{UAH} Messages for Mr.Byaruhanga Jony Rubin from Ugandan Asians following UAH
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6:09 PM |
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I would like to mention my experience. I finished my O-Levels at Jinja Secondary School in December 1970 at the age of 17 and as the first prize winner I was offered a place at King's College Budo to study for A-Levels as a boarding student. My father, mother, brother, sister and I visited King's College Budo by car on a Sunday. I was shown what would be my house (college group) and my bed in the residence hall. I liked the place and was ready to go into King's College Budo.
At that time, one day I was walking on Jinja's main street to go home to our house in Magwa Crescent. I was on the pavement on the other side from Main Street Primary School. A Ugandan man of African origin of about 35 years of age stopped me in the street, cursed me a lot and shouted "Kwenda india nyinyi wahindi" = Go to India you Indians! I was third generation Ugandan and my first passport was a Ugandan passport.
My father talked to his friends about my rare school offer. His African friends said not to send me to King's College Budo because that is where the children of Baganda kings go and so there is bound to be shooting there with the approaching mega troubles. I have to inform you my father was a director and shareholder of Eastern Province Bus Company in Jinja. My grandfather was its originator and its first director and company secretary in late 1940s since he brought together disparate bus operators to form one large company with license for bus transport in Eastern half of the country. None of my uncles worked at EPB Co but my father was the chief cashier there. My father was fluent in Kisoga and Kiganda. My father had given up his British Protectorate Passport soon after independence in 1962 to be able to continue as a director of a major local company in Uganda. So, he had friends who gave him sincere advice and it turned out true.
So, I was on an aeroplane London in April 1971 with GBP £200 cash and a suitcase of clothes. My monthly cash support from my father of GBP £60 stopped in August 1971 since foreign exchange was stopped by Uganda authorities. My parents instructed me to find apprenticeship at an audit form to gain the skills of being an auditor because my father said that authorities can take away my possessions but not my skills.
Today I am highly skilled in the techniques of auditing, I have made my own audit work manual that I have exported to 32 countries including Uganda and I carry out peer review of audit files for British firms of auditors.
In December 1972, my Uganda passport was invalid although it had not expired. Uganda High Commission were not interested in helping me with my Ugandan passport for my travel to Sweden to see my father who had arrived at a refugee camp. I had to obtain a stateless passport from British authorities to travel in the cheapest way to Sweden via boat to Holland and train through Germany and Denmark, with prior visas from each country. European people on that journey asked me to shake hands as they had never met a stateless person. What value was Uganda passport to a Ugandan of Indian origin outside Uganda, zilch!
My first six years out of Uganda were extremely difficult as I existed on a tiny wage of an articled clerk at London Jewish firms of auditors (my first job was where they said they would pay me a weekly wage of GBP £7 and pay all my taxes but I discovered within a couple of weeks after starting work that the tax and national insurance threshold was GBP £7.50!!). I worked five days a week with study at night school and homework at libraries at weekends but I refused to work for proper wages in restaurants or at factories. I was young and I could take it. Now, I am financially very secure with an internet-based business so that I can spend my winters away. I have been back to Uganda three times to sell our family house in auction and got a paltry GBP £1,400 after lawyers fees and government deductions. I have lost that feeling of calling Uganda "back home" because of the way Uganda's politics continues. I have concluded that many commonwealth countries including Uganda has to defragment into natural nations as did Yugoslavia but hopefully without as much violence.
The British with all their faults are good to me and I participate in British way of life as much as I want to, including standing as a candidate in local council elections. I am a longstanding and active member of Labour Party in UK. I have fond memories of my childhood in Uganda but most of my adult life has been in and around London and south east England. The weather is bad but I can sleep very carefree at night here and that is what counts the most.
Jaffer RH Manek, Sussex, England.
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I was quite pleased to see that confusion and obfuscation still exit on the question of the Asian expulsion from Uganda in 1972 – who, how many, where they went. Pleased because to me it shows a niche exists for my book on the subject – Ugandan Asians, Then and Now, Here and There, We Contributed, We Contribute. I am at 840 pages and should wind up by 888 within the next six months. Last week I went to Makerere library Africana archives to look up the Uganda Argus of those 90 days. Amin at one point did say ALL Asians must go but then was careful to disinclude citizen Asians. He ordained that all of these should present themselves at the Immigration Department to have their citizenship papers verified. In this exercise 8K of the 12K nominal Uganda citizen Asians were declared not to have obtained their citizenship legally. Often the grounds were flimsy. Many of the stateless (but also British passport-holders) were taken by Canada. In the last week most of the 4K Asians whose citizenship was confirmed were frightened off from staying by Amin's threats that they'd have to go and live in the districts. Most of these were picked up by UNHCR and dispersed from the camps to welcoming countries – 22 in all, including Brazil and Argentina. My book should be out by September.
I am also pleased in a way that not many people know about my book. That means a market exists there. John Noronha has contributed a piece on the history of GISS, Kololo. I hope Manek Jaffer will contribute the piece here. There are >400 such stories, >3000 images, full-colour, hard cover.
Some of the material from my book is posted on my blogsitevivaeastafricablogspot.com. Comments are welcome from all, even anonymously, the wisdom of which I often wonder about as one particular anonymous(e) makes it a point to distort all my posts to proclaim that I am a propagandist for Ismailis and the Aga Khan. He demands to see proof of my education. Visit and join in!
3.
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If Idi Amin didn't expel Uganda Asians then why so many Uganda Asians left the country of their birth. I have no doubt that Amin expelled Uganda Asians , many of who were third generation Ugandans. I had the occasion to interview many Uganda refugees, now settled in Canada, for my book, A Portrait in Pluralism, and all of them confirmed that Amin was responsible for expelling Uganda Asians.
I reside currently in Uganda-matters of records can be verified with the office of the secretary to the cabinet in uganda and further,the stance taken by Jim Slater then British High Commissioner to Uganda-1972-from the records of cabinet papers in the UK
If a Decree was signed without sanction of the Cabinet in formulating threats of expulsion,these would obviously have been under powers bestowed on the President to carry out perhaps an individual wish rather than collectiive as a cabinet
anyway-it happened-so we must continue
Idi Amin did expel all asians from Uganda. Some asians did stay and took the risk but that was purely commercial reasons and not because they were ugandans at heart. Most of the asians were born in Uganda and are ugandans. They loved the country and still do. So anybody trying to rewrite history to make it look anything else other than a racist policy of Idi should ask the ugandan asians living abroad. I am ugandan Asian expelled against my wishes. We will return to reclaim our right.
This article made me angry. What's the big difference if Idi Amin expelled Asians who were citizens, or Asians who weren't citizens. Idi Amin was still an ass that killed a lot of people and tried to act like he was slick. My dad wasn't a citizen. My mom and siblings were. That means if the family wants to stay together, they have to leave together. If I had been in a place with a leader like that, I would have left too.
This article/book is inaccurate and full of misinformation. Idi Amin was explicit in his instructions to expel ALL asians. The information you have gathered is wrong and false. Most of the asians had businesses and properties and therefore had a considerable amount to loose. They would not have given all this up without checking first wether they HAD to leave. They are not stupid or dumb. Moreover, after the decision by Idi Amin was made, few weeks later, the then British Foreign secratary visited Kampala to persuade Idi Amin to change his mind. Do you not think, the British FC would have asked for clarification on WHO is meant to leave? The answers was an emphatic — ALL ASIANs and there was not going to be a change of mind!! In modern terms this was "ethnic cleansing"