Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses
Page 27
a staunch friend of Britain . . . His request now for the purchase of equipment for the rebuilding of Uganda's defences deserves the most sympathetic consideration from every point of view.24
These July agreements with the Ugandan military were signed while hundreds of soldiers were being massacred by Amin's forces in Uganda. "The killings took place at a large number of army camps across Uganda', a Foreign Office official wrote the following month. 'A large number of officers and men, in particular from the Acholi and Langi tribes (those associated with Dr Obote) were killed'.25
Three days after this note, on 16 August, another Foreign Office official wrote:
From the point of view of British interests, General Amin's regime has so far served us well. He is extremely well-disposed to Britain . . . and his coup removed one of our more bitter African critics. We have already done much to assist in the establishment and recognition of his regime and we are doing what we can to help him overcome his present difficulties.20
By August Amin had announced the establishment of a military junta. In the same month, Britain offered a £10 million loan for three years. High Commissioner Slater was saying that 'despite some obvious deficiencies, he remains a net asset from Britain's point of view'. Slater recognised that the Acholi and the Langi 'have fled or been killed or imprisoned', saying that 'this is the rather sombre background to a bright chapter in Anglo-Ugandan relations'. 'I am sure that he [Amin] is sincerely grateful for what we have done and offered to do', such as early recognition, military and police training and the financial loan. Slater added that:
So long as he stays in power, Ugandan reactions to controversial British policies in Africa will be containable and the influence of the moderates in the OAU [Organisation of African Unity] will be strengthened. It remains therefore a British interest to see his regime consolidated.27
This basic support was being offered despite officials' 'misgivings . . . about the course Uganda is taking'. This included 'the continuing financial mess, with talk of expensive military equipment', the 'dangerous lack of civil law and order' and 'the internecine strife in the army that threatens the whole basis of his rule'.28 These were the beginnings of the eventual recognition that the Amin regime was so incompetent and corrupt that it was a liability. But this point had not yet been reached.
In November, the Foreign Office noted that 'power remains firmly in Amin's hands' and that 'he is probably ruthless enough to brook no opposition'. It envisaged further 'repressive measures' to 'add to the unspecified numbers of those who have disappeared or are held in prison without trial'. It also stated that 'the prospect is of a continuing slow drift towards bankruptcy and the gradual emergence of the less savoury aspects of a military dictatorship'.29
Officials were also becoming increasingly wary of Britain being publicly identified with Amin. Britain's 'public and visible involvement with the regime' such as the military and police training teams and the visiting aid mission, meant that 'we might well be saddled with some of the criticism belonging to the Amin regime'.30
One year into the regime's grip on power, in January 1972, Ugandan Defence Minister Oboth-Ofumbi visited Britain to buy arms and was shown 'a wide range of military equipment' and given reassurances of'our willingness to help'. 'The main obstacle as far as we could see concerned the provision of funds', British officials told him; any lingering human-rights problems appear never to have been raised. Projected sales at this point included an air-defence radar system, fast patrol boats and anti-tank missiles worth £10-20 million. The following month the commander of the British army training team for Uganda visited the country.31
By February 1972, High Commissioner Slater could say to the Foreign Office that he 'had no immediate bilateral problems to discuss' with Amin – a few hundred murders, the banning of all political activity and beatings of expat civil servants apparently unworthy of discussion. 'If anything special occurs to you, please let me know', he added.32
One thing that did occur to Edward Heath was to send an emissary to Amin hoping that it would 'lead to agreement between us as to how your government can best surmount the difficulties with which it is presently faced'. The emissary, Lord Aldington, sought to advise Amin on economic matters and on arms procurement 'and to secure those orders for the United Kingdom'. In his meetings in March, Aldington proposed sending an MoD team to discuss British arms exports, for which Amin 'expressed complete approval', he noted. Aldington also recommended that Britain send the military training team already agreed to.33
Aldington met Amin on 24 March. Four days before, the Foreign Office noted that Richard Slater:
confirms that during January anything up to 400 detainees at Murukula were put to death in cold blood after appearing before some sort of kangaroo court. Mr Slater thinks that Arnin must have known what was going on but acquiesced . . . An unknown number of people appear to have been killed on 27 February at Soroti as a result. . . of army and police brutality.
The same note said that Britain should continue to help the country 'get out of the mess it is in' by economic aid and training missions.34
Referring to the 400 deaths, another Foreign Office official noted that Amin may 'have to resort to more unpleasant manifestations of his power in order to retain authority, ie, more disappearances and deaths'. 'He may increasingly become an unsavoury friend to have'. This official also wrote:
It is a nasty business and seems bound to excite international attention. We may well get some awkward parliamentary questions . . . We are close to Amin and are known to be close to Amin and some of the odium may well rub off on us. If there are any more reports and if we get a spate of awkward questions, particularly if they refer to the help we are giving Amin, we may find it necessary to ask the High Commissioner to seek from Amin some explanation.35
Thus after mass killings and clearly announced decrees of repression, Whitehall might simply seek 'some explanation' from Amin, which might be necessary only because of 'awkward parliamentary questions'.
