The First Shell Killed Two Priests: What Idi Amin's 1971 Coup Reveals About Power, Betrayal, and International Complicity

 

On January 25, 1971, a tank commander loyal to General Idi Amin fired the first shell of a military coup in Uganda. That shell killed two Roman Catholic priests sitting in the Entebbe airport waiting room. This single moment captures something essential about what followed: eight years of brutality that would claim between 80,000 and 500,000 lives, depending on which estimate you trust. The coup that brought Amin to power was not a sudden eruption of violence. It was the culmination of personal rivalries, financial scandals, and international maneuvering that reveals how dictatorships take root.

Corruption, Betrayal, and the Mechanics of a Coup

President Milton Obote and General Idi Amin were both implicated in a gold smuggling operation. The scheme involved supporting rebels in southern Sudan while profiting from illicit gold trade. When Parliament demanded an investigation into the scandal in February 1966, Obote responded by arresting five cabinet ministers who had called for the probe. The move revealed his own involvement in the alleged corruption. By January 1971, Obote was planning to arrest Amin for misappropriating army funds. Amin learned of the plan while Obote attended a Commonwealth conference in Singapore. He launched his preemptive strike in the early morning hours of January 25, with mechanized army units attacking strategic targets in Kampala and the airport at Entebbe.

Radio Uganda broadcast accusations of corruption against Obote's government, claiming ministers owned large businesses and expensive cars. The broadcast stated the army intervened to prevent bloodshed. One of the reasons Amin gave for the coup was "the failure of the political authorities to organize any elections for the last eight years whereby the people's free will could be expressed." Less than a month after taking power, Amin suspended elections "for at least five years." No elections were ever held during his eight-year rule. This pattern of justifying power grabs with democratic rhetoric while dismantling democratic processes is a recurring theme in authoritarian takeovers. Amin promised what he had no intention of delivering.

International Complicity and the Price of Strategic Interests

The British Foreign Office described Amin as "a splendid type and a good football player" in an internal memo. British, American, and Israeli governments were "quite happy" with the coup. They had grown unhappy with Obote's leftist economic policies and his support for African independence movements. Documents declassified by the British Foreign Office reveal that Israel played an active role in planning and implementing the coup. Israel saw Amin as an agent to destabilize Islamic Sudan. Western powers viewed him as preferable to Obote's socialist leanings. This international support gave Amin legitimacy in his early months. The same governments that later condemned his brutality had helped put him in power. The honeymoon period ended quickly. As reports of mass killings emerged, Western governments distanced themselves from Amin. But the damage was done. The coup had succeeded partly because powerful nations wanted it to succeed.

A 1979 Amnesty International report stated: "Systematic and deliberate killings by government forces began in the first month of President Idi Amin's rule in Uganda." People sometimes learned by listening to the radio that they were "about to disappear." The exact death toll remains uncertain. The International Commission of Jurists estimated between 80,000 and 300,000 deaths. Exile organizations working with Amnesty International put the number at 500,000. The variation in these estimates reflects the chaos of Amin's regime and the difficulty of documenting systematic violence while it occurs. Scholar A.B.K. Kasozi's 1994 research reported that Amin's death toll, as high as 300,000, was "dwarfed" by murders during Milton Obote's two periods as president (1962-1971 and 1980-1985). Estimates of murders during the Obote years were "not less than 50,000 and could have been as high as one million." This suggests that despite Amin's international notoriety, he may not have been Uganda's bloodiest tyrant. The violence in Uganda extended beyond one dictator's reign.

The Pattern of Violence and Its Enduring Legacy

Since Amin's coup in January 1971, Uganda has not had a peaceful transfer of power. The coup marked a decisive shift toward the politics of violence in Uganda and the militarization of politics. It established a pattern that would continue for decades. Amin's seizure of power belonged to a period in early African postcolonial history when soldiers wrested government from civilian control. This phenomenon was emblematic of political instability and economic inequity that many African nations struggled with after independence. The 1971 coup was not an isolated incident. It was part of a broader pattern of military intervention in civilian governance across the continent.

The Amin coup demonstrates several factors that enable authoritarian rule. Personal corruption creates vulnerability. Both Obote and Amin were involved in illegal activities. When leaders operate outside the law, they create conditions for violent power struggles. International powers prioritize their interests over democratic principles. Western governments supported Amin because he served their strategic goals, not because he represented the will of Ugandan people. Democratic rhetoric can mask authoritarian intentions. Amin justified his coup by criticizing the lack of elections, then suspended elections indefinitely. Violence escalates quickly once institutional checks collapse. Systematic killings began within the first month of Amin's rule. The pattern of violence extends beyond individual dictators. Uganda's struggle with peaceful transfers of power predates and extends beyond Amin's regime.

The two priests killed by the first shell of Amin's coup were anonymous victims of a power struggle that had nothing to do with them. They represent the thousands of Ugandans who died because of decisions made by leaders pursuing personal power and international actors pursuing strategic advantage. The 1971 coup was not inevitable. It resulted from specific choices made by specific people: Amin's decision to seize power, Obote's decision to centralize control and engage in corruption, and Western governments' decision to support a military takeover. Understanding these choices helps us recognize similar patterns when they emerge elsewhere. History does not repeat itself exactly. But the dynamics that enabled Amin's rise—corruption, international complicity, the militarization of politics, and the gap between democratic rhetoric and authoritarian practice—appear again and again. The first shell killed two priests. The coup that followed killed a nation's hope for peaceful democratic governance. That legacy remains relevant today, not just in Uganda but anywhere institutional checks on power weaken and violence becomes a tool of political competition.