Who Put Gen

The following extract is from an article published by The Monitor (Uganda) on March 31, 2002

There has long been suspicion that Britain organised the 1971 coup in Uganda which brought Idi Amin to power. Recently released Foreign Office papers show that the Israelis were more likely to have been the culprits. But Britain and Israel rushed to help Amin and sold him weapons.

In early January 1971 a plot is being hatched in Uganda that will unleash a terror that has become a byword for evil in Africa. General Idi Amin is about to become the military dictator of Uganda, throwing out President Milton Obote. Amin and Obote have been at daggers drawn for months. Obote has demoted his chief of staff, and is now preparing to have him arrested, possibly murdered.

As the crisis mounts, the Foreign Office in London and its representative in Kampala are engaged in another serious matter. One of Obote's ministers has said in a speech that during colonial rule the British had punished Obote's grandfather by hanging him up by the hair for several hours. The High Commission in Kampala want to know if this could be true and ask the Foreign office in London if there is any evidence. The chaps in the Foreign Office in London, languid, patronising, wonder if you can hang someone up by "woolly African hair". "I suppose it is just possible that unorthodox punishment might have been meted out to him I will bear the story in mind when I speak to my Langi historian friend at Oxford", writes the Uganda desk officer on Jan. 5.

In their cynical world-weary way they exchange messages on the subject until January 25th when the Foreign Office finally sends a note saying it can find no evidence for the allegation. Someone has scribbled in the margin that it all seems a bit irrelevant now. Obote was overthrown that morning.

Obote had gone to Singapore attending a summit of Commonwealth leaders. The Ugandan president was no friend of the British. He bitterly criticised British arms sales to South Africa and he had nationalised British companies in Uganda worth millions of pounds. He was expected to give Ted Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister, a hard time at the Commonwealth meeting.

There has long been a suggestion that the British government engineered the coup. If true, the plotters certainly did not tell the Foreign Office. Richard Slater, the High Commissioner in Kampala, was caught completely unawares.

His early telegrams suggest bewilderment. But he immediately goes to the embassy that he believes to be close to Amin, the Israeli. He is right. Colonel Bar Lev, the Israeli military attaché, has already met Amin on the day of the coup and has been out on the streets of Kampala. Officially the First Secretary at the Embassy, Bar Lev has been in Uganda for five years and has recently been responsible for setting up a paramilitary police force and training the army and police.

All the British High Commission telegrams immediately after the coup quote Colonel Bar Lev. He says that Amin had all pro Obote officers in the army arrested because Obote was going to have Amin arrested on his return from Singapore. Bar Lev discounts any possibility of any moves against Amin by army units up country. "It appears that Amin is now firmly in control of all elements of army (sic) which controls vital points."

London is excited. "There is a good deal of interest here and we are receiving a number of enquiries," writes Sir Alex Douglas-Home, the Foreign Secretary.

By the end of the first day the Foreign Office is already considering recognising Amin's rule. But in Tanzania, President Julius Nyerere is already accusing Britain of organising the coup and the British are afraid of being too close to Amin too soon. They decide not to lead the way in recognition but be close behind others that do. After a few days they persuade Kenya to lead the way in recognising the new regime.

The day after the coup, Slater says he has been to talk to Colonel Bar Lev who has just been talking to Amin again. "He made it clear at once that (Amin) wanted me to be made aware of his intentions" says Slater. Amin, Bar Lev tells him, wants to hold elections and restore multi party democracy to Uganda within three or five months. Bar Lev also lists the advice he is giving to Amin. In London the Foreign Office concludes: "We now have a thoroughly pro-Western set up in Uganda of which we should take prompt advantage. Amin needs our help."

Britain let Israel or rather Colonel Bar Lev take the lead and avoid being seen as too close to the Israelis in Uganda while increasing contact in Tel Aviv. Bar Lev informs the British that "all potential foci of resistance have been eliminated". A number of pro-Obote officers are shot but Bar Lev explains to the British that "Amin's plan" had been "to let Obote return and then shoot him at the airport, together with a number of those who had gone to meet him. This plan was abandoned because of the difficulty of synchronising it with the liquidation of pro-Obote elements in the army."

