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Uganda Britain
By virtue of its former imperial relationship with
Uganda,
Britain had special economic and political links with its
former
territory, although these connections eroded over the
quarter
century of upheaval after Uganda's independence. As
British
officials struggled to maintain ties, they chose to
support the
Amin and second Obote regimes long after most Ugandans and
most
other foreign governments had rejected them. Relations
with
Britain also depended on the attitude of different Ugandan
governments, which balanced their need for loans and
technical
assistance against their desire to project an image of a
nonaligned foreign policy. At independence Britain had
been
Uganda's chief trading partner and the queen its head of
state.
Irritated by President Obote's "move to the left" in the
1960s
and by his vocal criticism of British arms sales to South
Africa,
the British government was delighted when Amin overthrew
Obote in
January 1971. Britain was the first country to recognize
the new
Ugandan regime and within a few months provided Amin with
military assistance. However, relations were strained to
the
breaking point in 1972 when without consultation or
warning, Amin
expelled Uganda's Indian population (about half of whom
held
British passports), forcing Britain to accept a large
number of
refugees despite its own restrictive immigration
legislation.
Britain responded by halting all aid to Uganda and
imposing an
economic embargo. In January 1973, Amin recalled his high
commissioner from London, nationalized British tea estates
and
other firms (but not British banks), and threatened to
expel the
7,000 British residents of Uganda. By March the following
year,
6,000 British had left Uganda, and Britain broke
diplomatic
relations in July 1976 when Amin's soldiers killed a woman
hostage holding British and Israeli citizenship in revenge
for
the Israeli rescue of the other hostages captured by the
Palestinians and held at the airport at Entebbe
(see Military Rule under Amin
, ch. 1). Nevertheless, despite the
revelations of
atrocities carried out by state officials, the British
government
allowed private firms to supply Amin with luxury goods
paid for
with Ugandan coffee until 1979.
Immediately after the Amin regime was overthrown,
Britain
recognized the interim government and promised aid and
technical
assistance. Later in the interim period, the British
government
sent a team to train the police, a controversial
initiative which
it has continued ever since. British authorities responded
cautiously to Obote's claimed success in the 1980
elections, but
once he convinced them of his pro-Western economic
policies, they
supported him to the bitter end. Despite Western
governments'
criticism of the Obote regime, as the behavior of the army
throughout the country--particularly in the Luwero
Triangle--
became known, British authorities at first either disputed
the
allegations or kept silent, as they had during the latter
years
of the Amin regime. Then in 1986, despite their former
support
for Obote, the British immediately established close
relations
with the NRM. In November 1987, Museveni visited London,
where he
held talks with the queen and the prime minister, but at
the same
time, he continued to criticize their government for its
failure
to impose trade sanctions on South Africa.
Data as of December 1990
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