UGANDA: WHY SHOULDN'T THE INDIAN COMMUNITY BE CONCERNED BY MUSEVENI'S AUTHORITARIANISM?

 

By CHANGE OF GUARDS

In 1897 British Colonialists founded the East African Association and was based in Bombay India. The following year the association was given a royal charter and it became the Imperial British East African Company IBEACo and it relocated to Mombasa. It recruited all its lower cadre employees from India. When the British Protectorate was declared in 1995, it took over the assets and Indian personnel to serve in construction projects, army and civils service of the Protectorate. The Indian currency, Rupee became the medium of exchange while a legal system that was an extension of the Indian Law was established. The construction of the Uganda Railway 1996 - 1901attracted Indian construction workers from India. An estimated 2,500 lost their lives during the construction of the railway alone. After construction of the railway, the Indian workers opted to settle in upcoming trading posts along the railway route. They brought their families from India and spread their settlements to other areas of East Africa. The British Imperial power encouraged immigrants from India to the east African territory. Along them came the traders and businessmen who were soon to venture into commerce.

At the end of World War One, more Indian immigrants mainly from Gujarant and Punjab were encouraged to bring their enterprenuer skills to develop the British East Africa. They settled in East and Southern Countries including Malawi, Zambia and as far as South Africa. In Uganda, the Indians, Pakistanis and Goans ventured into civil service, professions, urban economy and commercial farming. Cotton became their first major export crop and by 1920s, coffee and sugarcane production had been added on the list. By mid 1940s, the Asian community was dominating the economic life of the Uganda Protectorate. The 1945 bloody riots by Baganda nationalists demanded an end to the Asian monopoly over cotton ginning. The rioters targeted Indian traders and ginners owing to their vintage position in the export-import economy. Four years later, in 1949 a boycott of Indian shops and goods ensued. Africans refused to sell their cotton to the Indian ginners and traders. Indian shops in semi-urban trading centres was targeted for destruction before forcing them to flee the countryside. The situation grew so bad that a state of emergency was declared in Buganda and Europeans and Asians were enlisted in the Police as Special Constables. Several Asians were so scared that they boarded the train to the costal towns before boarding ships back home.

Before independence, many Indians in East Africa were considered to be British Protected Persons (BPP) but without British citizenship except right of access to British Passport. At independence, the British government offered the Asians in Kenya and Uganda to choose between obtaining local citizenship or to retain British citizenship. They chose the later thus were allowed to retain their British Protected Passports and the right of entry to Britain. However, the independence nationalists adopted policies aimed at Africanization of the economy and civil service. On account of being non-citizens, Asians were banned from civil service, limitations on doing business was imposed and in some cases a campaign of violence and intimidation was initiated. In Kenya, the 180,000 Asians were given a two years period within which to acquire Kenyan citizen ship. The Immigration Act of 1967 required them to have Work Permits in order to do business in Kenya but even then their areas of trade was restricted. Instead, at the expiry of that period they chose to relocate to the UK.

The mass migration of Kenyan Asians to the UK forced the British government to enact the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 and the Immigration Act of 1971 that introduced a requirement for one to demonstrate a 'close connection's with the UK either by birth or through parents and grandparents. The move excluded most Asian UK passport holders from unrestricted entry to Britain hence the UK had reneged on its Independence promise. In 1969 the Obote One government in Uganda had carried out a census of all Asians whereby 26,000 were found to be Ugandan Asians, 36,593 were British Asians, 8,890 were Indian Asians, 1,768 were Kenyan Indians. The non citizens were advised to apply for citizenship but only a few reluctantly did submit their applications. In Tanzania, government had been nationalizing banks and other companies since 1967. The April 1971 law nationalized buildings and over properties mostly owned by Asians. They were restricted from international trade but left to do retail business and were required to pay rent to government as tenants on what used to be their properties.

When Iddi Amin overthrew the Obote One government in 1971, the Asian community in Uganda felt some temporary relief. Even some Indians from other parts of East Africa relocated to Uganda. At the time of takeover, 12,000 applications for citizenship by Asians in Uganda were pending processing. When Iddi Amin announced the expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972, the country had a total Asian population of about 80,000. Kenya and Tanzania closed their border with Uganda to stop the influx. Since many were citizens of UK and its colonies, the government of India acted with indifference arguing that the expelled Asians fell under Britain's responsibility. It sent its Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. M.A Rachman to discuss the issue of the British Passport holders. Iddi Amin couldn't relent to any form of blackmail even when the UK froze the €104m loan. The UK government found itself in a fix and had to lift its 1971 law that had been used to block entry of Asian British Passport holders from Kenya. The then British Prime Minister addressed Parliament thus;

"This is our duty. There can not be equivocation. These are British subjects with British Passports."

It hastily put in place a Uganda Resettlement Board (URB) to coordinate their evacuation from Uganda and resettlement in the UK. Anti-immigration sentiments and demonstrations broke out throughout the cities across the UK. The British population had had enough of the Asians who had migrated to the UK from Kenya a new year back. The infamous National Front was just one of such radical anti-migration movements that campaigned for the fight against immigration. The Leicester City Council which had been earmarked as the lead host of the flesh influx of Uganda Asians put a bizarre advert in a Ugandan Newspaper, the Uganda Argus;

"NO HOUSES, NO JOBS AND FULL SCHOOLS. IN YOUR OWN INTEREST AND THOSE OF YOUR FAMILY YOU SHOULD NOT COME TO LIECESTER. TRY SOMEWHERE ELSE."

Nonetheless, the evacuation went ahead and by mid November 1972, a total of 28,000 Asians had been airlifted to the UK from Uganda. As of today, Leicester is one of the first cities in the UK to have a non-white majority population in Britain.