Bar Lev also says that the police chief, Erinayo Oryema, was being chased by Amin's troops and took refuge in Bar Lev's residence. The Israeli boasts that he persuaded Oryema to surrender and persuaded Amin to forgive him and include him in the new regime. (Oryema was later murdered by Amin in 1977 together with fellow minister Oboth Ofumbi and Anglican Archbishop Janan Luwum).

In London the British want to know why Uganda is so important to Israel. The High Commissioner spells it out: "The main Israeli objective here is to ensure that the rebellion in southern Sudan keeps on simmering for as long as conditions require the exploitation of any weakness in the Arab world. They do not want the rebels to win. They want them to keep on fighting."

Sudan supports the Palestinian cause against Israel and Israel is determined to make Sudan pay by providing arms and ammunition to the southern Sudanese rebellion. Uganda's co-operation is vital. Israel also wants Uganda's vote at the United Nations.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Britain's Foreign Secretary and chief advocate of arming apartheid South Africa, is keen for Britain to back the new government. When British intelligence reports that Obote has arrived in Khartoum on Jan. 29 and may try to re-enter Uganda from the northern border, the foreign secretary orders that a warning message be sent to Amin through the Kenyans.

Soon after a more sinister Briton turns up in Kampala. Bruce Mackenzie is a British intelligence officer resident in Kenya who was also a roving ambassador for President Jomo Kenyatta. It was also certainly Mackenzie who persuaded Kenya to recognise Amin, though Kenya's other neighbours; Somalia and Tanzania treat the coup as mutiny.

Mackenzie is a cantankerous former fighter pilot with a handlebar moustache and firm views about who is on "our side" and who is an enemy. He immediately urges London to back Amin, telling the Foreign Office to sell him armoured cars.

Two days later an internal Foreign Office assessment reads: "General Amin has certainly removed from the African scene one of our most implacable enemies in matters affecting Southern Africa Our prospects in Uganda have no doubt been considerably enhanced providing we take the opportunities open to us "

Amin is certainly making all the right noises for the British. He has said he will tell other African leaders not to criticise Rhodesia or South Africa, he will not nationalise British firms in Uganda and sees Britain as an ally that has done much for Uganda.

To pursue these "opportunities" an increasingly sceptical Slater is ordered "to get as close to Amin as you can and see whether you can develop a degree of familiarity which would enable you to feed a certain amount of advice."

But what are these opportunities? Britain sends out a Foreign Office minister, Lord Boyd, who meets Amin on April 3. Amin, he reports, wants a signed portrait of Queen Elizabeth and a royal visit as soon as possible. Amin tells Lord Boyd that he has written her Majesty "a very nice letter".

The British like this. Even more they like Amin's desire for guns. He wants to be able to hit Khartoum with bombers. The Israelis have already obliged by providing ten refurbished American-made Sherman tanks and lots of small arms. But Amin wants armoured cars and aircraft. He likes the new Harrier jump jet that Britain is developing and, incredibly, the British think of selling them as well as Phantoms and Jaguars, all of them heavyweight fighter bombers.

With a haste that upsets the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office brings over some senior officers to observe a display of British weaponry in action. From Kampala Slater's warnings to proceed cautiously are swept aside by the likes of Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

He writes: "The P(rime) M(inister) 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."

But it transpires Amin is playing a double game. Slater's caution is proved right. Amin told the British how much he admired them and their weapons. He has told the Americans exactly the same thing. This worries Britain less than the possibility that he will approach the French with a similar request.

On March 3, Mackenzie urges Britain to supply them quickly. He says Amin is relying primarily on Israel, then on Britain and lastly on Kenya. He then flies off to Israel to see Prime Minister, Golda Meir and General Moshe Dayan. Seven years later Amin had Mackenzie murdered, placing a bomb on his plane as he left Uganda after a brief visit, ironically to try to sell Amin weapons.

