why is it so seldom mentioned that Idi Amin was a Muslim
and saw his regime as a Jihad to make Uganda Muslim? Here's a "soft
on Islam" (no heart conversion!?) article confirming the basic facts:
[Lloyd said]
http://kabiza.com/OutofAfrica-Too-MonthlyNewsletterAugust-2003-Idi-Amin-Life-Death.htm
Spiritually Idi Amin was a Muslim, but in name only and not in
practice. His life showed outward observance, but no heart
conversion. He used religion as part of his quest for power.
Declaring a holy Jihad to make Islam the state religion (seeking
support from Lybia and Saudi Arabia - which he got) which brought
great harm to the Churches, ministers being eliminated left and right
(Archbishop Luwum amongst them), parishioners harassed and not
promoted in state jobs, churches being told what they could not preach
about, such as using the name of Israel in sermons. The churches quit
praying for him, but Bishop Festo Kivengere wrote a book around that
time entitled "I Love Idi Amin." This Anglican Bishop refused to hate
and continued to love in spite of the hatred spewed against him and
the churches where the secret police would sit in the services and
monitor what was going on, often arresting the leadership after the
service. Idi Amin, was given a Moslem burial, but his life is not a
testimony to the faith of Islam and its precepts, his actions were not
a Holy Jihad, but bloody murder of anyone who opposed him. He might
have kept the art of Islam in its practices at times, but never
practiced the heart of Islam.
[Lloyd sez:] The nature of Saudi Arabia shows clearly in that Idi
Amin was given a government stipend and shielded from prosecution
until his death [Lloyd said]
http://kabiza.com/OutofAfrica-Too-MonthlyNewsletterAugust-2003-Idi-Amin-Life-Death.htm
Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies
Envoy: Ruler buried in Saudi Arabia, where he lived in exile
Saturday, August 16, 2003 Posted: 6:31 PM EDT (2231 GMT)
Idi Amin, shown in this 1975 photo, is blamed in the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Ugandans.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies
Idi Amin: 'Butcher of Uganda'
Amin death turns focus on tyrants
IDI AMIN
Born in Koboko, West Nile Province, Uganda, 1925
Raised by his single mother
President of Uganda, 1971-79
Took office in 1971 military coup
Ousted in 1979 military coup
(CNN) -- Former Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, blamed for hundreds
of thousands of deaths in the 1970s, has died in a hospital in Saudi
Arabia, according to medical officials.
Ugandan officials say Amin was 80, though his birth year is also
listed as 1925. Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port
city of Jeddah, had been on life support since July 18, after slipping
into a coma.
A family member said Amin was to be buried Saturday afternoon in Saudi
Arabia, Ugandan journalist Odoobo Bichachi told CNN. Uganda's
ambassador to the United States, Edith Ssempala, said she believed the
burial had taken place.
"Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved," Ssempala
told CNN. "But on the other hand, we do sympathize with the family.
Idi Amin had children. He had wives. They're hurting, obviously."
Ssempala denied charges from some of Amin's relatives that the Ugandan
government had denied their request to bury the dictator in Uganda.
"He could have been buried in Uganda," she said. "It's just when
Muslims die, they are buried immediately. There's just no way he could
have been brought to Uganda in time."
Kibirige told CNN that Amin's family had asked Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni to allow him to return home to Uganda to die.
But according to his relatives, the Ugandan government said he would
face arrest.
Amin was overweight and had suffered from hypertension and fatigue in
recent years, said David Kibirige, a senior reporter for the Ugandan
newspaper The Monitor. Later, hospital staff said he suffered kidney
failure.
He died at 8:20 a.m. Saturday [1:20 a.m. EDT] at King Faisal
Specialist Hospital, The Associated Press quoted one unnamed official
as saying.
A onetime heavyweight boxing champ and soldier in the British colonial
army, Amin seized power in a military coup January 25, 1971,
overthrowing President Milton Obote while he was abroad. (Amin
profile)
Amin's rule was marked by extreme nationalism. He ordered the
persecution of several Ugandan tribal groups and kicked all Asians out
of the country in 1972, an action blamed for the collapse of the
country's economy.
