Word: amins
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Palestine Praise. One apparent beneficiary is a fellow Moslem, General Idi ("Big Daddy") Amin Dada of Uganda, whose army and air force were trained by Israeli military advisers, and whose country has received $25 million worth of Israeli aid and credits. Two months ago, after a fruitless mission to Tel Aviv in search of $10 million additional cash aid, Amin stopped off in Tripoli-aboard an Israeli-provided executive jet. Big Daddy emerged from conferences with Gaddafi to praise "the just struggle of the Palestinian people." After reportedly receiving a promise of $26 million from Libya once the Israelis were...
...Daddy lives modestly enough, but he does have a $3,000,000 Israeli-built personal jet, which he has used to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, among other trips. He rockets around Kampala at breakneck speed in his own Jeep. Last year a military policeman warned him against speeding; Amin cheerfully accepted the reprimand. ''It just goes to show," he said, "that I am not above...
Rough Justice. In Uganda, Amin is the law, and he is clearly in no hurry to return Uganda to civilian rule. Currently, all Cabinet members are forced to accept commissions as junior officers in the army, which handily makes them subject to courts-martial in cases of malfeasance. Amin, though, pays relatively little attention to his Cabinet. Much of the nation's business is conducted at barazas-informal, impromptu powwows at which Big Daddy sits down with tribesmen, hears their complaints and dispenses rough justice...
...Amin's methods have endeared him to the people, but they have done nothing to solve Uganda's vast economic problems, which he characteristically blames on the "corruption" of Obote's regime. In fact, Amin has turned a blind eye to military spending and has allowed the army to run up mammoth bills on guns, trucks and other expensive hardware. Uganda has substantial untapped resources of iron and copper, but agriculture is the principal business. Crop prices (principally for coffee, cotton and tea) have not kept pace with inflationary living costs, and last year Uganda...
Partly to divert attention from Uganda's growing financial problems, Amin has in the past threatened to invade neighboring Tanzania, which angered him by offering ex-President Obote shelter. He has also taken crowd-pleasing steps like putting economic pressure on the country's 80,000 Asians, who control most of its small businesses. If Big Daddy is unable to bolster Uganda's sagging economy, however, there is a chance that some day he might meet an unspecified "doom," which was also foretold in that long-ago vision...