Marc Broere

Broere writes reasonably well, in an accessible journalistic style, starting with his own fascination as a young boy for the military hero called Amin.

However what becomes clear from Marc’s interviews with a limited number of key members of Amin’s inner circle, family and opponents is that Marc himself is rather driven by female ebony beauty (and associated stories of Amin’s sexual prowess?), more than any sense of African political systems or big man politics. That’s a pity, show more because he did manage to interview an interesting cast of characters: Henry Kyemba, Amin’s former Minister of Health, who had to flee in 1977 and published the first really revealing book on Amin’s blood soaked crimes. Mustafa Adrisi, former vice president and chief of staff who fought the Mau Mau in Kenya together with his instructor Idi Amin. Adrisi still advised president Museveni after fleeing Amin’s regime in its final years for being suspected by Amin of playing a role in one of the many foiled attempts on his life. Then there is Wilson Toko, former head of the airforce under Amin, who made useful observations on Amin as illiterate who distrusted highly educated folks and thus surrounded himself with acolytes of his own educational level. Toko fled into exile quite soon after Amin had raised him as head of the air force (saving himself the embarrassment of the Israeli Entebbe hostage liberation). Ramadhan Amin, the brother of Idi, and many children of Amin and his fourth wife Medina also feature, trying to deny any wrong-doings by Amin. Starring is former top model princes Elizabeth Bayaaga, who is admired beyond belief by Marc.

Despite mixing in analytical findings produced by other biographers and fiction writers that focus on Amin and his murderous regime (Giles Foden, Moses Isegawa), Marc does not delve much deeper than common platitudes about colonial legacy or bloody dictator, or the crop of ‘new African leaders’ of which Museveni was seen as one at the time of writing. A saving grace is the interview Marc has with a professor in political science at Makerere University (Akiki Majaju) who takes the trouble to enlighten him on some geo-politics and African governance systems. Pity Marc did not read that giant in African studies – Mahmood Mamdani. His ‘citizen and subject’, published in 1996 would have made short shrift of some of Marc’s mediocre development speak. show less