After Tanzania invaded in response to Amin's failed annexation attempt of its northern territory, combined Tanzanian and Ugandan exile forces routed his army and advanced on the capital. Amin fled the country days before Kampala fell, ending a regime blamed for the deaths of an estimated 300,000 Ugandans through terror, purges, and economic collapse.
Amin had seized power in a 1971 coup and ruled through a combination of theatrical bravado and industrial-scale violence, expelling Uganda's Asian minority, executing rivals, and reportedly boasting of cannibalism to intimidate enemies, claims never fully verified but widely believed given his reputation. His decision to annex Tanzania's Kagera region in 1978 proved fatal, provoking a counter-invasion that his depleted, poorly motivated army could not repel.
As Tanzanian tanks and Ugandan rebel militias advanced toward Kampala in mid-July 1979, Amin's inner circle scattered. He fled first to Libya, then eventually settled in Saudi Arabia, where he lived out his days in comfortable exile on a Jeddah stipend, never facing trial for the atrocities committed under his rule.
The collapse of his government marked one of the few instances of an African state directly invading a neighbor to topple its government, setting a precedent debated for decades in discussions of sovereignty versus humanitarian intervention on the continent.
Key people: Idi Amin