The dictator was personally involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking
of a French airliner to Entebbe.
According to the CIA World Factbook, during his eight years in power,
Amin's "dictatorial regime" was "responsible for the deaths of some
300,000 opponents."
Human rights groups say that figure is much higher, arguing that as
many as 500,000 people were killed or simply disappeared under his
rule.
Exiles said he kept severed heads in his refrigerator, fed corpses to
crocodiles and had one of his wives dismembered. He was also accused
of cannibalism.
Rose, fell through military coups
"Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved. But on the
other hand, we do sympathize with the family."
-- Edith Ssempala, Ugandan ambassador to United States
Amin was forced from power in 1979 by a combined force of Ugandan
exiles and the Tanzanian army. He fled to Libya, then Iraq and finally
Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to settle provided that he stay out
of politics.
A convert to Islam, Amin had spent the past decade living with his
four wives in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities granted him a
government stipend.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Ugandan-Asian newspaper columnist whose family
was among those Amin expelled, said the Saudis should have brought him
to justice.
"I think it is a disgrace that Saudi Arabia gave him the kind of life
they did, and the excuse is he was a Muslim. They should have
delivered him into the hands of international justice, and they never
did," she told Sky News television.
"And for the families of all those victims, black African families,
this is going to be something they'll never forgive."
Ssempala said history would remember Amin "as he should be remembered:
a brutal, vicious, dictatorial leader of Uganda.
"I don't think he has ever shown any remorse," she said. "He has even
been proud of that.
"He knew he was killing people," she added. "He seemed even to be
enjoying it. He killed even his own wife. This is something that quite
frankly is difficult to understand, that a human being can have no
heart."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press
contributed to this report.
Lloyd Miller, Research Director, A-albionic Research
Click -- A-albionic Overview, WWW Sites, Discussion Lists
Click -- A-albionic Book Inventory Liquidation Sales
__._,_.___
and saw his regime as a Jihad to make Uganda Muslim? Here's a "soft
on Islam" (no heart conversion!?) article confirming the basic facts:
[Lloyd said]
http://kabiza.com/OutofAfrica-Too-MonthlyNewsletterAugust-2003-Idi-Amin-Life-Death.htm
Spiritually Idi Amin was a Muslim, but in name only and not in
practice. His life showed outward observance, but no heart
conversion. He used religion as part of his quest for power.
Declaring a holy Jihad to make Islam the state religion (seeking
support from Lybia and Saudi Arabia - which he got) which brought
great harm to the Churches, ministers being eliminated left and right
(Archbishop Luwum amongst them), parishioners harassed and not
promoted in state jobs, churches being told what they could not preach
about, such as using the name of Israel in sermons. The churches quit
praying for him, but Bishop Festo Kivengere wrote a book around that
time entitled "I Love Idi Amin." This Anglican Bishop refused to hate
and continued to love in spite of the hatred spewed against him and
the churches where the secret police would sit in the services and
monitor what was going on, often arresting the leadership after the
service. Idi Amin, was given a Moslem burial, but his life is not a
testimony to the faith of Islam and its precepts, his actions were not
a Holy Jihad, but bloody murder of anyone who opposed him. He might
have kept the art of Islam in its practices at times, but never
practiced the heart of Islam.
[Lloyd sez:] The nature of Saudi Arabia shows clearly in that Idi
Amin was given a government stipend and shielded from prosecution
until his death [Lloyd said]
http://kabiza.com/OutofAfrica-Too-MonthlyNewsletterAugust-2003-Idi-Amin-Life-Death.htm
Former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies
Envoy: Ruler buried in Saudi Arabia, where he lived in exile
Saturday, August 16, 2003 Posted: 6:31 PM EDT (2231 GMT)
Idi Amin, shown in this 1975 photo, is blamed in the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Ugandans.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Tools
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RELATED
Ugandan dictator Idi Amin dies
Idi Amin: 'Butcher of Uganda'
Amin death turns focus on tyrants
IDI AMIN
Born in Koboko, West Nile Province, Uganda, 1925
Raised by his single mother
President of Uganda, 1971-79
Took office in 1971 military coup
Ousted in 1979 military coup
(CNN) -- Former Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, blamed for hundreds
of thousands of deaths in the 1970s, has died in a hospital in Saudi
Arabia, according to medical officials.
