It is a cause for profound concern that Banda was so intolerant of opposition. And yet, as far as his enemies from the Central African Federation days are concerned, he granted them total forgiveness, and in fact invited his two principal white jailers from Gwelo to the Malawi independence celebrations. Likewise, when Roy Welensky’s wife died, he made available his lakeside house for him. I discovered how intolerant he had become when a couple of perfectly innocent magazines on African affairs were seized from me on my arrival in Malawi. They had apparently been critical of Banda in the past and had ever since been on the banned list. The treatment accorded to Aleke Banda (no relation), a prominent dissident, who was given assurances of immunity on his return to Malawi and then kidnapped and imprisoned, was a shocking example of his intolerance.
Malawi itself is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It reminds me of the Highlands of Scotland in good weather.
Banda and the saga of the stole
Banda’s mix-up with the bishop’s hat reminds me of a similar occurrence at No. 10 Downing Street, at a dinner given by the Prime Minister for the Commonwealth heads of government. As we were leaving, the unmistakable voice of Dr Banda could be heard calling out to President Kaunda of Zambia: ‘Hey, you robber. Put down that mink stole. It belongs to my first lady.’ Somewhat surprised, Kenneth Kaunda replied that he was certain that the stole belonged to his wife and Banda must be mistaken. At that moment Mrs Kaunda came into range and when asked by KK what the position was she suddenly remembered that she had left an identical stole in the car. The situation was smoothed over and I said to Banda: ‘This seems to be a repetition of the bishop’s hat’. ‘You keep quiet about that hat’, he said in a jocular mood.
East African Asians
I had been concerned for a long time as to the self-imposed vulnerability of the Asian community in East Africa: whether providing goods from the street-corner shop or as traders and partners in commercial concerns, dealing in tea, coffee, agricultural products and iron and steel. I remember going round an Asian-owned strip-mill in Kenya, which was a massive commercial concern, and was asked for my opinion. I replied that I was surprised that there was not a single African employee to be seen. One complaint that was often heard was that the Asian community exported a large amount of their earnings back to India, which they regarded as their ultimate base. It therefore came as no surprise, at the time of Kenyan independence in 1963, that pressure was brought to bear on the Kenyan Asians, which prompted many of them to leave the country and come to live in the UK. It was also no great surprise when Asians in Uganda came under attack by Amin in 1972 – although the action that he proposed was brutal and inexcusable.
The statutory position regarding immigration into the UK occupied much parliamentary time. The British Nationality Act of 1948 confirmed the principle of uncontrolled entry into the UK for all Commonwealth citizens. The increase of immigrants in the late ’50s led the Macmillan government in November 1961 to introduce a bill which required Commonwealth immigrants to possess a ‘special skill’ or have a job awaiting them. In the course of the debate on the Kenya Independence Bill in 1963, provision was made for citizens wishing to opt to become citizens of the UK and colonies to do so in preference to becoming Kenyan citizens, within the first two years after independence. The burning question was: what was the legal status of these people as far as emigrating during and/or after the two-year option period was concerned?
I asked a Parliamentary Question and received a massive ministerial evasion on 22 November 1963:
Jeremy Thorpe: If a Kenyan is a citizen of the UK and colonies and has not yet decided to opt to become a Kenyan citizen in the interregnum, do I take it that he is subject to the Immigration Act unless his passport has been issued in this country, or is he allowed free access?
Mr Hornby (Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations for the Colonies): If the Hon. Member will allow me, I shall leave points about immigration and others which might come up at this stage, because otherwise I might get involved in a rather lengthy argument covering other aspects.
In the wind-up of the debate I again asked:
Jeremy Thorpe: Will the Rt Hon. Gentleman deal with the point about immigration? Do I take it that they would still be subject to the operation of the Commonwealth Immigration Act unless their passports had been issued to them from within this country?
The Rt Hon. Duncan Sandys (Secretary of State for the Commonwealth): I should like notice of that question, but, with reservations lest I make a mistake, I would think, once they have acquired Commonwealth citizenship and have given up their UK citizenship, they would be treated as citizens of the Commonwealth countries to which they belong; but they may for a period still have UK citizenship before they opt for Commonwealth citizenship. That is the point I had in mind.
