Here are, 4 notorious African warlords.
You'll be shocked at these dangerous political figures & the harsh regimes that they run.
Number 4: Idi Amin In the 1970’s, Idi Amin Dada was the military
dictator and self-proclaimed president of Uganda.
He was renowned for his larger than life ego as he gave himself many titles that ultimately
added up to His Excellency, President for Life Field Marshall Al Hadj Doctor Idi Amin
Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror
of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.
Before rising to power, Idi Amin served with the King’s African Rifles division of the
British colonial army, which he joined in 1946 as an assistant cook.
He quickly moved through the ranks.
Only two Ugandans had ever been commissioned officers in the British colonial army and
Idi Amin was one of them with the rank of lieutenant, received in 1961.
After Uganda declared its independence from the UK, in 1962, he was promoted to captain
and the following year to major.
During his time in the military, Idi Amin gained popularity through his athletic prowess.
Standing at 6 feet and 4 inches, with a powerful build, he was a champion swimmer and Uganda’s
light heavyweight boxing champion for almost ten years.
He also excelled in rugby, where he played the position of forward.
By 1970, Idi Amin was named Commander of All Armed Forces, under then President, Milton
Obote.
After learning that Obote was planning on arresting him for tampering with military
funds, Amin seized power for himself through a military coup on January 25, 1971.
The coup was successful and Amin assured the Ugandan people that the military regime was
temporary and that he planned on holding democratic elections.
He emphasized the fact that he was a soldier not a politician.
However, a week later he announced himself as President.
Amin eliminated the chain of command ensuring that most of the major arteries of power would
be diverted towards him.
The regime that followed lasted from 1971 to 1979 and was one of the harshest ever known
by the Ugandan people.
After Obote fled Uganda, he attempted to recover his position, helped by other refugees.
Amin defeated the coup and started purging the military of Obote supporters mainly those
who belonged to the Alcholi and Lango ethnic groups.
Many executions followed.
Soon other ethnic groups were targeted, as well as journalists, artists, lawyers, foreign
nationals, intellectuals but also prominent Ugandan political figures.
Anyone who opposed the dictator or spoke out against the regime quickly disappeared.
Amin came to be known as ‘The Butcher of Uganda’ because of his brutality.
Amnesty International estimates that 500,000 people were killed during his ruthless regime,
their bodies often dumped in the Nile River.
Amin’s decision to place control of the economic resources back to the Ugandan citizens
by expulsing other nationalities and ethnic groups proved to be fatal for the already
struggling economy.
He stated “We are determined to make the ordinary Ugandan master of his own destiny
and, above all, to see that he enjoys the wealth of his country.
Our deliberate policy is to transfer the economic control of Uganda into the hands of Ugandans,
for the first time in our country's history.”
By 1978, the country’s economy had nearly collapsed, and Amin had lost a large part
of his support.
Many Ugandans had fled the country including some of Amin’s ministers and close military
personnel.
His troops mutinied against him and some crossed the border to Tanzania.
Amin declared war on Tanzania and even planned to annex a part of its territory, ignoring
the fact that his army was not fit for the challenge.
Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere responded.
His military forces, with the aid of the Uganda National Liberation Army (comprised of Ugandan
exiles), took control of Kampala, the capital city, in 1979.
Idi Amin saw the end of his regime as he fled Uganda by helicopter.
He found refuge in Saudi Arabia, where he died on August 16, 2003.
During his lifetime he fathered 40 official children from 7 different wives.
After his death rumors started circulating that Idi Amin was also a cannibal who kept
the severed heads of his adversaries.
After the fall of his dictatorship, Henry Kyemba, his former health minister stated
"Even Amin does not know how many people he has ordered to be executed...
The country is littered with bodies."
Number 3: Charles Taylor Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor was the President
of Liberia from 1997 to 2003.
After earning a degree in the US he returned to Liberia and worked for then President Samuel
Odoe.
In 1983 Taylor was let go from his position as Director General of the General Services
Agency under charges of embezzling 1 million dollars.
He eventually fled to the US where he was arrested.
