Britain Faces Regugee Crisis by Abbie Smith
Ugandan President , General Idi Amin, has said the 80,000 Asians in his country with British passports are no longer welcome. The news took Edwards heaths government by surprise last night. It raised the immediate prospect of a refugee crisis¬¬¬.
The President's unexpected announcement was made during a visit to an army barracks at Tororo in Eastern Uganda. It was in the course of addressing the troops that General Amin took up the topic of Asian non-citizens.
It is not clear whether this was a planned statement or whether this was the latest in a series of bizarre statements made by Idi Amin
He said "I am going to ask Britain to take over responsibility for all Asians in Uganda who are holding British passports, because they are sabotaging the economy of the country."
He also said there was "no room in Uganda for Ugandans" and he accused immigrants of "encouraging corruption." And spreading homosexuality and stealing Ugandan livelihoods as well as destroying Ugandan culture and traditions. He said the emphasis must now be on jobs for Ugandans, especially those of African race.
The feeling among the Africans is that Asians spend too much time studying and their better education and better command of English and willingness to work longer hours has been at the expense of Africans.
Most of the civil service, legal service, doctors, engineers and politicians are of Asian origin, having been brought to Uganda during imperial times by the British.
The pressure to give these jobs to Ugandans, and preferably Africans at that, was already building up under the previous, civilian regime of President Milton Obote, before the coup d'etat of January 1971. As in Kenya, the country's African rulers have come under intensive lobbying from their own supporters to use such devices as work permits and trade licences to squeeze out the Asians.
idi Amin expels Ugandan Asians