Uganda : the asian exiles

Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill have been among the enthusiastic visitors to Uganda. Churchill, who called it the "Pearl of Africa," was particularly impressed by it, and admonished Uganda's developers: "Concentrate upon Uganda. Nowhere else in Africa will so little go so far. Nowhere else will the results be more brilliant, more sub stantial, and more rapidly realized."

The 91,000 square miles that comprise Uganda make it almost the size of the state of Oregon. A land-locked coun try, bounded on the east by Kenya, on the south by Rwanda and Tanzania, on the west by the Republic of Zaire, and on the north by the Sudan, it lies astride the equator, on a plateau between 3,000 and 6,000 feet above sea level. The altitude moderates the tropical climate. The country has several important lakes and three major national parks abounding in wildlife.

In 1972 the population was a little over ten million. Only 100,000 were non-African. In August 1972, there were about 74,000 Asians, primarily of Indian extraction. About one-third of the Asians believed they had Ugandan citizen ship. At that time there were also fewer than 10,000 Euro peans plus 3,000 Arabs. In 1972, Uganda was over 50 percent Christian and 6 percent Moslem. The remainder of the population followed traditional African cults. Britain came officially into Uganda's history in 1894, when the local kingdom of Buganda was placed under a formal British protectorate. Constitutional government evolved through the 1950s, and on March 1, 1962, the United Kingdom granted full internal self-government. Uganda became independent on October 9, 1962. The first nine years of independence were under the leadership of Dr. A. Milton Obote. And during these years, though the nation suffered various political crises, it did so without experiencing any grave violations of human rights. Ugandans of both African and Asian origins participated in the workings of the constitutional government.

All this came to an end on January 25, 1971, when General Idi Amin Dada overthrew Dr. Obote. While proclaiming his government "the Second Republic of Uganda," Amin quickly became the absolute dictator of the country. The cost to the Ugandan people since Amin's takeover has been devastating. One of the first groups to feel his wrath was the resident Asians.