First, the deportation was an East African Community policy agreed on at a summit in Nairobi in 1968. Following that summit of the three East African Community heads of state, where Britain and India were invited but declined to attend, Presidents Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania immediately expelled over 120,000 Asians.
President Milton Obote of Uganda would betray the summit decision and instead cut a deal with a now panicked British government where they agreed that the British Asians in Uganda would be deported incrementally at a more manageable rate of about 1,200 British Asians every month.
However, this Obote deal is what led to an unexpected devastating result where the economy of Uganda was almost totally collapsing by the time Amin came to power in 1971.
The Asians in Uganda, knowing that they were leaving under the Obote incremental deportation, started short selling all their stock, did not replenish and, more damagingly, they started sending all the recouped capital to Britain in advance as each one awaited their turn to leave the country. Naturally, why would anyone restock their business or re-invest in the country if they know they are leaving soon?
It is this untold economic calamity that Amin found developing. This is why he famously said: “They are milking the economy.” In order to avert economic disaster, he froze all assets and bank accounts of departing British Asians.
He also demanded that the British Asians leave in 90 days rather than incrementally as had been conducted by Obote in agreement with the British since 1968. This secret Obote policy was turning out to be devastating for the country.
The indigenous Ugandans were going to remain with no economy and no supplies to talk about, especially since 98 per cent of the economy was in the hands of British Asians.
In order to mitigate the economic situation, Amin offered the British Asians a choice between a 90-day deportation deadline or take Ugandan citizenship and remain. The exact offer that Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania had offered three years earlier.
For the record, the Asians had been given British citizenship when the East African countries gained independence, and the understanding was that they were British responsibility because it was the UK that brought them to East Africa during colonialism. That is why they were deported to Britain. Their own ancestral country, India, actually refused to welcome them back.
Madam Speaker, I also would like to remind the two honourable members of parliament, and anyone else who might have forgotten due to politically-induced amnesia that the departure of colonialism, including the British Asians, was legitimately demanded as part of independence, and fully supported by all the people of Uganda.
It was, therefore, not one person’s choice. That socio-political environment and its demands remained after independence as a national reality. It was not just limited to Uganda but also prevailing in all the three East African Community countries. I have since learned that even some British colonial islands in the Pacific grappled with the same demands.
But as a recap, let it be clear that this issue was the reason for the famous 1968 extraordinary East African Community heads of state summit in Nairobi on “The Indians Question.”
The difference in implementation between the three countries was first Milton Obote’s incremental monthly expulsion while Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere gave them 90 days. The other big difference was that Amin, who also ended up seeing the benefits to the economy of a 90-day ultimatum, actually compensated the departed Asians for all the nationalized properties, while Kenya and Tanzania did not.
Lastly, how can the properties be called “Asian properties” if the Asian former owners were compensated?
Based on rational mathematical logic behind the principles of ownership, until the compensation money is refunded back to the people of Uganda, these properties should remain Ugandan. They are not “Asian properties.”
Similarly, the colonial economy was not Ugandan. It was British, run by the British together with the British Asians for their own benefit. The complaints by the indigenous people included that the colonial economy was exploitative in nature. There was rampant racial abuse, arrogant mistreatment of workers and, most of all, the colonial economy did not allow for the indigenous people to embrace business and entrepreneurship or come out of poverty.
Today Ugandans are everywhere in these once exclusive areas and running the economy of their own country. It is, therefore, His Excellency the late President Idi Amin who is the founder of the Ugandan economy.
The author is the son of the late president Idi Amin Dada.