@ughistory: The television lights made the small embassy office feel like a furnace, even in March. Shafiq Arain shifted in his chair, the Ugandan flag a silent witness behind him as the Thames News camera focused on his face. The reporter's questions came in clipped British tones: "So does new president Dr. Milton Obote want them back to make amends, or because he needs them?" Arain was no longer the junior trade officer who had fled Amin's goons with a suitcase. He was now the voice of a government fighting for survival. "Well, both actually. But mainly, we feel that what happened in 1972 was unfair." The film crew had already shot the voiceover recapping Amin's 1972 expulsion of 70,000 Asians. The exile experience was etched into every corner of that room. For those who had landed in Britain, the years had been a slow crawl from destitution to cautious prosperity. Yet the longing for Uganda was a wound that never fully healed. When Obote reclaimed power in 1980 and passed a law in 1983 enabling Asians to reclaim their properties, Arain knew the community's response would be a calculus of pain and pragmatism. The camera was still rolling as Arain explained the Uganda the exiles would find. "Things were fairly disorganized... economically and even security-wise," he admitted. The country was being torn apart by a brutal civil war. In early 1983, the army had forcibly removed almost 750,000 people from the Luwero District to eliminate support for Yoweri Museveni's NRA guerrillas. The economy lay in ruins. Coffee rotted on trees; factories stood as hollow carcasses. The new government wasn't wooing the Asians out of nostalgia. It was a desperate calculation. Earlier that day, they had filmed Popat Ruparelia, the old blanket-factory boss, now a modest wholesaler in North London. "I was born in Uganda. I lived about 50 years of my life there... I think I would like to take this opportunity to go back." Ruparelia drew a sharp line between Amin and ordinary Ugandans who had sometimes shielded them. "He's no more there," the old industrialist said. The interview ended, the lights cut, and the crew packed their cables. Arain remained seated, the flag still draped behind him. The segment would air that evening for exiles huddled around televisions in Wembley and Leicester. But the truth was starker: Obote was encircled by enemies, and the Asian exiles, most of whom had built new lives abroad, were reluctant to abandon their stability. The deeper truth was a convergence of the dispossessed and the desperate, a whispered invitation to rebuild a country still burning. Arain reached for his phone, knowing the long, uncertain work of turning a television interview into a genuine homecoming had only just begun. #IdiAmin #kampala_tiktokers #ughistory #britishasians @GOVERNMENT OF UGANDA

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Wednesday 08 July 2026 17:51:36 GMT