The files show that by the early months of 1972 there were constant stories of killings by the army. This was when the first eight of the Saladin armoured cars – ideal for domestic repression – were delivered. In May, ministers approved the export of 20 Ferret armoured cars.
Also in May an ex-MP and prominent lawyer, Anil Clerk, was taken from his Ugandan home by the police and was not heard of for weeks. The Clerk case received some press coverage in Britain, by which time the brutality of the Amin regime was public knowledge. At this point, Foreign Secretary Douglas-Home recommended sending 'a strong message' to the Ugandan government that the Clerk case could lead to a deterioration in relations.35
But Clerk's disappearance promoted a rather extraordinary despatch by High Commissioner Slater:
So now we know who we are dealing with. On the one hand, a man of considerable charm, endowed with tremendous energy, concerned for the welfare of his people, well-disposed towards Britain. On the other hand, a tyrant, vindictive, ruthless, moody and stubborn as a child, often quite unamenable [sic] to reason, pathologically suspicious, a liar and hypocrite. On balance more Hyde than Jekyll, and not the man one would choose to do business with.
But Slater continued; 'we do not have a choice'. 'We cannot tell him to stop murdering people' and 'my plea is for business as usual'. Slater argued that Britain could not conceivably influence Amin by withdrawing some measures of support and any move against him 'would be fraught with consequences for our community [i.e., the thousands of British-passport holders in Uganda] for which we are at present ill-prepared'.37
Foreign Office official Simon Dawbarn noted later that there were reports that 'Amin was personally responsible' for Clerk's death but that 'we must go on doing business with Amin' since 'we have too many hostages in Uganda', referring again to the British-passport holders.38
The break
It was not until June 1972, according to the files, that British officials began to consider cutting off support
to the Amin regime. The Foreign Office recommended to the Prime Minister's personal adviser, Lord Bridges, that the despatch of the military training team should be held up. The reason was that Amin had recently delivered several 'wild and irresponsible' public statements such as calling for 'military action against the "imperialists'" and joint naval exercises between African and Soviet vessels. His hold on the country seemed 'increasingly insecure' and the discipline of the army had deteriorated. 'The army is now feared by the civilian population', the Foreign Office noted. The military training team should be delayed since 'there would be a risk of criticism in the press and parliament which would not be easy to refute'. Heath agreed to delay the despatch of the team in early June.39
On 5 August Amin told the British High Commissioner of his intention to expel 80,000 Asian British-passport holders from Uganda, giving them three months to leave, and accusing them of excluding Africans from business and being respon- sible for illegally exporting capital. Heath wrote to Amin urging him to reverse this announcement saying that:
The British government have gone out of their way to try to be friendly and cooperate with Uganda ever since your administration took over. We were and are very anxious to help you in all the economic and security problems which face your country. I have hoped mat our personal relations could be close.40
Right up until the last, British ministers were obsequiously trying to deal with this dictator. Even then, the files show that officials wanted to retain the British army training team in Uganda – 'we thought that it was doing useful work and we did not want the current differences between our two governments to broaden', the Foreign Office explained.41 It was Amin who expelled the team in September, at the same time as British officials spoke of a break in diplomatic relations. Export licences for 28 armoured cars approved for sale to Uganda were revoked, the other eight having already been delivered.
There is one final aspect to this period of Anglo-Ugandan relations worthy of description. Immediately after his overthrow, Obote made clear his intent to come back and reinstate his government. In early February 1971 British officials were receiving reports of movements by the Tanzanian military close to the Ugandan border which pointed to the possibility of an invasion to reinstate Obote. These military movements were called off abruptly on the evening of 4 February.
