Exactly how many people did Amin Kill?

Oct 25, 2007

SOME people say President Idi Amin killed about 500,000 people during his reign of terror. Timothy Kalyegira caused anger by challenging that figure. Kalyegira thinks only about 1,500 people may have been killed under the regime and that the 500,000 figure was concocted as part of a comprehensive ne

Asuman Bisiika

SOME people say President Idi Amin killed about 500,000 people during his reign of terror. Timothy Kalyegira caused anger by challenging that figure. Kalyegira thinks only about 1,500 people may have been killed under the regime and that the 500,000 figure was concocted as part of a comprehensive negative publicity against Amin’s regime. Kalyegira has challenged Ugandans to name only 600 (of the 500,000) people killed by Amin.

No one has taken Kalyegira’s challenge; instead, he is the object of vitriolic bad-mouthing. Some have even doubted his level of sanity. It is surprising that no one is addressing Kalyegira’s challenge.
The day Amin took over power, I remember my father (a diehard DP member with hatred for Obote) jumping around in excitement. My vivid recollection of the Amin era was the scarcity of household commodities like sugar, salt and soap. I used pawpaw leaves to wash clothes and raw sugarcane juice to make my tea.

I remember my mother telling me that the work of red-topped Military Police was to kill people. Indeed I witnessed two such killings in broad daylight at Muhokya. The victims were armed robbers, I was later to learn. The operational word was killing.
Some people were killed brutally; but why are we not keen at establishing the exact number?

Kalyegira does not say that Amin didn’t kill. Neither does he contest the gruesome manner in which some killings were carried out. What he wants are well-sourced figures; not those from people with vested interests.

The number of people killed under a particular regime is a political issue and successive regimes tend to use this to justify their stay in power. So, the number of the people killed had better be high enough to instill a sense of traumatic fear and hatred for the previous regime and seeking hope in the new force.

In 1986, the remains of those killed by the Obote II regime during the war in Luwero were paraded for all to see. I hear the number of people killed during the Luwero war has been reduced from 300,000 to about 100,000. The word “about” is too vague when applied to human life. Let us look for exact figures.

The writer is a journalist

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