Idi Amin News
1 January 2005 - New official papers released today reveal Amin's taunting of UK officials with the Save Britain Fund.
Britain has what's known as "the thirty year rule". It means that certain official documents are publicly released thirty years after the event. About 20,000 government records from 1974 were released today.
These documents included a bizarre telegram to Edward Heath on December 14, 1973, from Idi Amin:
"In the past months the people of Uganda have been following with sorrow the alarming economic crisis befalling on Britain. The sad fact is that it is the ordinary British citizen who is suffering most. I am today appealing to all the people of Uganda who have all along been traditional friends of the British people to come forward and help their former colonial masters."
Amin said: "I have decided to contribute 10,000 Uganda shillings from my savings, and I am convinced that many Ugandans will donate generously to rescue their innocent friends who are becoming victims of sharp tax increases, tighter credit squeeze and a possible pay squeeze."
The British authorities tried to ignore the message. But Amin was at it again five weeks later:
"The response has been so good that today, 21 January 1974, the people of Kigezi district donated one lorryload of vegetables and wheat. I am now requesting you to send an aircraft to collect this donation urgently before it goes bad."
If Idi Amin was just a buffoon, and not evil and brutal to boot, then his words might simply be funny, and in a way thought-provoking, as they challenged the traditional relationship of Africa and England.
Britain's economy was in chaos at the time and so his words had an element of hitting the mark of challenging the traditional patronising attitude of the west. But the difficulty is that by the time of his overthrow Idi Amin was responsible for around 300,000 deaths and the economic ruin of Uganda.