In Kampala Slater seems to give up. He even begins to warm to Amin, noting his popularity and his clownishness. "He has the wherewithal to provide a satisfactory administration and has shown great qualities of leadership and a marked flair for PR..." though he admits he is "Large, ungainly, inarticulate and prone to gout He has earned a great deal of popularity by mixing freely driving his own jeep, ignoring security precautions. I believe him sincere in his wish to hold elections." Slater concludes that there is no alternative. "I had reached the end of the road with Obote", he writes.

Yet his caution about Amin had been right. Amin's love affair with Britain and Israel lasted just over a year. Israel overplayed its hand in helping to put Amin in power and thought he was their puppet. He resented that, especially when they demanded payment for the help they were giving Uganda.

Israel gives Amin a jet

Secondly in February 1972 peace was established in Sudan. An important reason for the Israelis to be in Uganda was removed. In the end neither Israel nor Britain would give Amin the weapons he wanted, though the Israelis did give him an executive jet.

Idi Amin's plane

Carl Taylor was a corporate pilot. His career covered 30-something years and the world.He had several "adventures", maybe none to compare with this one. Betty remembers hearing that he piloted planes for people like John F. Kennedy in Wisconsin during his presidential campaign, for Actress Elizabeth Taylor when she was married to Senator John Warner. And, also for the Pro-basketball team, Lakers, way back before they moved to California. The family had a scare when he piloted with the Lakers...They heard one day in early 60's, that their plane had crash-landed in a cornfield in Iowa. Knowing he was their pilot at the time, they were really scared!! But, turns out, he was sick and stayed in New York City that day and his co-pilot had taken the flight. No serious injuries in the crash landing and Carl got to go and fly the plane out of the cornfield!! He commented that it was harder to fly the plane out than the landing might have been!! Sadly, Carl's career and life ended in April 1981, just 5 years after the Idi Amin incident, when the plane with he and two businessmen crashed on landing approach near the Alpena, Michigan airport. He is buried in the Ft. Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis, MN.
Carl Taylor was the pilot who flew Idi Amin's president's Westwind jet back to it's Israeli builders. Carl was at the Uganda airport when Idi Amin came to the airport on a bicycle to meet them. This was just 2 months after the 4th of July Israeli raid on Entebbe to free more than 100 hostages from an Air France jet that was hijacked.

http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-02/d02-62.htm#idi

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Coup in Uganda (Idi Amin)

Idi Amin, a UK and Israeli backed general, replaces the elected government of Uganda in a military coup.

The Israeli attaché, Colonel Rar-Lev, spends the day of the coup advising the new dictator. Eric le Tocq, of the UK Foreign Office, writes "Our prospects in Uganda have no boubt been considerably enhanced".

Amin had been running British concentration camps in Kenya during the independence movement in the 1950s, where he earned the title of "The Strangler".

He begins one of Africa's most brutal reigns of terror killing his friends, the clergy, soldiers, and ordinary citizens. His first state visits are to UK and Israel, who sell him arms. The West continues to finance his regime until 1979.

In February 1971, Gen. Idi Amin came to power in Uganda, in a military coup against President Milton Obote. British sponsorship of the semi-literate Amin, son of a sorceress, was quickly evident; Britain was one of the first countries in the world to recognize the Amin government, long before any African country. And when relations with Britain had soured after Amin expelled the Asian business community from Uganda, British intelligence operative Robert Astles remained as Amin's mentor in Uganda until the very end. Amin's tyranny, lasting until 1979, trampled Uganda's political and economic institutions, leaving the country a wreckage from which it has never recovered.

For London, as the book {Ghosts of Kampala} by George Ivan Smith reports, the primary reason for fostering the Amin power grab was Sudan. Idi Amin was willing, in fact eager, to permit Uganda to be used as a base of operations to aid the southern Sudanese in their war against Khartoum; Obote was not.