Taylor was held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility and faced deportation back to Liberia
where he would be trialed.
On September 15, 1985, with the help of four other inmates, Taylor escaped from prison.
The men sawed through the bars of their dormitory window and then lowered themselves 20 feet
on knotted bed sheets.
His accomplices were captured but Taylor managed to return to Africa.
He arrived in Libya where he started receiving guerilla training from Muammar al-Qaddafi,
subsequently becoming his protégé.
Funded by Qaddafi, Taylor formed an army and led a coup against Samuel Odoe in an attempt
to overtake Liberia.
Following the success the coup, the country became fragmented.
The ensuing civil war turned into an ethnic conflict as several factions battled over
control of Liberian resources.
The violence lasted for seven years with over 150.000 casualties and more than half the
population becoming refugees.
Taylor was elected president in 1997, after running a campaign under the infamous slogan
"He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him."
He won with a 75% majority.
Many people voted for him fearing that if he didn’t get the presidency, Taylor would
plunge the country into civil war once more.
During his term, Taylor was allegedly directly involved in the civil war that was taking
place in Sierra Leone.
He was suspected of participating in blood diamond exchanges and of aiding the Revolutionary
United Front or RUF in the recruitment of child soldiers.
He was reportedly helping the RUF commit a series of crimes against civilians such as
torture, mutilation and abduction.
Thousands lost their lives.
Other militant groups such as the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, backed
by neighboring country Guinea, were gaining popularity.
Taylor’s position was threatened.
Before long a Second Liberian Civil War took place.
By the summer of 2003, Taylor’s government controlled about a third of Liberia’s territory.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) indicted him with war crimes in June, 2003.
In July the LURD launched an attack on Monrovia, the Liberian capital, which Taylor’s forces
barely managed to stop.
US President George W. Bush stated that Taylor ‘must leave Liberia’ two times in one
month.
Taylor resigned from his position on August 11, 2003.
He was offered asylum in Nigeria on the condition that he’d never again get involved in Liberian
politics.
The US placed a 2 million reward for his capture and Interpol demanded that Nigeria extradite
him to Liberia.
Nigerian officials eventually agreed.
It was ultimately decided that Taylor was to stand trial in the Special Court for Sierra
Leone.
He fled Nigeria and was caught attempting to cross into Cameroon in a Range Rover that
contained large amounts of heroin and cash.
The trial’s final verdict found him guilty on all 11 counts of crimes against humanity
and aiding and abetting war crimes.
Number 2: Muammar al-Qaddafi At the time of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s birth
on June 7, 1942, Libya was an Italian colony.
His family lived in Sirte, a village in the Libyan dessert and he was raised in a Bedouin
tent.
In 1951, under King Idris, Lybia became an independent state.
After graduating from a military college in Benghazi and rising through the ranks, Qaddafi
founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement.
This was a revolutionary group that planned on overthrowing the monarchy.
While King Idris was traveling abroad in 1969, Qaddafi and his Free Officers commenced ‘Operation
Jerusalem’ and took control of police stations, airports and government offices in Benghazi
and Tripoli.
King Idris was overthrown on September 1, 1969 and the Libyan Arab Republic was proclaimed.
The coup was bloodless which lead many to call it the ‘White Revolution’.
Qaddafi was only 27 years old when he became Libya’s new ruler.
The RCC (Revolutionary Command Council) became the country’s new government.
In the years that followed Qaddafi initiated several reforms that were meant to lead Libya
away from Western influences and bring it closer to Africa and the Middle East.
Much of Qaddafi’s philosophy as a man and as a ruler was inspired by Egyptian president
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who argued for Arab nationalism and a transition from capitalism to socialism.
Qaddafi saw a conflict between Arab nationalism and Western imperialism.
He forbade the sale of alcohol and expelled the Jewish and Italian communities from Libya.
Night clubs were banned, Christian churches were closed and Arabic became the only language
allowed.
Sharia law was in effect and any that opposed Qaddafi were killed.
He reportedly ordered several assassinations of Libyans living in exile.
