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Idi Amin kidney swap plan fails at last minute
17 Aug 2003 by Ross Bender
The former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada has died in Saudi Arabia. Amin attended Eton, Oxford and the Yale Law School and served in the King's African Rifles under English colonial rule from 1946 until independence in 1962. After his rise to power in 1971 he maintained a keen interest in British cultural life and politics, volunteering to serve as King of Scotland and suggesting that the Queen send him her "25-year-old knickers" on the occasion of Her Royal Highness's 25th anniversary of her accession to the throne.
Languishing on life support in King Faisal Hospital in Jiddah, where he subsisted on a vegetarian diet of pita bread and hummus, Amin had in recent months been canvassing African heads of state to donate excess kidneys. "Where's the beef?" he had asked. "I may have a reputation for disgusting and unspeakable brutality, but I am retired now and I do enjoy a nice steak and kidney pie of an evening." Amin was renowned for cannibalism during his tenure as "Conqueror of the British Empire" and "Big Daddy Africa" in Uganda.
As recently as Friday, the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, had announced he would donate kidneys belonging to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to Amin. It was reported that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Salad-al-din Ramsbottom was preparing to fly to Harare via Nigeria, where he planned to collect excess kidneys from former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor before continuing on to the Zimbabwean capital where opposition leader Tsvangirai is assisting police with their inquiries. Prince Salad-al-din Ramsbottom was recently implicated in the 9/11 plot which demolished the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City. US President George W. Bush had no comment on this.
"I visited Africa last month," Bush he said. "Nice little country. Had a nice hippopotamus steak in Uganda. At least I think it was hippopotamus."
US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Prince Philip will attend the state funeral in Jiddah.
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