Idi Amin ruled Uganda as a dictator from 1971 to 1979. He rose from assistant cook to officer in Britain’s colonial army. Many medals on his uniform were self-awarded, including the Victorious Cross, modeled on Britain’s Victoria Cross. Digitally enhanced from a lower-resolution photograph.
Millions of Africans escaped colonial rule only to find themselves afraid of their own leaders. Known as “the Big Men of Africa,” these rulers controlled the army, silenced newspapers, and sent opponents to prison. Some seized power in military coups. Others arrived as heroes who had fought for freedom, then denied that freedom to their own people. They treated national treasuries as personal bank accounts and disagreement as treason.
Independence and the Cold War
The colonial system started to break apart during World War II. Many Africans fought alongside the Allies and decided their own nations needed to be free. By the end of the war, colonial powers such as Britain and France had been weakened. Their battered economies made it harder to resist growing demands for independence.
Two superpowers emerged from the war: the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States supported capitalism, based on private ownership of businesses. The Soviet Union, dominated by Russia, promoted communism, which promised economic equality through shared ownership. In practice, its government controlled most of the economy. American leaders also wanted access to Africa’s minerals. Both powers competed for influence in Africa’s newly independent nations, offering money, weapons, and political support. A ruler’s loyalty often mattered more to his foreign supporters than his people’s freedom.
Patrice Lumumba was 34 when he became Congo’s first prime minister. A former postal clerk and beer salesman, he stunned the Belgian king at the independence ceremony with a speech condemning colonial rule. He held office for less than three months. Today he is honored as a national hero.
The Tragedy of Congo
Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, with Patrice Lumumba as prime minister. His new nation faced army mutinies and rebellion, and he sought American aid to restore order. Unable to obtain the help he wanted, he turned to the Soviet Union. American officials feared that Congo would become a Communist ally and backed army commander Joseph Mobutu. Mobutu’s soldiers arrested Lumumba, who was handed over to his enemies and executed in 1961. In 1965, after years of conflict, Mobutu seized the presidency in a military coup.
Mobutu skimmed profits from the nation’s copper and diamond mines and pocketed foreign aid to become a billionaire, while teachers and soldiers went months without pay. Rebels drove him from power in 1997, and he died in exile months later.
A Self-Styled Emperor
Jean-Bedel Bokassa seized power in the Central African Republic in a 1966 military coup. In 1977, he crowned himself “emperor” in a $22 million coronation that consumed one quarter of his poor nation’s annual revenue. Bokassa was overthrown in 1979 after his troops massacred about 100 high school students. The students had protested buying required uniforms made by his family’s company. In 1986, Bokassa returned from exile expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead, he was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. The sentence was later reduced, and he was freed in 1993.
Jean-Bedel Bokassa ruled the Central African Republic from 1966 to 1979. Many of the medals on his chest came from twenty-two years in the French army, including the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. In 1974, he promoted himself to marshal, the country’s highest military rank. Digitally enhanced from a lower-resolution photograph.
Terror in Uganda
Idi Amin staged a coup in Uganda in 1971. Britain and Israel quickly recognized the new government, hoping Amin would be an ally. Amin’s forces killed an estimated 300,000 Ugandans, including soldiers from rival ethnic groups, judges, and journalists. Many bodies were dumped in the Nile River. In 1972, Amin gave tens of thousands of people of Asian descent ninety days to leave Uganda. He handed their businesses and homes to native Ugandans, causing Uganda’s economy to collapse. After Amin invaded Tanzania, Tanzanian troops drove him into exile in 1979. He spent his final years in Saudi Arabia and died in 2003.
From Hero to Dictator
Robert Mugabe fought white-minority rule and was elected the first prime minister of newly independent Zimbabwe in 1980. Within three years, his army killed an estimated 20,000 civilians who supported his rival. In 2000, Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms, saying the land had been stolen from Africans. He gave many to political allies who had little farming experience. Food production collapsed, and Mugabe’s government printed more and more money to pay its bills. By 2008, prices doubled every day, and Zimbabwe eventually printed a 100-trillion-dollar bill. The Zimbabwean army forced Mugabe from power in 2017.
Pressure for Change
Big Men also ruled Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and other African nations. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Soon after, Western nations demanded elections in exchange for aid, and more than a dozen African countries held multiparty elections. Some Big Men clung to power by rigging those elections, but they could no longer count on a superpower to protect them.
Resources
Download this lesson as a worksheet with activities
Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on Africa.
Cite this page: Dowling, Mike, “The Big Men of Africa,” mrdowling.com. Web. [Date of access].
Sources:
Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (2005)
Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa (1982)
Samuel Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa (1976)
Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (2005)
Blaine Harden, Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent (1990)
Ludo De Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba (2001)
Emmanuel Gerard and Bruce Kuklick, Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba (2015)
Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo (2007)
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders (1975)
Michela Wrong, In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo (2000)
Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (1985)
Brian Titley, Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (1997)
Henry Kyemba, A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin (1977)
Mahmood Mamdani, From Citizen to Refugee: Uganda Asians Come to Britain (1973)
Martin Meredith, Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe’s Future (2007)
Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, Breaking the Silence, Building True Peace: A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands, 1980–1988 (1997)
Steve H. Hanke and Alex K. F. Kwok, “On the Measurement of Zimbabwe’s Hyperinflation,” Cato Journal (2009)
Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (1997)
