Idi Amin Expels Uganda's Asian Community
Idi Amin announced on 4 August 1972 that Uganda's Asian population had ninety days to leave, and about 60,000 people did. He said the decision had come to him in a dream, in which God told him the Asians were milking the economy and had to go. The community had been in East Africa for generations. Some had come as indentured labourers for the Uganda Railway from the 1890s and stayed; most were traders, professionals and industrialists from Gujarat and the Punjab, and by 1972 they held a very large share of the country's commerce, sugar and textile industries, and paid a substantial part of its taxes. Their position was genuinely resented, and the colonial administration had built it deliberately as a middle tier between British officials and Africans. Around 23,000 held British passports, and roughly a third of the community had taken Ugandan citizenship — a distinction Amin initially made and then abandoned. They left with £55 and one suitcase. Property, businesses and bank accounts were confiscated and redistributed to army officers and supporters with no experience of running them. Britain admitted some 27,000 under considerable domestic political pressure; Canada, India and others took the rest. The economic effect was immediate and severe. Manufacturing and commerce collapsed, sugar production fell to almost nothing, and shortages of basic goods became permanent. Uganda invited the community back from the 1990s and returned some property, and several thousand have returned. Amin was overthrown in 1979. The expulsion is the clearest single cause of Uganda's economic collapse under him.
- Year: 1972 CE
- Category: Political