Nurtured Nilotics

Amin, now safely ensconced in Saudi Arabia, was a member of the Kakwa tribe, which straddles the borders of Uganda, Zaire, and southern Sudan. The tribe supplied Amin with his power base in the Ugandan Army.

As a young man in 1946, Amin joined the King's African Rifles, founded in 1902. The British had traditionally taken soldiers of this outfit from the grouping designated ``Nilotic peoples,'' particularly southern Sudanese. In London's recipe for colonial rule, minority groups were assigned to the enforcement roles, enhancing reliability. In 1891, contingents of southern Sudanese were recruited by Captain (later Lord) Lugard for service in Uganda on behalf of the Imperial British East Africa Company. After Britain ruled Uganda officially, large numbers of Dinka and Azande troops, then living in Egypt, were sent to Uganda. Although nominally Muslim, they had fought against the Mahdi's army in the 1880s, on the British side. In Uganda, they were called ``Nubis.''

After Amin took power, he staffed all Army command posts with ``Nubis,'' in much the same way that Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army is commanded by Himas, or Tutsis of southern Uganda, and the Banyarwanda, former Rwandan Tutsis. During the Sudanese civil war of 1955 to 1972, southern Sudanese had been brought directly into the Ugandan Army, making Uganda the perfect buttress for the southern Sudanese fighting Khartoum.

In the early years of independence, Obote had invited delegations from Israel to help carry out farming projects in northern Uganda and to assist training the Army. Israel had a specific interest in Uganda: its proximity to Sudan. The Israelis were soon moving into southern Sudan to assist directly the Anyanya movement against Khartoum. In 1966, however, Obote visited Khartoum, and came to an agreement that Uganda would exert every effort to restore peace in the south. But the policy was ignored by the Defense Ministry and by Idi Amin, who was up to his eyeballs in smuggling operations in the Congo (now Zaire) and Sudan. Amin was in charge of an operation which smuggled gold and ivory out of Congo, in exchange for giving weapons to Congolese rebels, and was brought before a commission of inquiry when it was discovered that he was pocketing thousands of dollars in the process. The commission further discovered that Amin had become involved in the Congo venture through Robert Astles, who was making contacts between the Congolese rebels and the Ugandan Army. Astles's private airline company was handling the smuggling.

Meanwhile, Obote refused to grant Israel landing rights for their supplies to the Anyanya. The crisis over Sudan policy hit in November 1970. Steiner was arrested by Ugandan police upon reentering Uganda from Sudan. Obote stated, in a later interview, ``The government of Uganda as such was not involved in aiding the Anyanya but was involved in finding political solutions in the Sudanese conflict. The arrest of Steiner brought out the fact that Israel was using Uganda to supply Anyanya.'' Obote was couped while he was in Nairobi, on his way back from the Singapore Commonwealth conference. As he relates, ``It is doubtful that Amin, without the urging of the Israelis, would have staged a successful coup in 1971.... Israel wanted a client regime in Uganda which they could manipulate in order to prevent Sudan from sending her troops to Egypt.... The coup succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.... The Israelis set up in Uganda a regime which pivoted in every respect to Amin, who in turn was under the strictest control of the Israelis in Kampala.... The Israelis and Anyanya were hilarious; the regime was under their control.''

When the Sudanese civil war was halted in 1972, Israel quickly lost interest in Amin. Enter Libya. In February 1972, Amin visited Libya, striking a pact with its President Muammar Qaddafi. In March 1972, all Israeli personnel were told to leave Uganda. In August 1972, all Asians were expelled, whereupon Britain withdrew its support for Amin. In September 1972, Libya proffered full military assistance to Uganda and sent 500 technicians to Kampala. By 1974, the intelligence services in Uganda were being run by Libya, and Libya was giving Amin Soviet MiG fighters. Libya even supplied troops to defend Amin when the Tanzanian Armed Forces invaded Uganda to drive Amin out. Overseeing the entire venture, from beginning to end in 1979, was London's Astles.

