ABSTRACT
For Africa's three most notorious dictators, Idi Amin, Francisco Macías Nguema and Salah Ad-din Ahmed Bokassa I, 1979 was a bad year. But although fourteen million Ugandans, Equatorial Guineans and Central Africans were suddenly freed from tyranny, fresh uncertainties beset them. Internally, there were rivals who plotted for power and vengeance-seekers with scores to settle. Externally, foreign governments jostled to gain new influence or recover old privileges.
