Idi Amin Expels Uganda's Asian Community
Amin's decree of August 1972 gave Uganda's approximately 60,000 Asian residents — most of them British passport holders whose families had been in East Africa since the 1890s, brought by British colonial authorities as indentured railway labour — 90 days to leave. The community owned over 80% of Uganda's commercial enterprises. Their expulsion collapsed the retail and trading sectors, produced immediate shortages, and accelerated the economic disintegration that continued throughout Amin's rule. The expulsions were partly replicated elsewhere: Kenya and Tanzania also moved against their Asian business communities, though less dramatically. Globally, the expelled Ugandan Asians — most of them resettled in Britain — became one of the post-war period's most successful immigrant communities, demonstrating that expulsion policy achieves nothing lasting when the expelled retain their human capital.
- Year: 1972 CE
- Category: Political
