Description

A State of Blood: The Inside Story of Idi Amin by Henry Kyemba is one of the most chilling and authoritative firsthand accounts ever written about one of Africa’s most brutal dictatorships. Kyemba served for five years as a top cabinet minister in Idi Amin’s Uganda — including as Minister of Health — giving him direct access to the inner workings of a regime defined by terror, paranoia, and mass murder.

Kyemba provides an unflinching eyewitness account of what life was like inside Amin’s government, including the systematic elimination of political opponents, intellectuals, and entire ethnic groups, the culture of fear and suspicion that permeated every level of government, Amin’s erratic behaviour, violent paranoia, and cult of personality, the expulsion of Uganda’s Asian community and the economic devastation that followed, the role of foreign powers in enabling and ignoring Amin’s atrocities, and the daily reality of serving a dictator while trying to survive.

What makes this book extraordinary is that it comes not from an outside journalist or historian, but from someone who sat in cabinet meetings, witnessed decisions being made, and lived in constant fear for his own life. Kyemba eventually fled Uganda and wrote this account to ensure the world understood the full horror of what had taken place.

This is essential reading for anyone across Kenya and East Africa. As Uganda’s neighbour and a country deeply affected by the Amin era — including the 1976 Entebbe hijacking and the cross-border tensions of the period — Kenya has a direct connection to this history. The book is invaluable for students of African history, political science, governance, and human rights, and serves as a powerful warning about the consequences of unchecked authoritarian power.

A sobering companion to Imperial Reckoning, The Fear, and A Grain of Wheat.

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