The Israelis were soon moving into southern Sudan to assist directly the Anyanya movement against Khartoum. In 1966, however, Obote visited Khartoum, and came to an agreement that Uganda would exert every effort to restore peace in the south. But the policy was ignored by the Defense Ministry and by Idi Amin, who was up to his eyeballs in smuggling operations in the Congo (now Zaire) and Sudan. Amin was in charge of an operation which smuggled gold and ivory out of Congo, in exchange for giving weapons to Congolese rebels, and was brought before a commission of inquiry when it was discovered that he was pocketing thousands of dollars in the process. The commission further discovered that Amin had become involved in the Congo venture through Robert Astles, who was making contacts between the Congolese rebels and the Ugandan Army. Astles's private airline company was handling the smuggling.

In November the UN Security Council adopted sanctions, which include freezing assets and travel restrictions, against anyone breaking the arms embargo on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The east of the country is rife with smuggling, especially in gold. Regional conflict that left 3 million dead between 1998 and 2003 has exhausted the country, and general elections that were due this year have been pushed back to June 2006.

MONGBWALU, a desolate village in Ituri district in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), looks like something out of an old western. A single dusty road runs through it, with cafes on either side that resemble saloons, a squalid hotel with a broken-down sign, and groups of youths observing passersby as though they were expecting a shoot-out any minute. The comparison with the Wild West isn’t fanciful, for here, as in the towns that mushroomed in the United States during the gold rush, everything revolves around gold.

Ituri is right in the middle of one of the most important gold deposits on earth (1). Several hundred kilograms are extracted every month from the primitive mines around Mongbwalu. The gold is taken illegally to neighbouring Uganda, from where it is exported to Europe, usually Switzerland. Because of the enormous profits generated, the gold is much coveted - and the cause of the bloody conflict that has plagued the DRC and this region since 1998 (2).

The subsoil of this huge African country - formerly Zaire - is so gorged with minerals that it’s sometimes called a geological outrage. From 1982, when the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko (in power from 1965 to 1997) liberalised gold mining in parts of the country, Mongbwalu became a sort of tropical Klondike. Thousands of small-scale miners threw themselves into a business that continued through the worst moments of the war. The miners still leave the village every day at dawn in battered old 4x4s and follow the earthen tracks to the mines. There they split into teams and start digging. The open pit mine resembles an enormous hive in which thousands of people busy themselves inside mud combs. Some men stand waist deep in water, digging feverishly and putting the earth in plastic crates that are passed along by men pressed against the sides of the embankment.

Each team works for itself. The soaked earth and stones are placed on a sieve above a pool of water. The first stage is to look for gold dust. Then the more promising stones are broken with clubs in the hope of finding veins of gold. “You have to know where to dig,” says Etienne, who spent 10 months in the hills of Mongbwalu. Around him a group of young men are examining stone chips in a sieve, hoping to find a few specks of gold. “No luck today,” says Etienne, “but I’m sure it’ll get better later. If we find a good chunk, we’ll manage to get $5 each.”

At the top of the embankment you can make out the ruins of a building. It is all that is left of the “factory”, the public enterprise set up for gold extraction in the Kilo-Moto region to which Mongbwalu is the gateway. Gold mining was in full swing during Mobutu’s time, when Ituri was under the control of the Kinshasa government. In those days the profits went straight into Mobutu’s pockets, enabling him to amass a fortune in foreign banks. The battle to gain control of this rich piece of land was triggered immediately after his fall in 1997.

Africa’s largest gold seam

Kilo-Moto is one of the most unstable areas in the Great Lakes region. Because of its extraordinary potential - it has the largest gold seam on the continent - it has been coveted by the main players of what has been called “the first African world war” (which pitted government forces supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda).

In 1998, when the country was invaded by Rwanda and Uganda, the region was occupied by the Kampala forces, which flew the gold straight back to Uganda. After the 2003 Sun City agreement in South Africa, foreign troops were obliged to leave the country. The area then became the scene of fighting between the Union of Patriotic Congolese (UPC), supported by Rwanda, and the Front for National Integration (FNI), backed by Uganda. Sixty thousand people are thought to have died in these conflicts, despite timid intervention by Monuc, the UN observer mission in the DRC, set up in 1999. After falling to the UPC, the region was taken back by the FNI.