The High Commissioner in Tanzania, Sir Horace Phillips, wrote: 'I cannot be sure of the reason' for the halt in these military movements 'but I think it no coincidence that this was just after I had informed' President Nyerere of Tanzania 'of the likelihood of British recognition [of the Amin regime] within a short while'. Britain formally recognised the new government the following day, 5 February. This act meant that what would have been for Nyerere 'action against a rebel regime in support of a legitimate President suddenly assumed the character of an attempted overthrow of an internationally recognised government'. 'It may be', Phillips concluded, 'that this proved an effective deterrent'.42
Britain also rejected a second chance to help to reinstate Obote in June 1972. Word had then reached British officials that Obote was in contact with dissident Ugandan army officers who were planning a coup against Amin. A message delivered to British officials said that in future Obote would promise not to adopt the nationalisation measures that he had previously undertaken, and wanted the British reaction as to likely support for this counter-coup. Both Richard Slater in Kampala and the Foreign Office in London agreed not to reply. Slater said that 'Obote in my view has never been and never will be a friend of Britain' and that it was not only nationalisation that was the issue of their dispute. They also mentioned concerns as to whether the coup would succeed and whether the plan was intended to 'compromise us with Amin' – friendly relations then still obviously being of primary concern.43
The Amin regime proceeded to expel the Asian community from Uganda, 27,000 of whom were airlifted to Britain. The campaign of terror moved beyond Obote loyalists and the army to the entire country, killing church figures, lawyers, cabinet ministers and anyone else; and between 300,000 and 500,000 people died. The regime's various internal security organisations, notably the State Research Bureau, were responsible for grisly torture and executions.
The regime was stopped only in 1979 when the Tanzanian army, backed by Ugandan exiles, responded to a Ugandan invasion by counter-attacking and eventually overthrowing Amin. Subsequently, Amin escaped to exile in Saudi Arabia where he, his 25 children and 6 wives were provided with income and lavish expenses until his death.
The British government was asked in a parliamentary question in 1998 whether it would call on the Saudi government to expel Amin from its territory. 'We have no plans to make such representations' was the reply by Foreign Office minister Derek Fatchett, Whitehall probably being too busy selling arms to its Saudi clients to worry about bringing a mass murderer to book.44
14
CHILEANS:
PROTECTING A
DICTATOR
In October 1998, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested on a visit to London. He then began a legal battle to halt his extradition to Spain, where he faced charges of torture during his military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. The British courts eventually ruled that he was medically unfit to stand trial, and he flew back to Santiago in May 2000.
This case was hailed throughout the mainstream media as an important international precedent: dictators were no longer free to roam the world and could be held accountable under international law. Yet the case just as much demonstrated the opposite – that dictators favoured by the West will continue to escape justice.
Home Secretary at the time, Jack Straw, declared that this was a matter for the courts and not a political decision. Pinochet's supposed medical debilitation was all too easily accepted by the Blair government, which refused to call for fresh medical tests. The extent of Pinochet's illness may have been a fake; he had used a wheelchair for his court appearances in Britain but miraculously stepped out on to the tarmac on returning to Santiago. The press also reported that the British and Chilean governments may have reached an understanding that Pinochet's best chance of release would be on humanitarian grounds.1
The British government admitted in October 1998 that Pinochet had visited Britain five times in the previous five years. During the visit in which he was arrested, he had been given VIP status at the airport. The government reportedly came under pressure from the US not to assist his extradition. His chief apologist in Britain, Margaret Thatcher, mounted a campaign in his defence and took tea with the general soon after he was arrested. She told him that 'we are very much aware that it was you who brought democracy to Chile'.2
Three years after Pinochet escaped justice, Jack Straw, now Foreign Secretary, refused petitions to ban the entry into Britain of a Chilean navy ship, the Esmeralda, that had been used as a torture centre under the Pinochet regime. One of its hundreds of victims, a British priest named Michael Woodward, was tortured to death after his arrest five days after the 1973 coup. Protests from Woodward's sister and human-rights groups were not enough to move Straw. The press also reported that the government was 'busy sealing lucrative arms deals with the Chilean navy' while the 'Esmeralda and its crew of officer cadets is set to get an official Royal Navy welcome'.3
This is the most recent instalment in Britain's backing for Pinochet ever since 1973. Much about the US role in the coup has been known for some time. In particular, CIA documents declassified in 2000 confirm the extraordinary breadth of US covert action and dirty operations to topple an unfavoured government and instal a new one.
However, the British documents on the events of 1973 were declassified only on 1 January 2004.4
The Pinochet coup
In September 1973, a democratically elected Chilean government under President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a brutal coup organised by the Chilean military with the backing of the CIA. General Pinochet soon emerged as the leader of the military junta, which immediately engaged in gro
ss repression of supporters of the previous government and other suspected opposition figures. All political activity was banned. At least 3,000 people were killed, most executed, died under torture or 'disappeared'.
Allende had been elected with 36 per cent of the vote in September 1970 and appointed President of a Popular Unity government with the consent of the Christian Democratic Party. In his victory speech in November, Allende proclaimed a programme of fundamental economic change, proposing to abolish the monopolies 'which grant control of the economy to a few dozen families', abolish the tax system that favoured the rich, abolish the large estates which condemn thousands of peasants to serfdom' and 'put an end to the foreign ownership of our industry'. 'The road to socialism lies through democracy, pluralism and freedom', Allende proclaimed.5