Correspondents' Correspondence

...The good general came to power 18 months ago in a military coup against President Obote—much to London's ill-concealed delight He was, it was argued, a "sound man," pro-British, and surely an improvement on that dangerous Left winger Milton Obote The British seem to have miscalculated badly This year Amin has been on the rampage, and his actions have grown more unpredictable from day to day In August he ordered out of his country those Asians who had clung to their British passports after Independence (no doubt with just such an eventuality m mind), setting a November 8 deadline, and confiscating all their possessions without any hint of compensation This decree was quickly followed with a threat to expel even those who had taken out Ugandan citizenship, an act condemned by Amm's Tanzanian neighbor, President Julius K Nyerere, as "racialism " And now, to add to the contusion, it is reported that Amin may refuse to allow some ot the more skilled Asians to leave There have even been suggestions of throwing the Asians into concentration camps if they have not departed by Amin's deadline, though the general could change his mind about this, as he has about so many other things The figures involved may not sound high 25,000 "British" Asians and a smaller number of "Ugandan" Asians, out of a population of 9 million But since they take m almost the entire human infrastructure of the economy, the effect will surely be catastrophic?not only for the refugees, but for Uganda as well The Asians, it goes without say ing, are being used as scapegoats The question is, scapegoats for what...

...In generously offering to resolve the Middle Eastern impasse (he seems to think that most Israelis came to Palestine from Britain), as well as the Ulster situation ("If only," he has said, "someone would explain it to me"), this Hitler-admiring ex-British Army sergeant who is master neither of English nor of Swahih, definitely gives that impression But journalists who have met him agree that Amin is not mad It is simply the sad story of Redeemer Nkrumah all over again For the present, the task is just to get the Asians out safely On this unpopular issue the British govern ment has acted courageously, and the rest of the world has been helpful, too No doubt it is recognized that the next victims could be the 7,000 British in Uganda, or other Europeans, or perhaps the Americans Of course, the prospect that Amin's regime will yet go down in a welter of blood cannot be ruled out He appears to have only Libya's Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi as his friend—and he who has Colonel Qaddafi as his friend certainly needs no enemies Besides damaging Africa's image m the world, should Amin's policies succeed it is not hard to foresee what might happen to, say, the Lebanese in West Africa, the Tamils m Ceylon or the Chinese in the whole of Southeast Asia Clearly no Asian m Kenya, Tanzania or Zambia will be safe, for the African masses can be expected to applaud any anti-Asian demagogue Indeed, the news from Uganda is encouraging only for those who reckon on exploiting the hatreds of the majorities to preserve themselves, however precariously, m power—John Mander Thailand's Meos Chiang Kham ?Despite their bright eyes and warm smiles, there was an air of infinite sadness about the four Meo youths who recently spent a night in this little town in northern Thailand They belonged to families of the once proudly independent hill tribesmen who have been uprooted and turned into hum ble refugees by the guerrilla warfare raging here since 1968 In the flat tones of people accustomed to disaster, they described the malaria epidemic that struck Ban Kha, their home in an adjacent district high among the mountains Spreading among them the way fire sweeps through a forest, the disease killed 250 of the village's approximately 800 inhabitants last winter "Not so many are dying now, but there still is much fever in us," said 22-year-old Lao Lao, the group's elder spokesman "Many of the men are sick and cannot work " Twice the stricken villagers appealed to local authorities for medical aid, the boys told me, both times the Thais promised to see what could be done—and then did nothing Finally, far too late, American missionaries arrived with emergency supplies "We don't know why the Thais give no help," said Lao Lao It is hard to understand " Not really Officials explain, with some truth, that security conditions around Ben Kha are poor The area, 400 miles north ot Bangkok in Chiang Rai province, is insurgency country Well-armed, Communist-led guerrillas roam its mountainous terrain at will, bloodying government forces with awesome regularity Another reason for the Thais' inaction is the fear and contempt with which the Meos are viewed in this country Some leaders in Bangkok acknowledge that the lingering prejudice is largely responsible for their insurgency problems, since the tribesmen's reciprocal antagonism is exploited by Communist cadres who recruit many of them into guerrilla ranks Unfortunately, proclamations in the capital rarely produce action in the countryside, and are of little consolation to the people of Ban Kha The four young Meos I spoke to had come to Chiang Kham to buy oirborrow rice for their hard-pressed families One ot them, 13-year-old Lao Tao, who had never talked to a white man before, blushed and stammered when I asked him how he usually spends his days "I'm the oldest child,' he finally managed to say "I work with my father in the field We grow rice' But not enough, and the 60-pound boy would have to lug a 50-pound bag of rice back to his village Walking here had taken several hours, returning would take the entire following day So they were spending the night at the home of Kok Kalin, one of the very few people in this Thai town that hill tribesmen can call a friend Lao Kok, as he is commonly known, is a 55-year-old Chinese merchant who came to Thailand in 1948 He spent his first years here teaching Chinese to Meo children in the mountains and, like teachers in rural America a century ago, receiving room and board from his pupils' families in return Lao Kok got to know the tribesmen well during that period "They are good people, decent and honest and hard-working," he says Today, his home is a hostel tor Meos traveling here from their mountain villages They sleep in empty rooms and share the Kok family's food When they have money, they pay, when they don't, they are guests Only one other Chiang Kham resident treats the tribes men this way He, too, is a native Chinese "Most people here are afraid to be friendly to them," notes Lao Kok, giving the town's 75,000 inhabitants the benefit of the doubt "They fear being accused of aiding Communist terrorists " What about himself "I can be no other way, for the tribesmen are my friends I am not afraid, I am not a Communist I am helping people who need such help" Until more Thais adopt Lao Kok's attitude, the northern mountains will remain wracked by the guerrilla warfare that their hostility feeds ?Arnold Abrams...

...The Amin reply is predictable They exploited our wealth and sucked the Africans dry, now they are getting their just reward Arguably, the truth is quite the other way Neither Uganda, Kenya nor Tanzania would be the—by African standards?fairly advanced societies they are today without Asian enterprise And the real answer is that Amin is using the Asians m order to secure his political position Uganda, like most ex-colonial states, is not really a nation at all, but a loose collection of tribal and religious groups Amin's own tribe is a small Moslem one from a remote part of the country on the upper Nile Moslems represent rather less than 25 per cent of Uganda's population, which has 3 million Catholics (one-third of the total), nearly 2 million Episcopalians and a number of other Protestant sects Christians, then, form the majority And that is not all The most developed tribe—the Buganda—until recently had a kingdom and a "Kabaka" (king) of its own, who was exiled by Milton Obote It is fairly plain that Uganda cannot be stable without the active participation of this important tribe A ruler who attempts to find a power base is bound to rely on his own kith and km—something both Obote and Amin have done Obote built his strength in the Army, the security services and the police on men from his tribe, the Acholi Amm, to secure his own standing, has found it necessary to dismiss or liquidate Acholi and other officers, while promoting sergeants and corporals who are fellow tribesmen to be the new majors and colonels The latest victim of this policy is the recently ousted Chief Justice, a much respected Catholic of the Buganda tribe Amm sees his policies uniting the nation by diverting attention from its divisions Although this may work for a time, it is clear that the essential problem m Uganda is the lack of unity among its numerous tribes, and the economic trouble likely to follow the Asians' departure is not going to help stabilize matters It is often asked fs Amm mad...

...Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS Ruler on a Rampage London—If it were not so tragic, the story ot Uganda s General Amin would be stun tor low comedy As one reporter put it "Do we need an Evelyn Waugh when we have an Idi Amin...