"Revealed: how Israel helped Amin to take power"

[Aidoneus]

Revealed: how Israel helped Amin to take power
By Richard Dowden
17 August 2003

When Radio Uganda announced at dawn on 25 January 1971 that Idi Amin was Uganda's new ruler, many people suspected that Britain had a hand in the coup. However, Foreign Office papers released last year point to a different conspirator: Israel.

The first telegrams to London from the British High Commissioner in Kampala, Richard Slater, show a man shocked and bewildered by the coup. But he quickly turned to the man who he thought might know what was going on; Colonel Bar-Lev, the Israeli defence attaché. He found the Israeli colonel with Amin. They had spent the morning of the coup together. Slater's next telegram says that according to Colonel Bar-Lev: "In the course of last night General Amin caused to be arrested all officers in the armed forces sympathetic to Obote ... Amin is now firmly in control of all elements of army which controls vital points in Uganda ... the Israeli defence attaché discounts any possibility of moves against Amin."

The Israelis moved quickly to consolidate the coup. In the following days Bar-Lev was in constant contact with Amin and giving him advice. Slater told London that Bar-Lev had explained "in considerable detail ... all potential foci of resistance, both up country and in Kampala, had been eliminated". Shortly afterwards Amin made his first foreign trip; a state visit to Israel. Golda Meir, the Prime Minister, was reportedly "shocked at his shopping list" for arms.

--snip--

The British may have had little to do with the coup but they welcomed it enthusiastically. "General Amin has certainly removed from the African scene one of our most implacable enemies in matters affecting Southern Africa...," wrote an enthusiastic Foreign Office official in London.

--snip--

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=434486

um, ok. aside from knowing enough about Amin to be thankful of his death, I don't know much about the events described above.. is there more to it than this piece, and is there a more detailed version of what is mentioned here?

another on Amin from the same author,
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=434488

[premjan]

1. why

did the Israelis do it?
Amin kicked out all the Asians from Uganda.
Was Israel anti-Asian for some reason?

[Aidoneus]

3. from what I'm reading..

they wanted somebody to cause trouble in the Sudan to punish them for Sudanese support for the Arab side in '67, at the same time they were backing the revolt in the south Sudan (rather like the US/Israel/Iran used a Kurdish revolt to pressure Iraq at the same time period). It seems the British thought they had a fine new "pro-West" dictatorship to prop up and benefit from vis-a-vis apartheid South Africa.

I guess a year or two after the coup there was a falling out between Amin & Israel and Amin's gov't expelled the Israeli military advisors that helped him secure for himself the country after the coup, and over time Amin's previously very-pro-British outlook was chipped away by increasing paranoia. It's strange reading reports of his rule; he started out as everybody's favourite, the British & Israelis thought he was great, their guy, a real man of the people, blah blah blah.. then after a couple years he became steadily crazier and paranoid and then just forgotten and ignored by his ex-patrons as he did his "'anti-communist' dictator in Central America" imitation of killing anybody who he thought wasn't batting for his team, and anybody else who was around just to be sure..

[seventhson]

2. Life the US, Israel has rogue elements witihin its military

Meir's "shock" would be indicative that she was out of the loop.

Uganda lies adjacent to the most valuable mineral territories in Africa - in the Congo, Katanga Province -- which had been the scene of brutal horrors since they were discovered, Every colonial power wanted them and the CIA-BushFEE has been invoilved there forever.

See the film "Lumumba" for the evidence of CIA and even Carlyle's Carlucci in the assassinatioon of Conmgo's leader.

This area is now a living hell with terrorism, cannibalism as a war tactic (they eat genitals like they were pork rinds).

It would not at all surprise me that the extreme right in Israel (who I believe, after visiting Israel several years ago killed their own Peace leader Rabin) would do anything to keep power and that they would do this in colussion wityh the BFEE which was in tyhe Congo at this time as well. Accoording to John Loftus, "Secret War Against the Jews" Likudnik Ben Netanyahu was the middleman on the Iran arms for hgostages deal with Bush and North. That's right, Netanyahu helped sell arms to the Mullahs in Iran so that Bush et al could get their arms profits to trade arms for cociane profits to finance the contras illegally in Nicaragua.


So that there was an Israeli general (and probably a BFEE spook like Carlucci or two) hovering in the shadows or even calling the shots while Amin was snacking on tasty morsels of their opponents flesh or that of their children surprises me not in the least. Perhaps they enjoyed the same cuisine, too.

It's the way of the world/


For more google Lumuma and Carlucci for the Congo story or

Uganda and Bush for the favt that we are STILL financing their military whgich is killing and eating innocents in the jungles near the diamonds and other mines

[donsu]

4. agree

nt

[QuietStorm]

5. plausible

[Zuni]

6. It is important to remember several things about Amin and the time period

In 1971 no one knew what Amin would do. Obote was a thug dictator, and Amin said he would restore democracy and end the reign of terror by Obote's security forces.
Obote had many enemies in the west, so many of them were glad to see him gone and welcomed the change.
Many Ugandans rejoiced when Obote was toppled and Amin's initial statements seemed to show he was interested in creating a more free society.

Very few people, In Uganda or the West saw what was coming. Israel became a staunch opponent of Amin's regime---Amin allied himself strongly with the PLO who provided him with mercenaries and Quaddafi, who helped ship him arms.

When judging the involvement of foreigners in this tragedy, it is important to note the facts known at the time.

[LeftistGorilla]

7. You reap what you sow...

dictators rarely restore democracy....

[Zuni]

8. remember

that Amin was not a dictator before the coup.



And this story about Israel might well be a hatchet job by an anti-Israeli Brit that wants to make them look bad.
There are a lot of myths and tall tales about israel going around and this might be one of them.