The militiamen stand accused, among other things, of subjecting workers to forced labour. According to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the FNI takes a percentage of the mined gold and extracts one dollar a day from the workers in exchange for allowing them to work the mines (3). The soldiers hotly deny this. “It’s peace, our men are unarmed. All the men here work for themselves and for the good of the country,” says Iribi Pitchou Kasamba.

This small, stocky man became head of the front after its leader, Floribert Ndjabu, was arrested in Kinshasa for killing nine Bangladeshi Monuc troops in Ituri in February. Flanked by his “lieutenants”, Kasamba inspires fear and respect in equal measure in the zone around the mine. He describes the accusations by HRW as “total rubbish”, adding that “the only money we’ve received is the $8,000 that AngloGold Ashanti paid us quite voluntarily.”

This major South African company obtained a 10,000sq km mining concession around Mongbwalu and has recently been accused of bribing the rebel forces. Since 2003 the UN embargo prohibits any support to armed rebels in the DRC (4). The company claims that it was obliged to pay to guarantee the safety of its employees. But the scandal has tarnished its image - particularly since it boasts an ethical policy inspired by a commitment to “corporate social responsibility” (5). In any case AngloGold Ashanti has not yet started to mine gold in its concession.

Shovels and sieves

Mining continues the primitive way, with shovels and sieves. Near the site a crowd of men equipped with scales gets ready to start buying. The luckier gold-washers crowd around them clutching handfuls of their precious find. This is the start of the transaction. The gold dust in placed on a coal heater and mixed with nitric acid to separate any impurities. The remaining gold is then weighed and sold. The price is about $10 a gram. The rate depends on the market and increases the further you get from the mining area. In Bunia, Ituri’s main town, gold fetches $11.5 a gram. The small-time buyers at the source, as well as the dozens of others who gather in Mongbwalu’s main street, are the middlemen for traders in Bunia and Butembo in the neighbouring province of North Kivu.

Numerous small jobs are grafted on to the business of the mine itself. Women sell fruit, potatoes and rice; young motorcyclists ferry people to and from the mining sites and the centre of Mongbwalu. There is also a motley crew of musicians who seem more comfortable with guns than guitars and seem to monitor the comings and goings. The mere presence of Kasamba is enough to deter anybody from speaking.

Only later, and anonymously, does someone from Mongbwalu agree to give us his view: “In the factory and the other mines near the village, the FNI’s control is limited. Since the Monuc forces arrived the militia have had to be more discreet. But you only have to go a few kilometres further out to see them back in their old ways, forcing people to work for them, harassing them and confiscating gold.”

The 140 Pakistani soldiers from Monuc (6) who arrived in April, and who are in charge of disarming the militia, are even more discreet than the rebels. They are confined to their camp outside the village and their actions are limited to a few patrols. One of the leaders of the contingent admitted that he didn’t really know what went on in the mines.

At the Bunia headquarters, this state of affairs is confirmed. “In theory Monuc could supervise the gold traffic,” says Karin Volkner, the mission’s political affairs officer, “but in reality we don’t have the means to carry out that kind of control. There’s only one military contingent in Mongbwalu. We’re thinking of sending a group of civilians but so far we’ve only carried out exploratory missions.” The Monuc forces are occasionally called in for heavy operations and to support the elections that should end to the transition period (7), but they scarcely bother with the gold smuggling that goes on under their very noses.

In broad daylight

In Bunia gold dust is sold in broad daylight. In this village, ravaged by war and poverty where thousands of refugees are crowded into a camp by the airport, the gold trade is the only commercial activity possible. Almost everyone seems to be at it, in one or other of the two markets.

According to the new DRC mining code established in 2002, government authorisation is required for wholesale gold purchasing (8) but nobody bothers about that in a region where the state is totally absent. “Ituri suffers from government failure,” says Volkner. “The Kinshasa government is very far away and has never bothered much about the people to the east. On top of that, some ministers are directly involved in raw materials trafficking and have no interest in establishing peace in the region.”

