That '70s Dictator

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The good news is that Idi "Big Daddy" Amin, the murderous tyrant who ruled Uganda from 1971-1979, is in a coma. The bad news is that the man responsible for torturing and murdering as many as 200,000 people is still alive. And reportedly wants to return home from exile in Saudi Arabia (Amin is inevitably described as a "devout Muslim").

Read this AP account for a flashback to the bad old days. A snippet:

Many Ugandans praised him in 1972 for expelling 50,000 non-citizen Asians who controlled Uganda's economy, in turn replacing them with a black working class, and for thumbing his nose at powerful Western interests.

But Amin "committed grave political mistakes. He caused a lot of shock when he massacred people in the open, thereby rendering the country to international ridicule and isolation," according to Ken Lukyamuzi, a Ugandan political scientist.