Many ‘Departed Asians’ back, but hope fading 50 years later

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Most Asians who were expelled from Uganda in 1972 by the former President, Idi Amin Dada had permanent residences in the country.

While some former homeowners have returned “home” to reclaim their “Ugandan Identity” fifty years after,  some of them have another battle to fight off people who have fraudulently taken over their property.

Ambassador Dr. Mumtaz Kassam, a member of the Madhivani family accepted the invitation of President Milton Obote to return in the early eighties. She says that over thirty years after, the expropriated properties issue is again having racial undertones.

“There are undertones to again grab properties and so things are not clear. So it’s better to stay here and verify,” said Kassam who has worked as a Diplomat for 19 years and is back in Uganda.

She told URN that part of the problem stems from the way the Departed Asian Custodian Board is handling the issue of properties. “They want to revisit some of the issues regardless of the laws of Uganda. And regardless of the legal opinions that have been generated,” she explained.

According to Dr. Kassam, the injustice against the Asians following their expulsion in 1972 is not yet over. “It’s unfortunate because thirty years ago I did this work. And thirty years down the road, I’m revisiting the work that I did,” said Dr. Kassam whose Ph.D. is on land, race, and politics.

Dr. Kassam is one of the prominent people that have been at State House to meet the President over the question of the departed Asian property under the custodian board.  There have been claims that some people have used dubious means to grab the property or get compensated. falsely.

In June last year, Dr. Kassam led some of the disputing property owners to State House Entebbe. They included landlords and property owners such as Liaquat K. Valiji, Mustafa T. Bharmal, Zahid A. Bharmal, and Nafisa F. Bharmal- from the United Kingdom.

The President in a statement said Ugandans should stop fighting over Asian property but build their own. Museveni in an earlier meeting directed the Departed Asians Property Custodian Board (DAPCB) to fast-track the recovery of thousands of properties that were fraudulently acquired by wealthy business personalities.

“All those parasites… why are they fighting for Indian properties? Why are they not developing their own property? When returning Indian properties, we had a big debate in parliament. These are 4000 properties, there are over one million new properties owned by Ugandans, why to fight over Indian property,” he said.

URN has learned that the President further moved to establish what has come to be known as an operation “harmony” as part of the efforts to minimize tensions that may arise from the fight over property.

Operation Harmony, which is reportedly headed by History Professor, Ogenga Otunnu has been mandated to further study the Asian question. URN could not reach Professor Ogenga Otunnu for confirmation. Professor Ogenga Otunnu specializes in the history and forced migration.

But retired Captain Bernard Shaw Tumwesigire, who has in the past been associated with the Custodian Board confirmed the existence of Operation Harmony where he is an operative. He said the operation is supposed to correct some of the mistakes between the Asians and natives of Uganda.

“It’s a new initiative arranged by the office of the President which is trying to harmonize such that we don’t have a time bomb. Or we don’t have a political revolution that happened in 1972. We don’t want history to repeat itself,” he said

Academics, Lwanga Lunyingo and Sylvia Tamale, who are retired Professors from Makerere University while discussing a lecture about fifty years of expulsion of Asians warned that there is a likely second expulsion of Asians. They say the Asians that have returned to Uganda are again dominating the economy and are big property owners in Kampala and other cities, municipalities, and towns.

In 1972, when Idi Amin expelled about 80,000 Ugandan Asians and expropriated their properties a law establishing the Departed Asian Custodian Board was effected in December 1973.  An arrangement had been put in place to ensure that every departing Asian had before leaving Uganda declare their assets and liabilities.

Some of those assets continue to be managed by the Departed Asians’ Property Custodian Board. In September 1982, parliament passed another law governing the expropriated Asians’ property. Under the act, all property taken over under the Amin regime was to be returned to its former owners. It provided that “adequate compensation” would be paid to Asians who did not want to repossess their property.

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URN