Idi Amin's willing helpers

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Idi Amin is 20th century Africa's most notorious ruler, a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it's true that, as Uganda's dictator for most of the 1970s, he oversaw murderous repression as well as the forced expulsion of the country's Asian community. But why did so many ordinary Ugandans throughout the nation willingly serve the regime and help to maintain Amin's power?

That's a question at the heart of a new book by the historian Derek R. Peterson, and in this episode he shares his conclusions with Rob Attar. Could we begin by setting the scene? How do we get to 1971, an Idiamine seizure of power? Uganda had come to independence in October 1962.

The first chief executive was Prime Minister Milton Obote. He was probably the weakest prime minister in independent Africa. The 1960s were a time when lots of charismatic African presidents were leading African colonies to independence. Milton Abote was not one of them. He had come to power through kind of shady backroom deals struck in London between his very loosely organized party on the one hand and the several different kingdoms that British authorities had installed at the center of Uganda's politics on the other, so

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