A State of Blood The Inside Story of Idi Amin by Henry Kyemba
Henry Kyemba’s A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin provides a chilling, first-hand account of the terror that gripped Uganda from 1971 to 1977. As a high-ranking official who served as Idi Amin’s Principal Private Secretary, Cabinet Secretary, and Minister of Health, Kyemba writes with the unique authority of a man who worked intimately with a leader he describes as Africa’s most ruthless killer. The book serves not only as a memoir of survival but as a document of horror intended to reveal the truth to a world that often dismissed Amin as a mere clown. The Roots of the Tyrant and the Rise to Power The narrative begins by establishing the context of Uganda’s immediate past, which Kyemba believe offered Amin the opportunity to assert his remarkable but dangerous personality. Amin, a member of the Kakwa tribe from the far northwestern part of Uganda, rose through the ranks of the King’s African Rifles as a private to become a sergeant, renowned for his physical size and boxing prowess rather than his education, which was nearly non-existent. Under Uganda’s first Prime Minister, Milton Obote, Amin was promoted to Army Commander, becoming indispensable as Obote relied increasingly on …