Libya’s rich oil resources ensured that Qaddafi and his close friends and family,
who were also offered positions of power, amassed great fortunes while the rest of the
country lived in poverty.
Qaddafi was notorious on an international level for his brutality as well as his eccentricity.
He was known as the ‘Mad Dog of the Middle East’.
He viewed himself as the king of Africa, was constantly surrounded by female bodyguards
wearing high-heels and erected a bulletproof tent that he would live in whenever traveling
abroad.
Throughout the 1970’s Qaddafi was allegedly in connection with many extremist groups around
the world, providing them with funding.
Such groups included the Black Panther Party, The Nation of Islam and the IRA.
He also funded the Black September movement behind the 1972 massacre in Munich of Israeli
athletes.
Libyan terrorists were thought to be responsible for the bombing of a West Berlin night club
in 1986.
The attack killed three people and injured many others.
The US, under Ronald Reagan’s administration, responded by bombing certain targets in Libya,
including Qaddafi’s home in Tripoli.
Qaddafi was also implicated in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing when a plane carrying 259 people was
blown up near Lockerbie, Scotland.
Everyone on board was killed and 11 people lost their lives when they were struck by
falling debris.
In 1989, Libya under Qaddafi was also suspected of being involved in the destruction of a
French passenger jet which resulted in the death of all 170 passengers.
He mended relationships with the West in the 1990s.
An important move towards this was the surrender of suspects involved in the Lockerbie bombing.
By 2001 the sanctions imposed by the UN on Libya’s oil trade had become lighter.
New trade negotiations made Qaddafi even richer widening the gap between his family and the
rest of the population, in a country that was told to uphold socialist principles.
Even though he was in power for over 40 years, Qaddafi’s decline took place in under a
year during the ‘Arab Spring’, a period of revolutions for certain Arab countries.
The Tunisian revolution took back control of the country from dictator Zine al-Abidine
Ben Ali in January 2011.
Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak was also forced out the next month.
Protests and demonstrations started taking place in other Arab capitals as well.
In Libya, the protests started in Benghazi and gradually spread throughout the rest of
the country.
Qaddafi was highly aggressive in his attempt of quelling the demonstrations.
He brought in mercenaries from other countries, that, together with the police shot at protesters
as helicopters bombarded them from the air.
By the end of February 2011 the rebels had taken control over most of Libyan territory
and the NTC (National Transitional Council) was founded.
The NATO coalition supported the NTC and aided them with a series of airstrikes on Tripoli,
where Qaddafi still had some supporters.
One of Qaddafi’s sons lost his life in an NATO attack.
When Tripoli was taken over by rebel military forces in late August 2011, Qaddafi’s rule
had ended.
Over 30 countries recognized the NTC as the official Libyan government.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Qaddafi, his son and his brother
in-law for crimes against humanity.
According to Libyan officials, Qaddafi had died near Sirte, his hometown, on October
20, 2011.
Footage of his bloodied body being dragged around by rebel fighters started circulating
soon after.
Number 1: Jean-Bedel Bokassa Bokassa came from a reputable family.
His father was chief of the Mbaka tribe in the Oubangui-Chari French colony.
After his father’s sudden death in 1927 and his mother’s suicide a few months later,
he was left in the care of Franciscan missionaries.
He was six years old.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa began his military career in World War II fighting for the French colonial
army.
He took part in Operation Dragoon in 1944, when the allied forces landed in Provence
and later continued fighting for the French in Algeria and Indochina.
After the World War, he continued to serve under the French and fought in Indochina and
Algeria.
Bokassa received awards and distinctions including a membership in the Legon d’Honneur and
the Croix de guerre.
He was promoted to captain in 1961.
During Bokassa’s service, Oubangui-Chari became the Central African Republic under
President David Dacko, after declaring its independence from France on August 13, 1960.
The country was rich in resources including diamonds and uranium, which the French sought
to regain control of.
Dacko wanted to ensure that the people of the Central African Republic would be the
first to benefit from the country’s natural riches.
Bokassa was tasked with creating the new country’s army.
