|
Revealed - How Israel Helped
Idi Amin Take Power
By Richard Dowden
The Independent -
UK
8-17-03
- 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
attache. 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 attache
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.
-
- � 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
-
- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=434486
|
The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
|