From these statements it will be seen that the question was not answered. In March 1968 the Wilson government rushed through an Immigration Act creating a voucher system for Kenyan Asians. Again I asked the question, this time to Jim Callaghan on 28 February 1968:
Jeremy Thorpe: As the Rt Hon. Gentleman wishes to remove uncertainty, may I, without breaking the chronological order of his argument, press him firmly to answer the point which has been raised, namely, what is the legal status of these people? If they are UK citizens, what rights have they? What obligations have they? What will happen if they arrive here illegally? Where will they be shipped to? Are they stateless or not?
Callaghan: I prefer not to deal with the question of legal status, because this is a matter better dealt with by lawyers. It is a most complicated subject, and I have not heard it raised as a major question during the discussion. We have been dealing with the more human issues of what happens to these people, and I would like to come to the question later.
One view taken by David Steel in the debate was:
It was the amendment in 1965 to the 1962 Act which did that – i.e. remove the right of free entry into this country of people of the Asian and African communities in Kenya.
The two front benches had agreed to let the bill be introduced without division. My colleagues and I took a contrary view to the effect that the government was in fact saying that a citizen of the UK and colonies had no entry rights and was virtually stateless. We decided to oppose the bill and forced an all-night sitting in the Commons.
At the end of the day, we attracted an opposition vote of over thirty, including lain Macleod and Nigel Fisher, together with other Members from the Labour benches. We then took the fight to the House of Lords where the Liberal peers initiated a debate which was to keep the House up all night. I looked in around 3 a.m. and insisted that any Liberal peer over eighty still attending the debate should go home. It was an unhappy period. Many people had relied on the good faith of successive UK governments. In 1971 the Heath government changed the whole approach to immigration. The Immigration Act of 1971 imposed a single system of control on Commonwealth and ‘alien’ immigrants, while allowing free entry to those with parents or grandparents born in the UK.
On 6 August 1972, in a speech in Kampala, General Amin declared that 30,000 Ugandan Asians with British passports were to be expelled to Britain within three months. He declared that they were ‘sabotaging the economy’. In fact, the Asian community played a dominant role in the Ugandan economy, but kept themselves very much to themselves and failed to integrate with the Africans.
During a BBC broadcast, in which I was canvassing these views, the interviewer challenged me to put up a Ugandan Asian family in my home. I replied that provided they did not feel too cut off in the depths of North Devon, and realised that employment was difficult to find, I would certainly welcome a family. The UK Resettlement Organisation accepted my offer, and chose a family to come to stay with me. There were three involved: Suzie Patel and her daughter Rajna, and Suzie’s brother Subbash. I met them at Umberleigh station, a rural request stop. They had four or five cardboard boxes, which contained all their worldly be
longings. They came from a wealthy family, who had directed a large public company – everything had been abandoned.
I took them to their rooms at Higher Chuggaton and to my horror found in Subbash’s room that the bedclothes had been chewed by, at best, a squirrel, or possibly a rat. I told him that he would have to tell his relatives that European houses were infested!
Things moved swiftly: almost at once I got Suzie a job in a North Devon factory, Subbash a place in college to complete his studies and Rajna was accepted by the local school, and a neighbour of mine, who commuted between Cobbaton and Barnstaple, gave them a lift every day.
Subbash turned out to be a very fine cricketer and local cricket clubs competed with each other to get him to play for their side. He soon built up a large number of friends. The Patels stayed with me for the best part of nine months, until they found a flat in Barnstaple. They eventually left North Devon when Subbash found a job in London. They became firm friends.
Uganda
Editor’s note: Uganda became independent of British colonial rule in 1962 under Milton Obote. After growing ethnic tensions, particularly with the autonomous kingdom of Buganda, Obote imposed increasingly centralised and oppressive government. Relying on the army, he made the mistake of falling out with its commander, Idi Amin, who mounted a coup in January 1971.
An incompetent and brutal ruler, Amin maintained his grip on power through wholesale slaughter of his opponents. Courting public support, he ordered all Asians who had not taken Ugandan nationality (widely seen as exploiters) to leave the country in 1972, a move which helped to destroy the economy. In an attempt to divert attention from domestic problems, Amin launched an attack on Tanzania in October 1978, but was defeated and overthrown by Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles in April 1979.
