With his brutality, President Idi Amin has obscured the real problems of the Asians of his country. Amin is a poorly educated man oblivious to the complexities of finance and state. He is the disgrace of Black Africa, and it is easy to be repelled by his ravings. But his expulsion of Uganda’s Asians—inspired, he says, by Allah in a dream—is not the chance blow of a maniacal tyrant. As an African Christian wrote in a church newspaper in East Africa recently, "Amin’s dream, even though the press has been laughing at it, is Africa’s genuine dream .” With or without Amin, the plight of the Asians in Uganda, like that of the many more Asians in the rest of East Africa, always has been precarious and even desperate. By ordering the Asians out in ninety days last August, President Amin acted with a haste and callousness that shocked even those other political leaders in East Africa who share his basic views. But he is not really more racist than they are. East Africans feel an intense and terrible hatred of the Asians who live in their countries. They are a despised minority, like the Jews of old Europe...

General Idi Amin of Uganda has laid bare a treacherous weakness of Black Africa that its defenders have either ignored or covered for some time. It is easy to flick aside the fragile political institutions left behind by the colonial powers; the parliaments, the parties, the constitutions, the rules of foreign law have not taken root. The masses are unschooled, timid and ignorant of their rights and potential for power. They are riven by tribal strife. Instead of loyalty to their country, they feel hatred for one another. The quality of statesmanship is low. Leaders are possessed by greed and megalomania. Their promises of the good life have, with few exceptions, collapsed. Most economies are faltering. Life may be getting better for the common man, but not much better. The countries are small; the towns that count are few. A leader only needs a few thousand guns to rule for his lifetime. Thus, the conditions that favor tyranny are many; the checks are few. General Amin’s callous expulsion of the Asians has brought worldwide (though not much African) condemnation upon himself and crippled all those, both black and white, who have spent years trying to focus the attention of outsiders on the injustices of white Southern Africa. But his treatment of the Asians is only the most dramatic of the wrongs inside Uganda...

Trade Pact Aims to Draw Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania Closer by Splitting Them a Bit - The new East African treaty of economic cooperation may bring Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania closer together someday by letting them split a little apart now. Stripped of all its flowery optimism, that is the significance of the treaty, which was signed by Presidents Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Milton Obote of Uganda and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania at a recent conference in Kampala, Uganda. In many ways, the treaty is a remarkable achievement, for it salvages the most it can from the old East African common market and lays down a realistic groundwork for a future market. East Africa has had a common market since British colonial days. But the market always helped Kenya more than the other two countries...

But Outsiders Give Three-Man Panel of Presidents Little Chance to Succeed - Three African presidents will try this week to salvage the East African Common Market, once a proud symbol of African unity, now a harsh case study of the pitfalls and problems of economic union. Although official statements have brimmed with optimism lately, most outsiders here believe the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have only a slight chance to succeed. At the most, the presidents are expected to sign a treaty cooperation that will proclaim continuation of the market while loading on enough restrictions to make it unwieldy or even unworkable. However, the presidents are expected to continue the East African Common Services Organization. Under this organization, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda share railways, postal services, an airline, research institutions, harbor management and other services...

New Kenya Immigration Bill Will Define Aliens' Rights, and Is Aimed at Indians - There are 358,000 Indians and Pakistanis in East Africa who face an uncertain and possibly tragic future. African jealousy of Indian success in business and the Asians' own past attitude of superiority toward the Africans has shaken the lives of the Pakistani and Indian traders since independence came to Africa. Two personal incidents underline their predicament. Five years ago, before independence, I cashed a check in a Nairobi bank and waited while an African apprentice clerk labored over the transaction. His Asian supervisor stood behind, impatient, scowling, sneering, shrugging - his every gesture telling me, "These Africans will never learn." Then I recently accompanied a young African into a duka, as rural Asian shops are called. The African sipped his soda and suddenly bust into a tirade. "Where is your money hidden?" he shouted at the Asian shopkeeper...