How Amin robbed Kenya of billions
Story by JOHN KAMAU
Publication Date: 11/26/2006
Kenyans lost property worth more than Sh5 billion, at the current
exchange rates, after the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin kicked off a
diplomatic row with Jomo Kenyatta some 30 years ago, newly declassified papers
reveal.
Mr Amin
The money is enough to run the ministry of Agriculture for one
year.
The hitherto confidential papers also indicate how close Kenya went
to a war with Uganda in July 1976 after Amin stepped up a hate campaign against
the Kenyatta government.
As a result, Kenyatta privately warned Amin to either stop the
killings of Ugandans and other nationals, pay up Kenya's monies or else ...
Part of the items seized that period included a car belonging to Mr
Peter Muigai Kenyatta – then an assistant minister for Foreign Affairs – while
accounts of Timsales Ltd, which the Kenyatta family had interests in, were
blocked.
Besides touching the Kenyatta family, assets belonging to Kenyan
companies were seized and nationalised. They included the Uganda Brewery, a
subsidiary of the East African Brewery, which in 1971 made a record after
placing the largest public share issue in Kenya's history. By the time it was
seized the brewery had assets worth Sh61 million, equivalent to Sh530 million
at current exchange rates.
Other notables who lost property and money in the looting spree
were Chandaria Industries, Car & General (which was nationalised). Then
Attorney-General Charles Njonjo's first-cousin Andrew Mungai Muthemba's
company, Kentazuga Hardware, lost goods worth Sh452,000 (Sh4 million at current
rates).
In a last-ditch effort, Kenya summoned foreign diplomats in Nairobi
and issued the warning to Uganda on the morning of July 27, 1976.
"We are not a rich country and we cannot be expected to continue to
subsidise Uganda's economy– [Again] when we talk peace, we do not only mean
peace between States: we mean peace between States and within each State," said
the classified document given to diplomats by Foreign minister Munyua Waiyaki.
It now appears that Amin was sending mixed signals on whether to
pay the Kenyan debts. A secret memo prepared by the ministry of Foreign Affairs
says that "Uganda's position in this matter has been changing rapidly from time
to time. At one time, the Ugandan president ordered that all debts to Kenya
should be paid, at another time he claimed that Uganda owes Kenya nothing."
The memo, to be used in further discussion, accuses Uganda of
trying to influence the international community "by indicating that what we say
are debts owed by Uganda to Kenya are in actual fact confiscated wealth of
Ugandan and British citizens of Asian origin who were expelled from Uganda."
Mzee Kenyatta
"Kenya should stand firm and cite some cases such as the Kenya
Co-opertaive Creameries to disapprove Uganda's case, says the declassified
note.
KCC lost products worth Sh22 million (Sh191 million at the current
rates).
That week an incensed Dr Waiyaki had returned from New York where
he addressed a UN Security Council sitting after Amin dragged Kenya into its
row with Israel over the Entebbe Raid. Dr Waiyaki's statement to the council
has also been declassified.
Also declassified is a partial list of Kenyans who died in the
hands of Ugandan forces between January 1971 and July 1976 and include the
missing freedom fighter, Kungu Karumba who went missing in Uganda on June 14,
1974.
Behind the scenes, Kenya's then Foreign minister Munyua Waiyaki
tried to negotiate for the return of the seized assets – houses, cash, plots
and shares – but Amin accelerated his reign of terror by grabbing more Kenyans
and their assets. The papers reveal that a week after Kenya issued its final
warning to Uganda, a delegation from Kampala arrived at the Office of the
President in Nairobi to talk peace and Dr Waiyaki repeated his earlier warning
that Amin must stop "piratical and criminal activities of [his] undisciplined
army."
The Foreign Affairs minister had earlier taken his demands to the
UN where he tabled the list of accounts that Amin had frozen, names of assets
seized, and nationalised.
The ex-Ugandan strongman, who died in exile, was finally toppled by
Tanzania's Julius Nyerere's soldiers on April 11, 1979.
In the meeting with diplomats Dr Waiyaki laid out an ultimatum:
Uganda must stop all acts of belligerence against Kenya and laying claims on
any part of Kenyan territory.
Secondly, Kenya demanded that Amin stops "killing of innocent
Kenyans legally residing in Uganda" and "stop hate and smear campaign which is
giving us a bad name internationally."
Part of Kenya's anger was that Amin had stated that Kenya colluded
with Israel, then a pariah state, during the Entebbe Raid, and that it was
holding Palestinian prisoners.
Kenya defended itself: "We have stated before and we reiterate
again that we have never held any Palestinian prisoners – we did not directly
or indirectly take part in the Israeli Operation at Entebbe on July 3/4, 1976.
Our action to allow the Israelis to land in Nairobi after the operation was
purely on humanitarian grounds."
The Israelis raided Entebbe airport where four pro-Palestinian
militants had flown an Air France flight with 250 people on board.
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