In the briefing session at FAO headquarter in Rome, I was provided the ‘Laissez-passer’ for my travel.
Laissez-passer is issued to officials and members of the United Nations and other specialized agencies or international organizations. Similar to a passport, it is generally recognized worldwide, and usually confirms limited privileges and immunities.
For the first time I became aware of a discount enjoyed by the employees engaged for the development projects sponsored by the international organization.
When the sales papers from the Mercedes outlet were being checked prior to the delivery of my car, I brought any such entitlement to their notice.
I was told that this should have been brought to their notice earlier. According to them, the Edmonton dealer was the right person to provide such discount.
I wrote to the Edmonton dealer accordingly, after arriving in Iran. But such a claim was totally ignored under the pretext that it should have been brought to their notice at the time the purchase order was being prepared.
Neither side was willing to act now. It was a financial disappointment for me.
While waiting in the lounge for the time mentioned for taking delivery of my car, I remembered a brief dialogue I had in Rome with another Asian specialist selected for his FAO assignment.
We had a few minutes together during the coffee break while attending the briefing session.
"Where are you heading for your assignment", he asked.
"To Iran", I replied.
"Iran! Iran is the most difficult country to work for under the United Nations," he commented.
I was astonished by this blunt assessment about Iran, an assignment I had been anxiously looking for since I received the offer.
Ironically, when I asked him where he was going, he happily replied "Uganda", the country that had expelled almost all the Asians a few years ago.
It was Idi Amin (1925-2003) who had taken the drastic step in 1972. He was the military dictator and President of Uganda at that time.
Declaring it as an economic war, Amin had ordered expropriation of Asian and European properties and expulsion of the Asians who were not Ugandan citizens.
Most of those affected were born in the country, while their ancestors had come mainly from the Indian sub-continent when Uganda was a British colony.
The businesses and industries owned by the Asians were backbone of the economy. These were taken over and handed to Amin's supporters.
With no previous training and experience of handling and maintaining these, the change was a disastrous failure.
Many of the expelled Asians who had British passports went to England. Others returned to India, or moved to different countries.
Idi Amin's doctorial rule was totalitarian abuse of human rights, characterized by nepotism, corruption, political repression, ethnic persecution and extrajudicial killings. International observers and human rights groups have estimated that several thousand people were killed during the eight years of his military rule.
Born in 1925, Amin had joined the British colonial regiment and rose to become Major General and the Commander of Ugandan Army. He deposed President Miton Obote in a military coupe in 1971 and proclaimed himself the President of Uganda.
Encouraged by what had been done since he came to power, Amin tried to annex the Kangera province of Tanzania.
The Uganda-Tanzania War of 1978 and the growing dissent within Uganda ultimately led to the demise of his regime.
Amin fled to Libya and then to Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003.
Post Script: I was in Cambridge, England, attending a conference during 1991 where I met the Vice president of Uganda accompanied by two security officers. On my introduction as the past National President of NACOI (National Association of Canadians of Origins in India), he gave me a warm welcome and expressed the strong desire that the Ugandan Government wanted the expelled businessmen to return and help build the economy.