The entire trade rests on a well-organised network of small-scale miners, buyers and intermediaries. The town’s traders sell the gold to a handful of middlemen, who smuggle it to Kampala. They use a variety of vehicles (trucks, jeeps, motorbikes), or canoes to cross Lake Albert, making the most of a total absence of controls at the Congolese border. As the process advances, the number of people involved is reduced. In Kampala only three companies buy the gold; all are managed by Indian entrepreneurs. The largest company, Uganda Commercial Impex Ltd (UCI) (9), has its headquarters in the suburb of Kamutckia.

According to Jamnadas Vasanji Lodhia, the owner of UCI: “We buy approximately 350kg of gold for a total of $5m. Our suppliers are always the same six or seven people, all Congolese from Bunia and Butembo.” The best known of these is Kambala Kisoni, owner of the Congocom Trading House. Kisoni also owns a small Antonov plane that flies between Mongbwalu and Butembo almost daily under the name of Butembo Airlines. According to UN experts, Kisoni has breached the arms embargo many times and has transported arms and FNI personnel to Mongbwalu (10).

When we reached Kisoni by telephone, he denied the accusations. “They consider us accomplices or rebels but, in fact, we’re hostage to the FNI people, who behave as though they run the area. They charge us $60 every time we land at Mongbwalu. We’d like the Congolese army to regain control of the region and establish some order.”

Kisoni did not deny exporting gold without authorisation from the mining ministry in Kinshasa. “It’s become dangerous to export with a licence,” he explained. “Given the level of corruption in the government, we’d risk losing everything. We used to have a licence but our gold cargo was stolen three times. And we know that the thieves were connected to the government.” Kisoni added that Congocom is simply an unofficial bank. “Gold is the currency here. With our clients’ gold we buy merchandise, which they sell in Congo. The Kampala buyers like UCI open lines of credit for the big companies that supply our clients with the products. We restrict ourselves to working as middlemen between the Ugandan companies and the traders in eastern Congo.”

The gold bought by UCI is melted down in the company’s Kampala headquarters. The small ingots are then sent every month to Metalor Technologies SA in Switzerland, a leading European dealer in precious metals. But since June the market has apparently ground to a halt. Following the publication of the HRW report, the Swiss company decided to stop gold imports. The UCI boss, Lodhia, was furious. “This trade has carried on for a century,” he said. “I don’t understand why they are making such a fuss. They accuse us of stealing wealth from Congo, but our suppliers are Congolese. With the money they earn from us they buy goods to sell in their country where there is nothing. They don’t buy arms, but sugar, coffee, blankets and clothes. What’s the point of buying arms anyway? Congo is full of them. That’s what earns the least money.”

Offshore bank accounts

Lodhia said he knew nothing about the supposed links between his suppliers and the armed rebels in Ituri. He confirmed visiting Bunia and Butembo, but denied ever having been to Mongbwalu. “I’ve occasionally been to see clients in the east of the country,” he admits, “but I’ve never visited the mines.” He showed us the company accounts that record transactions with Congolese clients worth millions of dollars. Most of the money is stored in offshore bank accounts in places like Mauritius or Hong Kong. “Our clients don’t trust local banks,” he explained, “so we pay the money into the accounts they choose. Which is totally legal.”

Indeed, the trade is legal. The Ugandan government does not require certificates of origin. It merely levies a 0.5% duty on gold exports and an annual licence fee of $1,200. In theory imported metals should be declared at the border, but it is so easy to cross the Congo-Uganda border that nobody bothers with customs declarations.

The numbers reveal the extent of this vast trade. In 2003 local gold production was worth $23,000. Officially imported gold totalled $2,000 while exported gold reached $45bn. The same data, supplied by the ministry for energy and development in Kampala, reveals that Uganda’s gold production totalled 40kg for that year, yet exports were more than four tonnes. In 2002 official production stood at 2.6kg with exports of 7.6 tonnes (11).

