Word: amins
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...simply that Israel's assault at Entebbe posed a threat to every nation's sovereignty. Herzog's rebuttal was slightly more complicated: that Israel had a right, long recognized in international law, to protect the safety of its citizens, and that Uganda's Idi Amin Dada had compromised his own country's rights by aiding the skyjackers...
Ever fearful of the kind of lightning coup with which he, as armed forces commander, ousted Milton Obote from the presidency in 1971, Amin often moves about under tight guard-usually trusted mercenaries who are themselves watched by a troop of undercover enforcers known as the Public Research Unit. Amin has survived at least eight assassination attempts, including one last month, when grenades were tossed at his car as he left Kampala's police headquarters. His driver was killed and 37 bystanders were injured but Amin was barely scratched, probably confirming his belief that "God is on my side...
...Although Amin sometimes displays a peasant's earthy shrewdness-he was born into a poor farm family of the Kakwa tribe and dropped out of school after fourth grade-his impulsiveness and brutality have turned Uganda's economy into a shambles. There are constant shortages of goods, a rampant black market and soaring inflation (current rate: about 80% a year). He did not help the economy by expelling some 50,000 Asians in 1972, thereby depriving the country of most of its merchants, technicians and entrepreneurs. To keep Uganda economically afloat, Amin has toadied to oil-rich Arab...
...Amin's public rhetoric pushes bombast to its limits. He has praised Adolf Hitler and plans to erect a memorial to der Führer in Kampala. Constantly lecturing world leaders, Amin has (in 1973) wished Richard Nixon "a speedy recovery from the Watergate affair"; advised President Gerald Ford to choose a black as U.S. Vice President; told Arab states to "train kamikaze pilots [to] beat Israel"; and denounced Julius Nyerere, the President of neighboring Tanzania, as "a whore who spreads gonorrhea all over Africa...
...good reason, therefore, do many of Africa's most respected leaders privately express their revulsion for Amin. At last week's annual summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity, where Amin's one-year term as chairman ended, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda pointedly refused to shake his hand. Several days later, a Kenyan government statement probably best summed it up, with some exaggeration, when it pitied "the peace-loving people of Uganda" for living under "the world's greatest dictator...