EXPULSION ORDER GENERAL AMIN CREATES MAJOR PROBLEM FOR BRITAIN

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32998, 18 August 1972, Page 12

EXPULSION ORDER GENERAL AMIN CREATES MAJOR PROBLEM FOR BRITAIN

(Reprinted from the "Economist" (August 12) by arrangement)

Since he came to power in January last year by leading an army coup to depose Dr Obote, President Amin has shown himself increasingly erratic in behaviour and intemperate in his outbursts. But he happens to be the present head of the Ugandan Government and Britain must deal with him if it is to deal with anyone. So the effort must be made to understand why he has given the British Government this ultimatum and has boasted of his determination to teach this country a lesson.

General Amin achieved power with the help of the armed forces. One of his earliest acts was to increase military expenditure and build a much bigger army. But that has made his dependence on the army greater, not less; and he must know that an army which connived in his take-over of power—by no means the first attempt at a military coup in independent Uganda — could back another to get rid of him as he got rid of Dr Obote.

The army he depends on is notoriously indisciplined, riven by tribal feuds which have led to large-scale killings, and emaciated by desertions. The build-up of the armed forces has been at the expense of economic development; the Ugandan people, to whom he offered himself as a father-figure come to save and protect them, have been exhorted to austerity, and the country’s reserves have withered. The President has sought to contain the unrest in the army and among his countrymen by classic diversions, alleging less and less credible foreign plots to oust him and to attack Uganda. In April this year he turned on the country which was thought by many to have helped him to power, expelling several hundred Israelis who had been privileged friends of his regime. Prosperity resented The Asians in Uganda are a much more fertile focus for xenophobia, however. Resentment of their general prosperity, their acquisitive skill as traders and their professional status is common throughout East Africa. General Amin identified them as the counterpart of Hitler’s Jews, supposedly draining the strength of his country, responsible for all its miseries. And, after all, while the real Jews, the Israelis, could be counted only in hundreds, the British Asians numbered many thousands: 57,000 according to British estimates, 80,000 according to the Ugandans, although that figure would appear to include those

Asians who opted for Ugandan citizenship and whom the president has said can stay. So General Amin, who started out expressing tolerance towards them, has now said they must go. Last December, he cited the failure of Asian girls to marry African men as evidence of the Asians' unwillingness to integrate, a statement which, for all the official apologetics, awoke understandable fears that the forced marriages of Zanzibar could be repeated in Uganda. The immediate effect of the President’s action has been to alienate the British Government and the governments of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose nationals have all been included in his 90-day ultimatum. He has driven his neighbours into acts of self-defence, with Kenya and Tanzania proposing to seal their borders against Uganda to block the entry of Asian refugees. He has imperilled the aid he now receives from Britain of some £4.5m a year and the continuance of the assistance he receives from the British army in training Ugandan soldiers. If all the British Asians were to leave, his country would lose, apart from any question of physical assets, the commercial skills and professional qualifications indispensable to it at this stage of development. General Amin seems to have recognised the national selfinterest to the point of modifying his initial threats and would now allow those engaged in certain professions to stay on. Air of desperation The ultimatum to Britain and the accompanying threats to other countries with nationals in Uganda could be the act of a man desperate to keep power by a dramatic popular demonstration. But the possibility must be considered at least that the General is trying to do a Mintoff. even if he seems to lack the political finesse of the Maltese bargainer. Clearly President Amin is also trying to exploit the weakness of Britain’s own Josition, and there he has a ot going for him.

As Sir Alec Douglas-Home said in the Commons, Britain accepts that it has a special obligation for Asians who are British passport holders. Under the 1968 and 1971 immigration acts they are allowed into Britain only if they have special work vouchers. The Government acknowledged its special responsibility in tangible form last year by doubling the annual allocation of 1500 vouchers for holders of United Kingdom passports in East Africa (plus a once-for-

all allocation for 1500 hard cases) and raised the quota to 3500 last May. That seemed to have dealt with the really destitute and to have cleared most of the Kenyan queue (there are an estimated 55,000 British Asians in Kenya and another 20,000 in Tanzania), although the Ugandan queue for vouchers was still, until President Amin’s announcement, about 3000 strong. And the shuttlecocking of those who try to jump the queue goes on. refused entry to Britain time and again, unwanted by any of the other countries to which they are then flown. Britain embarrased British embarrassment at the decisions of the European Court for Human Rights to uphold the right of 31 such individual Asians to enter Britain would be compounded if the court extended those judgments into comprehensive principle embracing all British passport holders now excluded by the immigration acts. That is something the Government clearly wishes to avoid. Until now, by a combination of diplomatic pressure and the evidence of good intentions, it has just managed it. But it looks as though Britain is now faced with the direct challenge.

If President Amin does not relent, or is not bought off by promises of more aid, then Britain will have no choice. It will have to discharge its plain obligation to take all 57,000 British Asians from Uganda, and it is clear the British Government will do so. That would be morally right and, in terms of Britain’s international standing, inescapable. It would do much to take away the bad taste left by the immigration acts which denied Asians automatic entry. But it would be silly to imagine that it could be done without a lot of initial tension and friction, and hardship for many Asian families — especially if the Ugandan Government restricts the export of their capital.

Many professional men

It can be said that if all 57,000 arrived in Britain this year coloured immigration would still be well below that for the peak years of the 19605. Because of their prosperity and their educational and professional attainments —perhaps as many as a third of the men are doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers and so on—they would be much less likely to head for the ghetto areas of the big cities, but rather disperse quickly, as other middle-class Asians have done, and head for the suburbs and the home counties. The typical East African Asian is provident and ambitious, saving up to get his own business, running, say, a launderette in Croydon or a sub-post office in New Barnet. He does not like sending his children, who are used to lessons in English, to “black” schools. Generally, it is the young ones who most want to come to Britain, even if their elders might be willing to retire to India. On almost every ground these adaptable, self-sufficient, industrious and entrepreneurial people would, in the long run, be likely to prove a great positive asset to Britain. But in the short run? Some hostility Apart from the obvious difficulties of finding somewhere to live in a strange, cramped country, many of even the best qualified would take time to land jobs and be accepted for what they are. In their own interest a mass migration would be undesirable. In Britain they would find, hostility. It would come from those who oppose the entry of all coloured immigrants and who would be ready to exploit the situation for political ends. The fighting between white and coloured youths in Liverpool will no doubt be used to show the dangers of mixing races. The position there is in fact more comparable to the conflicts between sects in Northern Ireland, but the riots do show what can happen at the lower end of the social scale in cities where people are scrambling for a living and a place to live and look for scapegoats when things go against them. The only good thing that can come out of President Amin’s eruption is the coming together of all other interested countries. No country, not Britain, nor - India, nor Pakistan, nor Bangladesh, nor Kenya and i Tanzania (two countries : which might well see their own interests jeopardised by ■ Uganda) can stand aside, i Each has a responsibility, ■ none more than Britain.

Every pressure should be exerted upon General Amin to calm down. Britain should make a positive offer to increase substantially the numbers of vouchers for those East African Asians (including those from Kenya and Tanzania) who want to come to Britain, while continuing to phase their entry. India, in particular, should be prevailed upon to do what it can to open its doors to people who could well help its development. Above all, the resolution must be for international action to end what is an international problem and an international scandal.