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Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Idi Amin's Exile Dream August 21, 2003 By RICCARDO ORIZIO NAIROBI, Kenya The Idi Amin I met in 1997 was unchanged from the Big Daddy" of Uganda who, in the 1970's, was proud of being the most feared leader in Africa. It was hot that day in Jidda, the Saudi Arabian resort city he had been living in since 1980. A big man with a raucous voice and strangely protuberant eyes, he was dressed in a white tunic, speaking loudly in his broken English. He talked just as he had ruled: walking the thin rope that separates madness from political satire, the tragic from the comic. I knew he had spent the previous years taking a morning swim in the pool of the local Hilton, having his back massaged by an Egyptian masseur at the Intercontinental, and finally having lunch at a third hotel. It was a life spent in the lobby, with suitcases packed for a journey that never happened. A friend of a friend had finally taken me to his home. The villa - the average white building where the average Saudi millionaire lives - was full of the sounds of domesticity: a baby crying, women chatting, food being prepared. "I'm still on top of things, I'm still a man of influence," he told me, and to prove the point he started flicking the remote control of his satellite TV, going from a Congolese station to a Libyan one. "I'm still following international affairs," he boasted, finally switching to CNN. "Do you have any regrets, Mr. president?" I asked. And the man who killed at least 300,000 Ugandans, who had the Anglican bishop of Kampala assassinated and dumped on the side of a road, and who had several of his own ministers thrown to the crocodiles of Lake Victoria, placidly replied, with his trademark Big Smile: "No, only nostalgia." I asked how he wanted to be remembered. Apparently recalling his boxing days, he replied, "Just as a great athlete." It's called the banality of evil. Idi Amin was never an exceptional person. As someone said, you have to be a great man to do great good, but even an imbecile can do great evil. You just need to be in the right place at the right time. Idi Amin was a former cook of a British colonial regiment who happened to be among the few Ugandans with military experience when his country became independent. He was guilty of great atrocities, of course. But an entire generation of African leaders was guilty, too. The difference is that Idi Amin did what he did in a transparent way: the mayhem and the horror, but also the famous photograph of white businessmen forced to carry him on his chair; his satirical wedding ceremony in front of a huge portrait of Queen Elizabeth II of England; his repeated claims to the throne of Scotland. When asked about allegations of cannibalism, instead of denying it he answered: "I don't like human flesh. It's too salty for me." He had an unconscious genius for political theater, mocking the grand statesmen of the era with telegrams full of condescending words. To Henry Kissinger: "You are not intelligent because you never come to see me when you need advice." To the queen: "I hear that England has economic problems. I'm sending a cargo ship full of bananas to thank you for the good days of the colonial administration." To Leonid Brezhnev and Mao Zedong: "If you need a mediator I am at your disposal." On Saturday Idi Amin died in his Saudi exile. Africa is a different place than when he left it, but not necessarily better. There are fewer buffoons, but still many devils on the continent. Along with Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed emperor of the Central African Republic, Idi Amin represented the simpler days when the West could believe that Africa's problem was a handful of mad dictators. We now know we were wrong. Most Liberians, for instance, are cynical - or experienced - enough to understand that life will be tough even with Charles Taylor departed. Likewise, at their current stage of national decay, Zimbabweans know that to send Robert Mugabe away is only half of the solution: who will restore the economy once he's gone? To send a tyrant into foreign asylum doesn't necessarily help his victims. As for the tyrants themselves, they know that a little luxury and a quiet death in a foreign city cannot match the real prize given the dictator who manages to hang on, physically or politically: rehabilitation. Think of Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. In the 1980's America lobbed missiles at his presidential tent, yet today he is a relative pillar of stability in a difficult region. Or even "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti: powerless, yes, but from his home in France he can rightly claim that his former domain is in worse shape than it was 20 years ago, and know that many Haitians agree. Such men know that time heals and that the world tends to forget, if not to forgive. A surprising number of Ugandans were in favor of allowing Idi Amin back into the country to die. And wherever he is hiding, Saddam Hussein knows that the last word in Iraq has not been said. A return to Bagdhad is very unlikely, but one suspects he'd like to be around if and when a post-Saddam situation devolves into total chaos. He chose not to be a villain sipping wine around a swimming pool - he clearly wants to die a hero, even if a defeated one. While such a wish may sound absurd to us, Idi Amin would have understood. Riccardo Orizio is author of "The Devil: Encounters With Seven Dictators." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/opinion/21ORIZ.html?ex=1062495915&ei=1&en=b2336caa262a5ec1 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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