Posted on 08/02/2003 11:34:47 AM PDT by HAL9000
Amin sickness divides family
Deep misunderstandings have developed among family members of former President Idi Amin Dada, currently in a coma in Saudi Arabia.
Sources in the Amin family told Sunday Monitor that the issue of Amin’s failing health had been kept secret for three months.
Sunday Monitor on July 20 exclusively broke news of Amin’s sickness to the chagrin of some family members.
“When the news broke out some family members wrongly accused Madina Amin [one of the former president’s wives] of having issued a press statement about mzee’s sickness to media organisations in Uganda,” said a family source.
Later Ms Madina flew to Saudi Arabia to join her two sons Hussein Kato and Mwanga Amin who had been attending to the ageing general.
The former president was on July 18 admitted at King Fahad Hospital where is still battling for his life. He is suffering from hypertension and kidney failure in the Intensive Care Unit, and is hooked to life support machines from head to toe.
Last week one of Amin’s daughters Maimuna Amin blasted this reporter accusing him of “conniving” with some family members to report her father’s sickness.
She even insisted that Amin was not sick, adding that it was one of his wives (names withheld) who had “fabricated” the story.
A cross section of family members reportedly sat and resolved that “there has to be a away of duping a cross section of journalists that Amin was not sick at all”.
In addition a plan was reportedly hatched, alleging that Amin had chased away Madina from Saudi Arabia.
“But how can the old man who has not been talking all this while be able to chase away someone,” said a family source on phone from Europe.
Sources told Sunday Monitor that there have been accusations and counter accusations amongst family members.
Early this week Amin Lumumba, who stays in Kampala, flew out to see his father while daughter Hajira Amin came back on July 30.
Amin’s failing health has not only generated tension among family members but even at national level.
President Yoweri Museveni promised to arrest Amin, the moment he lands at Entebbe, even in his ailing condition.
However a cross-section of MPs and religious leaders have called for forgiveness of the man who ruled the country from January 25, 1971 to April 11, 1979.
Amin was overthrown by a combined force of the Tanzanian army and Ugandan exiles, and has since lived a quiet life in Saudi Arabia, neither making political statements nor granting interviews to the press.
He lives on a stipend of $1,500 a month provided by the Saudi royal family.
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
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