Revealed: How Israel Helped Idi Amin to Take Power (Did Israel Help an Anti-Semite Seize Power?)

Independent (UK) ^ | Aug 17, 2003 | Richard Dowden

[pinochet]

Revealed: How Israel helped Amin to take power

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 [the] 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 [how] ... 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.

But why was Israel so interested in a landlocked country in Central Africa? The reason is spelt out by Slater in a later telegram. Israel was backing rebellion in southern Sudan to punish Sudan for supporting the Arab cause in the Six-Day War. "They do not want the rebels to win. They want to keep them fighting."

The Israelis had helped train the new Uganda army in the 1960s. Shortly after independence Amin was sent to Israel on a training course. When he became chief of staff of the new army Amin also ran a sideline operation for the Israelis, supplying arms and ammunition to the rebels in southern Sudan. Amin had his own motive for helping them: many of his own people, the Kakwa, live in southern Sudan. Obote, however, wanted peace in southern Sudan. That worried the Israelis and they were even more worried when, in November 1970 Obote sacked Amin. Their stick for beating Sudan was suddenly taken away.

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.

The man who argued most vehemently for Britain to back Amin with arms was Bruce McKenzie, a former RAF pilot turned MI6 agent. (Amin murdered him seven years later.) He flew to Israel shortly after the coup and, as if getting permission to back Amin, he reported to Douglas-Home: "The way is now clear for our High Commission in Kampala to get close to Amin."

But the cautious Mr Slater in Kampala remained reluctant. Urged on by McKenzie, Douglas-Home gave Slater his orders: "The PM 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."

Shortly afterwards Amin was invited for a state visit to London and dinner at Buckingham Palace.

[pinochet]

A shocking report from the British Press. The actions of Israeli officials in Uganda in 1971, represent, perhaps, the greatest foreign policy blunder in Israel's 55 years as an independent nation. How could they have been so stupid? Those officials committed a crime against the Israeli and Ugandan people, as well as a crime against civilization.

[Shermy]

A different view, looking at the real domestic issues.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/965688/posts

[Pikamax]

reading the Telegraph article, it looks like the typical make Israel look evil bias in the Independent article.

[onedoug]

Intelligence is often a dirty job, and Israel is always looking for friends. But it seems more like Amin got tee'd at Israel when they wouldn't give him the weapons he wanted.

[Shermy]

Here's a good article from the Guardian, by a writer who knew Amin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1020657,00.html

[archy]

Intelligence is often a dirty job, and Israel is always looking for friends. But it seems more like Amin got tee'd at Israel when they wouldn't give him the weapons he wanted.

He got everything from small arms [there's a dandy photo of Bar-Lev and Amin playing with a silenced SMG together] to artillery and tanks. What did Amin want that Israel didn't deliver, aircraft?

Israel supplied a number of M4A1(76)W Shermans to Uganda. Both examples with VVSS and HVSS have been spotted in photographs. Apparently they were painted in a shade of green. Markings are unclear, but they seem to have had a two-colour rectangular marking on the left side of the final drive housing. The rectangle was split in two with a diagonal line from the lower left corner to the upper right corner. The upper triangle is green, the lower red. Registration numbers were situated in the same location as on Israeli Shermans, on the front of the final drive housing. They are white digits on a black background, one example seems to read "3/718".

[onedoug]

So is your point then that Israel conspired with Amin to wipe out Africans?

Why then, by the more damning article, would Golda Meir have been, reportedly "shocked at his shopping list" for arms?

As I wrote above, "Israel is always looking for friends." Is it so strange then, for them to have allied with a solidly British backed Muslim whom they hoped might tend to offset Islamist designs on then predominantly Christian southern Sudan?

It wouldn't be the first example of such international gambling gone wrong, where Israel later acted decisively against Amin's vindictive duplicitousness with Islamo-Communist hostage takers.

Or, is it just Jews in general that you have a problem with?

[archy]

So is your point then that Israel conspired with Amin to wipe out Africans?

No, that some Israelis did some particularly distasteful things, in part as payback to one of Israel's antagonists, and in part in probable hopes of gaining a little possible political support- in which they REALLY miscalculated, as they found out when Amin's troops assisted the El Al hijackers with their selectzia of Jews at Entebbe. And it likely does not particularly bother some Israeli arms dealers that they've feathered their own nests very profitably.

Not that Milton Obote was any great improvement over Amin, no more so than Golda Meir was over David Ben-Gurion.

Why then, by the more damning article, would Golda Meir have been, reportedly "shocked at his shopping list" for arms?

Probably at the possibility that being marked as such a supplier could have caused more difficulties for Israel. I still haven't heard what it was that Amin asked for that so upset Golda...aircraft? battleships? a nuke....?

As I wrote above, "Israel is always looking for friends." Is it so strange then, for them to have allied with a solidly British backed Muslim whom they hoped might tend to offset Islamist designs on then predominantly Christian southern Sudan?

No more so than if they'd allied with Pakistan. Or Iranian Mullahs over Iraq, as in Saddam's Iraqi-Iranian war. Though the *enemy of my enemy is my friend* aphorism has long been a watchword in the Middle East's shifting alliances, such backdoor deals have too-frequently returned to bite the supplier on the behind, sometimes really embarassingly so. As in Uganda. But at least Amin didn't kill any American sailors or machinegun their lifeboats with Israeli-supplied arms, as the Israelis did for the crew of the USS Liberty in '67.

It wouldn't be the first example of such international gambling gone wrong, where Israel later acted decisively against Amin's vindictive duplicitousness with Islamo-Communist hostage takers.

