The Expulsion of Asians from Uganda
During the 1970’s

“I have dreamt,” General Idi Amin, the former president of Uganda, told a gathering in Karamoja, northeastern Uganda, “that unless I take action, our economy will be taken over. The people who are not Ugandans should leave.” Such was the horrific news given that changed the fate of Uganda for many, many years to come. The ethnic cleansing of South Asians was conducted in an ‘Indophobic’ environment that claimed that these South Asians were hoarding wealth and goods to the detriment of the native Ugandans and sabotaging the economy.

Indophobia was introduced in Uganda during the 1890’s during the British colonization of East Africa where the British brought around 32000 labourers from British India to do clerical work, or semi-skilled manual labor, such as construction or farming. Post-colonization, most of the surviving Asians returned home, but around 7000 decided to remain in East Africa. Indophobia in Uganda pre-dated Amin, and also existed under Milton Obote. The 1968 Committee on "Africanization in Commerce and Industry" in Uganda made far-reaching Indophobic proposals. A system of work permits and trade licenses was introduced in 1969 to restrict the role of Indians in economic and professional activities. Indians were segregated and discriminated against in all walks of life.

After Idi Amin came to power, he exploited pre-existing Indophobia and spread propaganda against Indians involving stereotyping and scapegoating the Indian minority. Indians were stereotyped as "only traders" and "inbred" to their profession. Indians were stereotyped as "greedy, conniving", without any racial identity or loyalty but "always cheating, conspiring and plotting" to subvert Uganda. Amin used this propaganda to justify a campaign of "de-Indianization", eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda's Indian minority.

Economically, south Asians had significant influence on the economy, constituting 1% of the population while receiving a fifth of the national income. The 1950s and 1960s had significant economic growth in Uganda as a result of the fledging industrial sector, which was practically run by south Asians. For the first five years following independence in 1962, Uganda's economy resumed rapid growth, with GDP, including subsistence agriculture, expanding approximately 6.7 percent per year. Even with population growth estimated at 2.5 percent per year, net economic growth of more than 4 percent suggested that people's lives were improving. By the end of the 1960s, commercial agriculture accounted for more than one-third of GDP. Industrial output had increased to nearly 9 percent of GDP, primarily the result of new food processing industries. Tourism, transportation, telecommunications, and wholesale and retail trade still contributed nearly one-half of total output.

Although the government envisioned annual economic growth rates of about 5.6 percent in the early 1970s, civil war and political instability almost destroyed Uganda's once promising economy. GDP declined each year from 1972 to 1976 and registered only slight improvement in 1977 when world coffee prices increased. Negative growth resumed, largely because the government continued to expropriate business assets. Foreign investments, too, declined sharply, as President Idi Amin's erratic policies destroyed almost all but the subsistence sector of the economy.

Before the expulsion, Asians owned many large businesses in Uganda but the purge of Asians from Uganda's economy was virtually total. In total, some 5,655 firms, ranches, farms, and agricultural estates were reallocated, along with cars, homes and other household goods. For political reasons, most (5,443) were reallocated to individuals, with 176 going to government bodies, 33 being reallocated to semi-state organizations and 2 going to charities. Possibly the biggest winner was the state-owned Uganda Development