THE MIDDLE EAST is a place in and about which people seem to do a great deal of moral agonizing. They debate the morality of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, of the use of suicide bombings to resist it, of America's invasion of Iraq and every facet of the efforts to rebuild that stricken country. How strange, then, that one of the most morally unambiguous public figures of the last century -- he's a criminal pure and simple, a murderer on a horrifying scale -- has been able to spend his final years in comfortable retirement in that very agitated region, protected by one of its most prominent governments.
We're not talking here about Saddam Hussein, of course, but about Idi Amin, the former ruler of the East African nation of Uganda, which is still recovering from his depredations. Mr. Amin, who at last report lay on his deathbed in Saudi Arabia, on life support, was ousted in 1979 after an eight-year reign of terror that took perhaps 300,000 lives. After being chased out of his country by the army of neighboring Tanzania (which he had made the mistake of attacking), he was able to settle in Saudi Arabia, which apparently gave him haven because he professes to be a devout Muslim -- and never mind the many devout Muslims who died and suffered under his rule. The gruesome, sometimes bizarre details of the atrocities committed against Ugandans under Idi Amin were widely reported in the world press at the time. And yet during nearly a quarter of a century, there was little or no outcry -- from the Arab "street," from the United States, from Europeans or from anybody else other than some human rights advocates -- about bringing him to justice.
Not long ago an Italian journalist named Riccardo Orizio tracked down Idi Amin for a book about former dictators. Mr. Orizio reports that, like most of those he interviewed, Mr. Amin felt little remorse for his actions. Certainly the people he came in contact with gave him little reason to do so.
Idi Amin escaped the criminal trial that he deserved and the people of Uganda needed. He was often dismissed in the West as a clown -- an attitude both demeaning and coldly callous to Africans. In a time when such names as Milosevic, Hussein and Pinochet are bruited about as meriting trial, why wasn't the name of Idi Amin heard more often -- and thrown up as an accusation to those who harbored him?
� 2003 The Washington Post Company