Ugandan officials say Amin was 80, though his birth year is also
listed as 1925. Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port
city of Jeddah, had been on life support since July 18, after slipping
into a coma.
A family member said Amin was to be buried Saturday afternoon in Saudi
Arabia, Ugandan journalist Odoobo Bichachi told CNN. Uganda's
ambassador to the United States, Edith Ssempala, said she believed the
burial had taken place.
"Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved," Ssempala
told CNN. "But on the other hand, we do sympathize with the family.
Idi Amin had children. He had wives. They're hurting, obviously."
Ssempala denied charges from some of Amin's relatives that the Ugandan
government had denied their request to bury the dictator in Uganda.
"He could have been buried in Uganda," she said. "It's just when
Muslims die, they are buried immediately. There's just no way he could
have been brought to Uganda in time."
Kibirige told CNN that Amin's family had asked Ugandan President
Yoweri Museveni to allow him to return home to Uganda to die.
But according to his relatives, the Ugandan government said he would
face arrest.
Amin was overweight and had suffered from hypertension and fatigue in
recent years, said David Kibirige, a senior reporter for the Ugandan
newspaper The Monitor. Later, hospital staff said he suffered kidney
failure.
He died at 8:20 a.m. Saturday [1:20 a.m. EDT] at King Faisal
Specialist Hospital, The Associated Press quoted one unnamed official
as saying.
A onetime heavyweight boxing champ and soldier in the British colonial
army, Amin seized power in a military coup January 25, 1971,
overthrowing President Milton Obote while he was abroad. (Amin
profile)
Amin's rule was marked by extreme nationalism. He ordered the
persecution of several Ugandan tribal groups and kicked all Asians out
of the country in 1972, an action blamed for the collapse of the
country's economy.
The dictator was personally involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking
of a French airliner to Entebbe.
According to the CIA World Factbook, during his eight years in power,
Amin's "dictatorial regime" was "responsible for the deaths of some
300,000 opponents."
Human rights groups say that figure is much higher, arguing that as
many as 500,000 people were killed or simply disappeared under his
rule.
Exiles said he kept severed heads in his refrigerator, fed corpses to
crocodiles and had one of his wives dismembered. He was also accused
of cannibalism.
Rose, fell through military coups
"Ugandans and the Uganda government are kind of relieved. But on the
other hand, we do sympathize with the family."
-- Edith Ssempala, Ugandan ambassador to United States
Amin was forced from power in 1979 by a combined force of Ugandan
exiles and the Tanzanian army. He fled to Libya, then Iraq and finally
Saudi Arabia, where he was allowed to settle provided that he stay out
of politics.
A convert to Islam, Amin had spent the past decade living with his
four wives in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities granted him a
government stipend.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Ugandan-Asian newspaper columnist whose family
was among those Amin expelled, said the Saudis should have brought him
to justice.
"I think it is a disgrace that Saudi Arabia gave him the kind of life
they did, and the excuse is he was a Muslim. They should have
delivered him into the hands of international justice, and they never
did," she told Sky News television.
"And for the families of all those victims, black African families,
this is going to be something they'll never forgive."
Ssempala said history would remember Amin "as he should be remembered:
a brutal, vicious, dictatorial leader of Uganda.
"I don't think he has ever shown any remorse," she said. "He has even
been proud of that.
"He knew he was killing people," she added. "He seemed even to be
enjoying it. He killed even his own wife. This is something that quite
frankly is difficult to understand, that a human being can have no
heart."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press
contributed to this report.
Lloyd Miller, Research Director, A-albionic Research
Click -- A-albionic Overview, WWW Sites, Discussion Lists
Click -- A-albionic Book Inventory Liquidation Sales
__._,_.___