Nor the first time Israelis have killed their own to win a political point, as with BenGurion's orders to shell the Altalena lest it's supplies reach Jewish resistance movenments other than his own, well supplied by Russian Communists. If BG was willing to kill his fellow Jews, why should we think other Israeli leaders following in his footsteps would particularly be shedding any excess of tears for a few Ugandan or Sudanese Africans?

Or, is it just Jews in general that you have a problem with?

Well, some Jews to be sure; particularly the Jewish Communists and Socialists, and those who sell out their country to the Internationalists. But I took part in the '73 war on the Israeli side as a machalnik tank crewman. And you?

-archy-/-

[Publius6961]

Welcome to Free republic.

Do you know what "ZOT" is??

[onedoug]

But I took part in the '73 war on the Israeli side as a machalnik tank crewman. And you?

Not Israeli, but rode as a medic into plenty of combat with armored cavalry in Vietnam '68-69.

I see Jewish chosenness in religious terms, i.e., carrying ethical monotheism to the world, so I basically agree with what you say about communists (atheists) and socialists (its own religion, too) through which Jews abnegate God's oneness.

Believing then too, that America, as the Judeo-Christian nation, is also divinely chosen to project and carry goodness into the world, as no one else can on the same scale, I would never condem the people of Israel for what I actually see as the very few political foibles of their leaders.

Both our nations, I believe - though it often seems obscure, and even at times unobtainable through human corruption - yet share a destiny in Holiness.

[AppyPappy]

But at least Amin didn't kill any American sailors or machinegun their lifeboats with Israeli-supplied arms, as the Israelis did for the crew of the USS Liberty in '67.

Except Israel didn't know it was a US ship.

[archy]

But I took part in the '73 war on the Israeli side as a machalnik tank crewman. And you?

Not Israeli, but rode as a medic into plenty of combat with armored cavalry in Vietnam '68-69.

I arrived at Ton Sohn Nhut on 29 January, 1968, just a few hours before the swell fireworks display welcoming my arrival. They didn't have to go to all that trouble just for me. Neither was I a stranger to 113s and Sheridans, though I spent most of my first tour with the 1/16 Infantry in the Iron Triangle, sometimes detailed to 69th Armor on road escort jobs. Though the expense-paid tour of Southeast Asias spas and resorts was enlightening, I left in March of '70 after an old war injury began acting up. About two weeks old.

Among my other scattershot tasks was introducing young evac medics used to the FLA and Dodge crackerbox wheeled ambulances to tracked M113A1 and M577 medic tracks...and the maintenance thereof. I'll take a *rat six* walk in the woods escort job instead anyday....

I see Jewish chosenness in religious terms, i.e., carrying ethical monotheism to the world, so I basically agree with what you say about communists (atheists) and socialists (its own religion, too) through which Jews abnegate God's oneness.

Concur. [and with myself, too, I guess. Seems likely. But I don't think it's limited to monotheists; the Asatruist Nine Noble Virtues offer a similar outlook that places them squarely alongside our moral outlook; so too does that of some Buddhists, Jainist Gurkhas and Animists I've known.]

Believing then too, that America, as the Judeo-Christian nation,

Well, at least as the primary Judeo-Christian nation, for now at least, if not necessarily for all time, nor as ever was. Or so it seems our adversaries view such things, e.g. *USA= the Great Satan*

is also divinely chosen to project and carry goodness into the world, as no one else can on the same scale, I would never condem the people of Israel for what I actually see as the very few political foibles of their leaders.

Trust me, some of their leiders are as capable of as thoroughly betraying their people and country as some of America's have been. And some, less malevolent in intent, are equally corrupt or incompetent, not much of an improvement.

Both our nations, I believe - though it often seems obscure, and even at times unobtainable through human corruption - yet share a destiny in Holiness.

Again, agreed. And we can even be at cross-purposes or in competition with each other at times [ask the folks at General Dynamics trying to sell Abrams 2000 tank upgrades to the Turks about that!] and yet remain allies. And there are other countries, neutralist or non-aligned, or recently independent, that also come to mind, as well as those swept away by tidal waves of the ant-people; Rhodesia comes to mind immediately, and I hope Taiwan is not soon to follow.

[archy]

But at least Amin didn't kill any American sailors or machinegun their lifeboats with Israeli-supplied arms, as the Israelis did for the crew of the USS Liberty in '67.

Except Israel didn't know it was a US ship.

Oh. Then they believed they were machinegunning [20mm automatic cannon, actually] the liferafts and survivors of a belligerant with whomn they were at war, a war crime for which their commanders should have then been exectued, just as we executed Yamashita for the actions of the troops for whom he was responsible, though he had no direct knowledge of their activities. But as war crimes, it seems the Israeli actions were much better directed, with radio communications and control at the highest levels.

What do you suggest for them, hanging, as with generals Yamashita and Tojo, and German oberstgeneral Alfred Jodl? Or just for the lower-rankers?

-archy-/-

[onedoug]

ACAV bump.

Ethical Monotheism

...though I'd like to think I'm a little less cynical than you.

L'Chaim!

[AppyPappy]

Funny, I don't remember Israel being convicted of such a thing.

[archy]

...though I'd like to think I'm a little less cynical than you.

To that, I must reluctantly plead guilty, if not without hope for a better future, but certainly not from my hands getting messy in its making.

But oh yes, L'Chaim, and Shalom, Chaver! as well.

-archy-/-

[adam_az]

ANYTHING in the Indepenent should be viewed with high skepticism. The publish Fisk for jehosephats sake!

[adam_az]

"But at least Amin didn't kill any American sailors or machinegun their lifeboats with Israeli-supplied arms, as the Israelis did for the crew of the USS Liberty in '67. "

TINFOIL HAT ALERT.

Search FR for some previous threads on this issue, it's been argued to death many times, with the supporters of your conspiracy theory unable to answer the major inconsistencies in the conspirawhackjob garbage you are spouting.