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News :: Civil & Human Rights |
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How Israel helped Idi Amin the butcher of Africa take power |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ben AKA DAN "Butcher of Indymedia" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
05 Jul 2004
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"When Radio Uganda announced at dawn on 25 January 1971 that Idi Amin was Uganda's new ruler, many people suspected that Britain had a hand in the coup. However, Foreign Office papers released last year point to a different conspirator: Israel." |
The Independent.
Revealed: how Israel helped Amin to take power
By Richard Dowden
17 August 2003
When Radio Uganda announced at dawn on 25 January 1971 that Idi Amin was Uganda's new ruler, many people suspected that Britain had a hand in the coup. However, Foreign Office papers released last year point to a different conspirator: Israel.
The first telegrams to London from the British High
Commissioner in Kampala, Richard Slater, show a man shocked and bewildered by the coup. But he quickly turned to the man who he thought might know what was going on; Colonel Bar-Lev, the Israeli defence attaché. He found the Israeli colonel with Amin. They had spent the morning of the coup together. Slater's next telegram says that according to Colonel Bar-Lev: "In the course of last night General Amin caused to be arrested all officers in the armed forces sympathetic to Obote ... Amin is now firmly in control of all elements of [the] army which controls vital points in Uganda ... the Israeli defence attaché discounts any possibility of moves against Amin."
The Israelis moved quickly to consolidate the coup. In
the following days Bar-Lev was in constant contact with Amin and giving him advice. Slater told London that Bar-Lev had explained "in considerable detail [how] ... all potential foci of resistance, both up country and in Kampala, had been eliminated". Shortly afterwards Amin made his first foreign trip; a state visit to Israel. Golda Meir, the Prime Minister, was reportedly "shocked at his shopping list" for arms.
But why was Israel so interested in a landlocked
country in Central Africa? The reason is spelt out by
Slater in a later telegram. Israel was backing rebellion in southern Sudan to punish Sudan for supporting the Arab cause in the Six-Day War. "They do not want the rebels to win. They want to keep them fighting."
The Israelis had helped train the new Uganda army in
the 1960s. Shortly after independence Amin was sent to Israel on a training course. When he became chief of staff of the new army Amin also ran a sideline
operation for the Israelis, supplying arms and ammunition to the rebels in southern Sudan. Amin had his own motive for helping them: many of his own
people, the Kakwa, live in southern Sudan. Obote,
however, wanted peace in southern Sudan. That worried the Israelis and they were even more worried when, in November 1970 Obote sacked Amin. Their stick for beating Sudan was suddenly taken away.
The British may have had little to do with the coup
but they welcomed it enthusiastically. "General Amin
has certainly removed from the African scene one of
our most implacable enemies in matters affecting
Southern Africa...," wrote an enthusiastic Foreign
Office official in London.
The man who argued most vehemently for Britain to back Amin with arms was Bruce McKenzie, a former RAF pilot turned MI6 agent. (Amin murdered him seven years later.) He flew to Israel shortly after the coup and, as if getting permission to back Amin, he reported to Douglas-Home: "The way is now clear for our High Commission in Kampala to get close to Amin."
But the cautious Mr Slater in Kampala remained reluctant. Urged on by McKenzie, Douglas-Home gave
Slater his orders: "The PM will be watching this and
will, I am sure, want us to take quick advantage of any opportunity of selling arms. Don't overdo the caution."
Shortly afterwards Amin was invited for a state visit
to London and dinner at Buckingham Palace.
Related stroy: "Amin: the lapdog turned butcher who destroyed Uganda"
news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=434486 |
This work is in the public domain |
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Re: the little detail left out |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
05 Jul 2004
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That's funny, the most important interaction between Israel and Uganda was a little business called Entebbe. Guess they don't know about that one at the Independent. July 4, 1976, if I remember right. And more than enough to put to rest any attempt to pretend -- via revisionist history -- that Israel and Amin were in any way allies.
@%< |