Obote returned to power after elections in December 1980, but was in turn overthrown by Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army in 1986.
Denis Hills
In 1975 relations between Idi Amin and the UK government were almost at breaking point. The situation had been inflamed by a British lecturer and author, Denis Hills, who had been found guilty of treason (11 June 1975), for criticising Idi Amin. The exchanges between Kampala and London became more and more strident and there was very real concern that Hills’ life might be in peril.
It was against that background that I rang the Uganda High Commissioner in London to say that relations were getting out of control between our two governments and might I, by visiting Uganda, be able to help, at least as far as Denis Hills was concerned? The High Commissioner asked me to come round to his office at once, and there and then put through a call to Amin. Yes, I should come out to Uganda and catch the next available plane, suggested Amin. Instinctively I thought I needed a little more time and said that I would come out in a day or so. In the meantime I wanted to consult Jim Callaghan, the then Foreign Secretary, to ensure that I didn’t do anything to endanger a highly delicate situation. I remember asking the High Commissioner whether Amin knew what I had said about him in the past. Apparently he asked: ‘Is this the man who described me as a Black Hitler?’ ‘Yes’, said the High Commissioner. Amin laughed and said: ‘After all, that’s politics!’ When I rang Callaghan I was very guarded and indicated that I wanted to consult him as a matter of courtesy. He suggested that as were both attending a diplomatic dinner that evening we could discuss the matter then. On that occasion he pointed out that Lieutenant General Sir Chandos Blair and Major lain Grahame were flying out with a personal letter from the Queen to Idi Amin about Hills (21 June 1975), and although he neither could nor would stop me going, I might think it over-egging the pudding if I went out as well. I readily agreed, and rang up a relieved Marion to say: ‘Uganda is off. The weekend is free – let’s make for Aldeburgh.’
On 1 July 1975 one newspaper reported:
‘HILLS’ HEAD IS OFF THE CHOPPING BLOCK’
Uganda’s military dictator, Idi Amin, today gave way to international pressure and granted Denis Hills, the 61-year-old British author and lecturer, an unconditional reprieve from the firing squad. Hills had enraged Amin by describing him as a ‘village tyrant’ in a manuscript discovered by Ugandan police in Hills’ home.
Military intervention
In 1982 I was back in Uganda. Milton Obote had brought to an end the murderous regime of General Amin and had once again become President. He was himself subsequently to be deposed, and his regime was found to be almost as brutal as that of Amin.
I was catching a plane to Nairobi one Friday afternoon and had arranged to call on the Vice-President, Paolo Muwanga, whose office was in the old Buganda Parliament building, on the way to the airport.
To put the building in context: the British had left an extraordinary constitutional mish-mash at the time of independence. Uganda comprised four hereditary kingdoms, one of which, Buganda, was ruled by the Kabaka, known to those close to him as King Freddie. He was a man of infinite charm, and was well disposed to the United Kingdom, having held a commission in the Grenadier Guards and been an undergraduate at Cambridge. There were also other substantial territories outside the kingdoms in Uganda. The whole country was a republic, and the first President was the Kabaka. Therefore, in part of the capital, Kampala, King Freddie was His Highness the Kabaka, with his own Parliament, and in other parts of Kampala he was His Excellency the President. The arrangement could not last; Obote, in pre-Amin days, ousted the Kabaka, who was to die in poverty and exile in the UK. One of the few civilised acts performed by Amin was to allow the Kabaka’s body to be returned for burial in Kampala some time after, where he lay in state in a glass coffin. I was invited, amongst others, to accompany him on his last journey. I declined, as I had already paid my respects at his first funeral in London and thought it more appropriate that the accompanying party should be predominantly made up of his fellow countrymen More recently, Yoweri Museveni, President since January 1986, who has done much to stabilise Uganda after years of repression and turmoil, allowed King Freddie’s son to return as Kabaka with limited powers.
