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DPA
KAMPALA
UGANDA will build a museum dedicated to its political past, including the eight bloody years of Idi Amin's regime, a tourism official said on Saturday.
"We have had nine heads of state including Amin," said Stephen Asiimwe, executive director of the Uganda Tourism Board."So much happened during Amin's time. There were human rights issues."
Human rights groups estimate that at least 400,000 people died at the hands of Amin's military and spy agencies. Amin seized power in 1971 in a military coup that ousted civilian president Milton Obote.
In 1972, Amin expelled thousands of Asians from the country. Mostly of Indian and Pakistani descent, they formed the backbone of Uganda's economy and their expulsion plunged the country into economic and political turmoil.
Amin was removed in 1979 by Tanzanian troops and the Uganda National Liberation Front. He fled to Libya and finally to Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.
Asiimwe, however, says Ugandans' memories of Amin are not all negative.
"We should remember that Amin was nurtured by the British, he was a captain by 1952 during British rule," he told dpa.
"Amin has some positive sides. For example, he built all of Uganda's foreign missions, including one in New York."
The museum will hold the documents of Uganda's administrative past, Asiimwe added. It will be an extension of an existing museum near the capital, Kampala, and also house archives from British colonial rule and post-independence Uganda, the director said.
