Idi Amin And Israel



By Osazua IVBAZE

In 1971, self-created General Idi Amin became President of Uganda after successfully ousting Milton Obote who was in Singapore on a State visit.

His first official foreign trip was in 1972 to Israel  where he met Prime Minister Golda Meir. Apart from a nebulous offer of training for Uganda troops, Idi Amin came back empty- handed.

As soon as he forged  a relationship with Gadafi and Libyan money started pouring into Uganda, Idi Ami declared that he was now against the State of Israel  
and support for Palestinian cause.’

On March 1972, he ordered all Israelis out of Uganda claiming that they had been intending to poison the Nile and kill all Arabs in Sudan and Egypt. He bragged that he would lead Arab troops to conquer Israel.

Angered and disappointed, the Israelis pulled out.
While leaving, one of the important documents they took away with them was one slim volume of their design of Entebbe Airport—passenger terminal, control tower and runway layout.
This document was to make history later.

On 28 June 1976, an Air France airliner, hijacked by a group of Palestinian terrorists arrived at Entebbe Airport Uganda. The plane was en route from Tel Aviv Israel to France  when it was taken over near Athens . There were 300 passengers, majority of whom were Jewish.

Idi Amin helped the terrorists to draft their demands in which they threatened to kill all the passengers if the 53 Palestinians in jail in Israel and Europe were not released within 48 hours.

As international pressures mounted , the date was extended to allow for negotiations. But Israel was not ready to negotiate with terrorists.Meanwhile , on 4 July the non Jewish passengers had been allowed to leave.

Two days before the new deadline, a task force of Israeli Air Force planes, filled with Commandos , swept through Lake Victoria and landed at Entebbe Airport.They taxied to the precise spot the hostages were held, rescued them after killing 20 of Idi Ami’s troops and all the 7 hijackers . It was an Airport their engineers designed and the operation was within 90 minutes.


Idi Amin’s end beckoned when he ordered his troops to attack Tanzanian. That was too big an insult Julius Nyerere could not take.He ordered his troops to fight back. They advanced towards Kampala almost without resistance and on April 1979, they arrived Ugandan capital.

Idi Amin , who had boasted to lead Arab troops to conquer Israel, fled to Libya in  private aircraft to seek sanctuary with his friend. Gadafi from where he moved to Saudi Arabia for the rest of his life.

That was the end of the butcher of East Africa , a calculating monster, who unleashed a tragedy of sadistic proportions on his people and a man whose stupidity and extravagance were exceeded only by his talent for comic buffoonery.

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