Even the 23,000 Asians who had been granted Ugandan citizenship opted to leave. 6,000 went to Canada, 2,500 entered Kenya, 4,500 went to India, while a few went to Malawi, Pakistan, Norway, USA, Sweden, West Germany, Austria and Mauritius while some 20,000 were unaccounted for. Those who went to India were treated as refugees by the Indian government which resettled them in two camps in the neighbourhood of Ahmedabad (Gujarat) under the government resettlement scheme. A few hundreds who opted to stay remained and successfully carried on. The likes of Karim Hirji of Imperial Hotel and Karmali a.k.a Mukwano let alone Ram Singh who became the Ministry of Defence's Chief Engineer and his fellow contractor Sahib who were even permitted to hire labour from Punjab for construction projects throughout the 1970s. The Iddi Amin government enacted the Asset of Departed Asians Property that created the Departed Asians property Custodian Board ((DAPCB). It also reallocated some of these properties to individual Ugandans while the large estates and companies were placed under the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC).

It is said that the then government of Uganda fully paid compensation to the expelled Asians for their property. The 1975 negotiators through the British High Commission, UNHCR and the Indian government is said to have seen 4,000 Departed Asians compensated. January 1976 the New York Times ran a story where Iddi Amin was handing over a cheque to the Indian Deputy Minister for External Affairs Bipinpal Das in fulfillment of the promise made in Algiers three years earlier to the then Indian Prime Minister Indra Ghandi. After the fall of the Iddi Amin regime in 1979, the successive UNLF government of Prof. Yusuf Lule invited the expelled Indians to return to Uganda and reposes their property and businesses. The sugar momma, N. K Mehta returned and started the rehabilitation of his sugar estates. In September 1982, the Obote Two government passed a special Expropriated Properties Act governing that would enable them to reposes their properties. It stipulated the return of property to former owners and compensation to those who did not wish to reposes Claimants were required to submit their claims within 90days and return to live in Uganda within 210 days upon repossession Around the same time in Kenya President Moi threatened to expel 100,000 Asian traders and businessmen accusing them of ruining the country's economy through corrupt tendencies that among others involved hoarding and smuggling of currency.

By the time Museveni took over, 200 such applications had been processed but around mid 1987 Museveni revoked 165 such Repossession Certificates. By March 1989 only a few Asians had returned to Uganda to reclaim and rehabilitate their property. By placing an October 1993 deadline on claims, the Museveni Government planned to sell off such property. You will recall that after taking power the said Asian properties were the target of Museveni and group's looting spree. However, after his gambling with communist economic polities proved disastrous, he reached out to these Indians. In 1997 he attended their 25th Anniversary of expulsion from Uganda in London where he beseached them to return to Uganda as investors. The response was very discouraging save for a few like the Madhvani Group and others. Many individuals would come, reposes their properties and either sell them off or hand them over to Property Managers. In some cases some regime cohorts would connive with fake Indian claimants in order to fraudulently claim and get properties. It is against this background that currently Parliament is investigating fraudulent repossession where some three individuals have been found to have repossessed 691, 301 and 212 prime properties respectively.

However, with preferential tax holidays and business favours coupled by free land and exploitation of the high unemployment rate, Indians other than those who had earlier been expelled by Iddi Amin have flocked to Uganda. Museveni deliberately knocked out indigenous manufacturers and other would be investors such that now almost the entire sector is foreign owned. They almost control the entire economy with a live example of Sudir Ruparelia whose USD 1.2b wealth makes him the richest Ugandan. He had been expelled from Uganda in 1972 at the age of 16. He returned to Uganda with a mere USD 25,000 in 1985 which he invested in importation of beer from Kenya. He soon started a forex bureau business and was at one time arrested as he attempted to smuggle out of the country millions of US dollars. Museveni immediately intervened and through Jim Muhwezi who was at the time the Director General Internal Security, the Maj. Musinguzi Katafiire the ISO officer who had seized the said dollars was instead the one reprimanded.

When Museveni planned to give 30,000 hectares of Mabira Forest to the Indian tycoon In 2007 for sugarcane growing, violent protests led by environmentalists broke out in Kampala. The protests invoked racist sentiments against the Indian community in Uganda. They chanted slogans in praise of Iddi Amin for having expelled the Indians in 1972. They accused the Indians of colluding with the Museveni Regime to plunder the country of its wealth. Some of the protest banners read "1 Tree Cut = 5 Indians Killed." The situation became worse when some Indians acted in contempt of the locals' feelings. In one incident an Indian motorist ran through the crowd of protesters injuries two children who were part of the brass band and a journalist. Consequently, another Indian riding on a Scooter was beaten up before he escaped leaving behind his motorcycle which was set ablaze. The third Indian, Dawang Rawal was not so lucky as he was stoned to death by angry protesters. A Kenyan registered trailer load of sugar was set ablaze. During the ordeal, some Indians who had taken refuge in their temple were besieged before they were rescued by the police. Some other Indians took refuge at police stations.

It an open secret that the Indian business community in Uganda bankrolls Museveni's elections. In December 2017 they asked Museveni to grant them a tribal status as one of the indigenous communities of Uganda. Museveni advised them to apply for citizenship with a promise that he would facilitate their applications.

"The Constitution is very clear that someone here whose origin is untraceable and those who have lived for 10 years are free to apply for citizenship. Your grandparents have been here and you were born here. So apply and I will follow it up,” Mr Museveni said.

Three days ago, the same community met Museveni where they expressed their support for his re-election before crediting him for guaranteeing peace and security throughout the country.

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As to why the Indian community is not bothered by the mayhem that is ongoing across the country where just last month 54 citizens were shot dead in a single day, your guess is as good as mine.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM