{UAH} ABOUT LT. KHAMIS SAFI, AMIN'S leader Uganda army Religious Affairs

ABOUT LT. KHAMIS SAFI
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Lieutenant colonel Khamis Safi leader Uganda army Religious Affairs

The head of the Religious Services at the time, Col Khamis Safi, was from the Nubian tribe and a Muslim like Amin. Safi was the son of a man believed to have walked to Mecca, on pilgrimage, in 1917. It is a popular Nubian story. Because he survived the treacherous journey by land, he was deemed to have been a holy man. And because he was holy even his children must be holy. Khamis Safi was therefore an obvious choice to be head of Religious Services.

"By 1972," Ambassador Etiang recalls, "Khamis Safi was usually the last person to visit Amin every day at State House. On 4 July 1972, I happened to be among the last three to leave. There was Khamis Safi and Mustafa Ramathan, who was the minister for cooperatives. We were having a light chat when Amin came in.
"Khamis posed a question to Amin: 'Afande, have you ever asked yourself why God made you a president?' Amin replied by asking Khamis: 'What do you mean?'

"'God appointed you president,' Khamis repeated. 'There are many injustices in this country. Each tribe has a place they call home. Even Etiang here, the Itesots have a place. But have you ever asked yourself, where do the Nubians come from? As far as I know God made you president to rectify the wrongs that have been handed to Nubians in this country. We are the ones who brought Captain Baker here, we are the ones who founded Kampala. Kampala is Nubian territory.'

"Amin was listening. You should have been there when this supposedly holy man was talking to Amin, he would be docile," said Etiang.

Amin said, maybe it is true. But Mustafa Ramathan challenged the argument that Kampala was Nubian territory.

But Khamis insisted that Nubians too needed a place. "We brought the Muzungu (white man) here on our backs. He set up camp at Old Kampala. This place is ours." 
Amin said, "OK, we'll think about it."

Three weeks later, Amin left for Karamoja by helicopter. There, he revealed that he had had a dream that what Khamis had said was true. That God had revealed to him that unless he obeyed the advice of the holy son, Uganda risked being taken over by the imperialists.

"I believe that was the origin of the expulsion," Ambassador Etiang says. "Once you told Amin something and he liked it, he would keep it to himself and then later put it in his own way like it was his idea."

When Amin told the cabinet about the expulsion, it was greeted with scepticism. The civil service received the implementation orders as a cabinet directive. The attorney general was directed to draft an expulsion order. Amin was later told he could not expel all the Asians because some were Ugandans.

"I met Khamis at State House again," Ambassador Etiang remembers. "He told Amin in Kiswahili that what you have done is very good but if you want to remove this tree from here, you don't just cut off the branches. The idea of only non-citizens leaving is like a branch. Remove the whole tree. An Indian is an Indian. He can have three passports at a time. All of them could be with two or more passports. Amin said okay.

"The Asians who suffered a lot are those who professed to be Ugandan because while the other ones had three months' notice, the Ugandan-Asians had less than a month to leave."

They had to abandon the property given to them by their departing relatives and friends. Says Etiang: "This man Khamis Safi is the single individual who brought all this up."

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Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower