Few African tears for Idi Amin

Regret that Amin was not punished

The death of former Ugandan President Idi Amin in his Saudi Arabian exile is the top story in the East African country's Sunday newspapers.

The independent Sunday Monitor and the state-owned Sunday Vision both lead with photographs of the late ex-president, accompanied by factual reports of the death - although the Vision prefaces its report with an Old Testament quotation from the Book of Isiah:

"You used to be honoured with the music of harps, but now you are in the world of the dead. You lie on a bed of maggots and are covered with a blanket of worms."

The Monitor carries a wide range of accompanying reports of reaction to the ex-president's death.

It reports the present Ugandan government's view that he has "paid for his sins" and the opinion of Uganda's Indian Association that his death "marks the end of a bitter chapter" - a reference to the expulsion of about 80,000 Ugandan Asians in 1972.

People's verdict

But it also reports praise for "a great friend" and "statesman" from Lieutenant Colonel Abdul Nassur Abudallah, a former governor of Uganda's central province, and carries a tribute to his contribution to Ugandan sport during his rule.

One would not be faulted for screaming 'good riddance' from the rooftop Sunday Nation

"Sport in Uganda was on a high" under Amin, himself a former national light-heavyweight boxing champion, writes Douglas D Bugingo.

He recalls a number of Ugandan sporting feats unmatched since Amin's overthrow in 1979 and concludes:

"To Amin, the sporting fraternity will say: rest in peace."

The Monitor also invites its readers to take part in a poll on Amin's legacy, asking them to decide whether he was "a dictator", an "African nationalist", a "colonial problem", or "none of the above".

The main Ugandan papers' editorial columns are still devoted to other matters, but commentators elsewhere in Africa are quicker off the mark, and there appears to be a consensus that Amin will not be missed.

Speak no ill?

For Kenya's Sunday Nation, he is an exception to the rule that one should speak no ill of the dead.

His passing is an inconclusive end to an ugly chapter in the history of Uganda Sunday Nation

"One would not be faulted for screaming 'good riddance' from the rooftop," it declares, describing the former Ugandan president as "one of the worst accidents of leadership to occur on our continent".

It sees him as part of a lamentable African tradition and regrets that he was never put on trial.

"Amin belongs to the ugly African past of coups and military dictatorships that should never be allowed to rear its ugly head on the continent again," it says.

"His passing is an inconclusive end to an ugly chapter in the history of Uganda, in particular, and Africa, in general. The dictator should have been made to answer for his sins."

No change

A similar perspective is expressed in a commentary in Nigeria's Guardian.

Reuben Abati sees the "incurable megalomaniac" Amin as "a symbol of the rise of tyranny and misgovernance which is responsible for the failure of African states", and draws a pessimistic conclusion about Africa's current plight.

African leaders kill to sustain themselves in power; they are intolerant of opposition; there is an Idi Amin in each and every one of them Reuben Abati, Guardian

"Africa's contemporary leaders may have legitimized themselves by embracing the rituals of democracy but they are in no way different from the Idi Amins of this world," he says.

He recalls how Gabon's Omar Bongo has amended the constitution to make himself President for Life, Kenyan ex-President Daniel Arap Moi has escaped trial for turning the country into a police state and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe "has converted democratic rule into personal rule".

"African leaders kill to sustain themselves in power; they are intolerant of opposition; there is an Idi Amin in each and every one of them," he concludes.

'Buffoon'

One word repeatedly used to describe Amin is "buffoon", and an article in South Africa's Mail and Guardian reflects this side of him in a headline recalling his many self-bestowed honours:

"Idi Amin Dada, VC, CBE ... RIP".

"But his buffoonery was a side issue to his brutality and murderous tastes," it acknowledges.

The death of "the ruthless former dictator... who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his countrymen in one of Africa's bleakest periods... brings to an end a career marked in equal measure by violence and a dark absurdity that verged on madness", it believes.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.