As a result of this vast legalised smuggling operation, gold is the second biggest Ugandan export after coffee. “That’s no secret,” said Lodhia. “Everybody knows that the gold in Kampala comes from Congo. In any case the government is virtually non-existent in former Zaire, especially in the east, and there are no controls. It’s been like that since the Mobutu era.”

Uganda has been the hub for Congolese gold since 1994, when the Kampala government decided to withdraw the central bank’s monopoly in buying precious metals, to scrap high export duties (of between 3% and 5%), and to make the regulations on trading companies more flexible. Previously, gold from Ituri transited through Kenya where the trade had already been liberalised. Lodhia admits to having switched from Nairobi to Kampala. “From a logistical point of view, it’s much easier to work out of Uganda,” explained the Indian entrepreneur. “The country is nearer to the DRC and security is excellent.”

The value of the gold increases as it travels from the Congolese towns to the Ugandan capital. UCI buys at $13.5 per gram. The selling price abroad depends on fluctuations on the international markets. “But we work on the basis of a profit margin of 0.5%,” explained Lodhia. “Gold mining is a living for thousands of people in eastern Congo. Those Human Rights Watch militants are lobbying intensively to stop it, but their ideological thinking will end up hurting the very people they think they’re defending. I’m losing money myself, but I’m not going to starve. If the Swiss stop buying and I don’t find other outlets, then sooner or later I’ll have to stop buying.”

There are thousands of people involved in gold smuggling, from the miners in Mongbwalu to the big traders in Kampala and the middlemen in Bunia and Butembo. Although there is no doubt that gold mining has supported - and continues to support - the rebels in the east of the country, it would be difficult to prevent this through embargoes or other means. UN experts believe that, given the size of the country, a total export ban on natural resources would be an extremely costly measure and hard to enforce (12). For them the ideal solution would be to set up a “traceability” process that would prevent smuggling to Uganda. But a system like the Kimberley process for diamonds (13) has not yet been devised for precious metals.

According to Enrico Carisch, a UN finance expert: “The only way to stop the warlords from making money would be to put pressure on the region’s governments to end this regime of impunity. The Ugandans, in particular, should normalise bilateral trade with Congo. But to do that, the Kinshasa government must regain control over the east of the country with the help of the international community.” In a region where the state is notable for its absence and gold is the only source of revenue for the majority of people, it is hard to imagine how the gold mining business could be changed at one stroke - particularly with the strong international demand for gold.

A traditionally anti-Israel newspaper unearthed telegrams supposedly made by another historically anti-Israel diplomat to Ida Amin whom before even his coup already supported Palestinians and incited violence against the Jews? And all this while any news about Ida Amin in Israel is negative? If this is true and got out on Israel's press at that time, it would be the end of the current civilian government.

And as the only ally in Africa, Israel help Uganda with its army, not specifically Amin. Ida Amin rose to power in the military in the first place because of Obote, the person he stole power from when he was in Singapore. Amin had a rich military history, first serving in the King's African Rifles.

And infighting in Sudan would have continued regardless of Ugandan support. The rebels were of Christian and Animist minority, fighting against the Islamist government who was enslaving them. If they were fighting because of Ugandan support, well, it wouldn't have gone on for years to come. Fighting in fact stop because of American and Egyptian pressure. If Israel wanted fighting to go on, they are better off directly aiding the rebels, like they did with Bangladeshi rebels in the Pakistani civil war.

And who welcomed Amin into their territory as a state visitor? Britain or Israel? The Independent didn't also show proof of the telegrams, and forgets to note Israel is the closest Western country to Uganda, and most from Europe at that time transit via that way. And mind you, Europe was far more supportive of Israel then than now, especially between the six day war and the Yom Kippur War.

Who Put Gen. Idi Amin in Power?

Coup in Uganda (Idi Amin)

Nurtured Nilotics

Obote bucks policy

Africa’s largest gold seam

Shovels and sieves

In broad daylight

Offshore bank accounts