His experience helped him rise through the ranks quickly and he became the country’s
first colonel on December 1, 1964.
Despite having the military on his side, Bokassa was not perceived as a threat to the regime.
Dacko stated at a public event "Colonel Bokassa only wants to collect medals and he is too
stupid to pull off a coup d'état".
On the evening of December 31, 1965, Bokassa and his troops took control of Bangui, the
capital city and arrested President David Dacko.
It was suspected that the French had backed Bokassa’s coup.
Shortly after forcing Dacko to resign, Bokassa released a message for the people of the Central
African Republic via a Bangui radio station in which he said “Africans!
Central Africans!
This is Colonel Bokassa speaking to you.
At 3:00 a.m. this morning, your army took control of the government.
The Dacko government has resigned.
The hour of justice is at hand.
The bourgeoisie is abolished.
A new era of equality among all has begun.
Central Africans, wherever you may be, be assured that the army will defend you and
your property...Long live the Central African Republic!”
In the 11 years that followed Bokassa was president.
The French supported Operation Bokassa, a reform program based on government support
and finance for farms and small industries.
The program eventually failed because of corruption and mismanagement.
The relationship with France made Bokassa a very wealthy man.
French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was a frequent visitor of the republic.
Diamonds and uranium were constantly exported with most of the earnings going to Bokassa
directly or his businesses.
During his term as president Bokassa gained international notoriety.
Members of his armed forces had almost complete reign over the country and were frequently
involved in cases of rapes and lootings.
A large number of his political opponents were tortured and killed under accusations
of conspiracy to overthrow him.
One of Bokassa’s captains, Alexandre Banza opposed his lavish lifestyle and his extravagant
spending and even planned a coup against him.
When it failed, Banza was captured and killed.
Time magazine commented on Banza’s death stating that he "was dragged before a Cabinet
meeting where Bokassa slashed him with a razor.
Guards then beat Banza until his back was broken, dragged him through the streets of
Bangui and finally shot him."
Bokassa had always been an admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte and on December 4, 1976 he became
Emperor Bokassa I and the country’s name was changed to ‘Central African Empire’.
France supported some of the cost from his 22 million dollar coronation.
The crown alone was studded with 2,000 diamonds and a huge solid gold throne was commissioned.
He wore custom-made pearl studded shoes and had 35 horses brought in from France to pull
his carriages.
At that time the average Central African Republic man earned $122 a year.
Many foreign heads of state had been invited but none participated.
Prior to becoming emperor Bokassa had also proclaimed himself as President for life.
In April 1979, in an attempt to mimic Western custom, Bokassa issued a decree that all students
and pupils were to wear uniforms.
The clothes were made in a factory owned by his wife.
In a country that had already been struggling with poverty, the decision caused an outrage.
Protests soon followed in Bangui as students and teachers attacked buildings.
A group of children even threw rocks at Bokassa’s Rolls Royce as it was passing by.
Bokassa’s violent response marked the beginning of his downfall.
Between the 18th and 19th of April, he rounded most of the suspected teachers, students and
children and ordered his soldiers to fire on them.
It was suspected that Bokassa himself had taken part in the execution by beating children
to death with his cane or suffocating them.
100 children lost their lives in what was later known as ‘The Bangui Massacre’.
Bokassa was even rumored to have eaten parts of his victims.
An international scandal quickly followed.
His relationship with France was over.
Whatever little support he still had from his people also disappeared.
In ‘Operation Barracuda’ the French government overthrew Bokassa’s military dictatorship
and re-instated David Dacko as president, who proclaimed the fall of the Central African
Empire.
The former colony was once again named the Central African Republic.
Bokassa was trialed in absence for the murder of political adversaries in 1980.
He was given asylum in France and was allowed to stay in his Chateau d'Hardricourt located
in a Parisian suburb because of his military record.
Upon returning to the Central African Republic in 1986, he was arrested and ultimately sentenced
to death for a number of crimes including treason, murder, cannibalism and assault.
As democracy returned to the republic, he was pardoned along with other prisoners in
1993.
He died of a heart attack on November 3, 1996, as a free man.