With regard to the funeral in the UK, the then Labour government was so anxious not to offend Obote during his first administration that it absented itself from the London ceremony, and instead sent a civil servant I thought this outrageous and contacted the Conservative opposition, suggesting that the opposition parties should at least turn out and show solidarity, and this we did.
The Buganda Parliament building is at one end of a processional way, leading to the Kabaka’s old palace. I asked my driver on the way to the airport to drive via the palace, which I wanted to see for nostalgic reasons. My driver pointed out that the palace was now an important military base, and showed some apprehension. I saw no problem, and said we would just drive past. We slowed down momentarily about 100 yards from the main gates and were waved down by two armed guards, who ordered us out of the car. There was little point in arguing. However, the development that I had not bargained for was to be told that I was a spy. ‘You come with us’. Where are you taking me?’ ‘To see our officers.’ ‘That suits me fine.’ A little time later: ‘Our officers have left for the weekend. You must stay until they return on Monday.’ They were singularly unimpressed by my plans to fly to Nairobi that afternoon.
I did not relish a weekend in military detention and addressed the sergeant who had joined the two guards: ‘Sergeant, am I right in saying that the Vice-President’s office is in the Kabaka’s old Parliament building, since I was there twenty-five minutes ago, talking to the Vice-President. Please telephone his office, and if he will vouch for me, you must release me.’ ‘We have no telephone.’ I did not believe him, but I was not in a strong position to argue with him! I came up with an alternative plan: ‘Put me back in the car, with two guards armed with machine guns, one on each side of me, with orders to drive back to the Parliament building.’ When he showed some hesitation, I said: ‘Come on, you are risking nothing if you establish the truth. I am risking my life.’ To my great relief,
he gave the necessary orders and I got back in the car with my two heavily armed companions. As good fortune would have it, we approached the main gates of the Parliament building, and the same two security men were on duty who had examined my papers on my visit to the Vice-President. They called up the Vice-President’s ADC, who welcomed me with some surprise to see me back. I explained what had happened and he asked what he could do to help. ‘Tell the two guards to release me and ring the airport, asking the aviation authorities to hold the plane.’ He asked how the soldiers had treated me. I said that their behaviour had been exemplary. By now, duly chastened, the two guards asked if I would give them a lift back to the barracks.
I was somewhat apprehensive about stopping at the barracks again, in case of a repeat performance. Having driven some of the way, I stopped the car and said that this was as far as I would take them; they could either walk the remaining distance, or we could return to the Vice-President’s office. Grudgingly they got out and we parted company. We drove at fantastic speed to the airport, and arrived two minutes before the departure of the Nairobi plane. I determined that in future I would be more cautious in my sightseeing activities!
Rwanda
One of the most curious missions which I was invited to carry out in Africa centres round Rwanda, the scene of the worst atrocities in Africa in recent years. Shortly after the King of Rwanda, a giant of almost seven feet high, was expelled by the Belgians, the Kabaka of Buganda, to whom I was giving trade and investment advice, asked me whether I would see the King of Rwanda. He was then in Uganda, and wanted some advice. I duly met the King at the Kabaka’s palace in 1961, and was told that he was interested in asking me to organise an invasion of his own country so that he could recapture the throne. I replied that this was not really in my line. The King, unperturbed by the show of modesty on my part, asked me what would be required. I said I supposed a portable radio station, a couple of spotter planes, rifles and training facilities for his supporters – possibly in Tanzania. The King remarked that this would be expensive and I concurred. ‘How do we raise the money?’ he asked. I asked him where the Rwandan pygmies stood in all this. ‘Fully supportive’, he replied. Somewhat incredulously I asked him whether he and his fellow giants would lead the pygmies into battle. ‘Certainly’, he replied. ‘In that case’, I said, warming to the theme: ‘I think we can sell the exclusive invasion rights to Metro Goldwyn Mayer for half a million dollars’. ‘Excellent’, replied the King. ‘My Prime Minister will be in London next week and will call on you in order to carry matters further.’ Sure enough, a week later an even greater giant knocked at my front door, and said: ‘I am the Prime Minister. I have come about the invasion.’ Realising that the thing was getting out of control, I said: ‘The invasion is off’.
In My Own Time Page 17