50 years after his mother was expelled from Uganda, Omar Sachedina returns to her village

NABUSANKE, Uganda -

My parents never painted a scary picture of Uganda to my sister and me as we were growing up. They spoke fondly of the country where they were both born. Even in our Canadian kitchen, samosas and biryani would be as common as matoke, a traditional Ugandan dish of plantains. I knew that our family had immigrated to Canada from East Africa but didn’t know why.

The details were intentionally vague. Every parent wants to protect their children. But in the years leading up to high school, I kept pushing for more details to fill in the gaps.

In August of 1972, my mother and father and their families were among as many as 80,000 Asians who were expelled from Uganda by dictator Idi Amin. His brutal regime killed thousands. He pledged to reclaim the economy of Uganda for Black Ugandans. He gave my mother and every other Ugandan Asian 90 days to leave.

This summer, 50 years later, I was able to return to Uganda with my mother, Salma, and my sister Nafilia. I wanted to understand where my mom came from, to see my father’s birthplace, but also to understand my family roots, one that spanned four continents, from Asia to Africa, to Europe to North America.

• WATCH: Exclusive sit-down interview with Bharat Masrani, Group President and CEO at TD Bank Group, on his family's journey after being expelled from Uganda

In the early 1900s, as Europeans were coming to North America in search of a brighter future, there was another migration happening between India and Africa -- a wave that brought my great-grandparents across the Indian Ocean and encouraged them to settle, set up shops and embrace new opportunities in Uganda. Even more Indians came to Africa when the British began construction on a railway which would link Kenya with Uganda.

Over the next few decades, Asians would become economically successful in Uganda, despite being just 1 per cent of the population. A racial and colonial hierarchy was established. A recipe for upheaval.

Idi Amin's eight-year rule was defined by the deaths of up to 300,000 people. He was famously mercurial, targeting certain ethnic groups but also journalists, lawyers and others he saw as possible opposition. (AP Photo, File)

“I want to see that the whole Kampala Street is not full of Indians,” is what Idi Amin told reporters on August 4 1972 when he announced that every Asian in Uganda must leave. He said, “it must be proper Black and the administration in those shots is run by the Ugandans.”

He added, “You just wait after three months.”

My mom reflected on that time as being scary. Before our trip she told me about the atmosphere and said: “We were not allowed to go out, and at nighttime, you could hear the machine guns and the noise was so loud.”

• INTERACTIVE journeys of 6 expelled Asian Ugandans and their Canadian success stories

Michael Molloy was a young Canadian visa officer in Beirut when the decree happened. He was dispatched to Uganda in 1972 because Canada, under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau, wanted to help.

Trudeau, about to embark on an election campaign to secure a second term, said: “For our part, we are prepared to offer an honourable place in Canadian life to those Ugandan Asians who come to Canada.” Molloy said that reflected the attitude Trudeau expected, saying: “they were going to be treated with kindness and courtesy and consideration and compassion.”

Fifty years later Molloy remembers what it was like setting up a makeshift visa office to process the thousands who were desperate to find a new home. “For us, the question was of these large numbers of people, who should we be taking.” Canada would take those who didn’t have a country to go to. Many of the 80,000 would also go to countries such as Britain and Australia.

The feat of processing visas and organizing flights in Kampala during a time of fear and instability, along with setting up a Canadian Forces Base in Quebec to welcome and find a new wave of refugees a home and a place to work, was mammoth and impressive.

• 6,175 visas processed in 60 days
• 31 chartered flights
• 4,420 people safely arrived in Canada by Nov.18, 1972
• Nearly 2,000 more would continue to arrive in weeks and months to follow

‘IT DEFINITELY WAS A CULTURE SHOCK’

Canada in 1972 was very different from today. Less than a quarter of 1 per cent of the Canadian population was Indian -- just 50,000. By contrast, today, more than 1.6 million Indians live here and it is the fastest growing community in the country.

My mom remembers arriving in Vancouver in the 1970s. “It definitely was a culture shock. People looked at you with just a different face and it took me some time to get adjusted to it.”

While both my father and mother settled in Vancouver, Ugandan Asian immigrants went to many corners of this country.

Click to see a full-screen version of the map

For this documentary, I met the Popat family of seven who went to Bridgewater, N.S., bringing their culinary traditions from their hometown of Kamuli, Uganda, to Canada, and transforming them into economic opportunities: first a small Indian grocery store, then a restaurant, and a samosa-making business, which supplies major grocery stores.

I met Amin Bhatia, a Canadian composer whose family landed in Calgary after his father, a high-ranking engineer for the Ugandan government, felt they must escape Amin’s regime.

What happened in 1972 would lead the way for what would be a watershed moment in Canadian immigration. More than 18,000 immigrants and refugees would follow the Ugandan Asian wave. Canada helped South Americans and Indo-Chinese from Vietnam between 1975 and 1978. East African immigrants would continue to arrive in Canada after 1972, many afraid that what happened in Uganda would happen to them. Canada would welcome more than 20,000 East African immigrants in the ‘70s alone.

‘I FELT THE WEIGHT OF WHAT THAT JOURNEY MEANT’

Omar Sachedina with his sister and mother (center), who returned to her village for the first time.

On the day we planned to search for my mom’s home in Nabusanke and my father’s home in Masaka, I felt the weight of what the journey meant. This trip was not only to rediscover good memories but to make peace with what happened 50 years ago, an abrupt upheaval at a formative time in their lives.

• Click here for a multimedia, interactive version of this story

For my sister, Nafilia, and I to see where our mom grew up, where our dad grew up, would give us both a greater understanding of their values and their humble beginnings.

As we approached Nabusanke, we relied on critical reference points. The gas station from where my mom remembered turning right to get to her house was still there. But the mango and jambula (black plum) trees close to where she lived had been cut down.

We kept driving. Got out of the car. Kept searching. Drove some more. Even video-called my grandma in London, England, as this was once her home too.

She asked if the fruit trees were still there. But they were gone.

My sister and I desperately searched in hopes of giving my mom and us a sense of peace in finding something tied to her past.

Soon, it was clear that the way my mom's mind's eye had preserved this town, a two-minute drive from the equator separating the Northern and Southern hemispheres, was far different from reality.

Fifty years is a long time. Long enough for the momentum of life to take over, and for the familiar to fade away into the foreign.

Until we stopped a man who happened to be walking in the village that afternoon.

“I remember the jamathkhana [prayer hall] used to be right there.”

A man who helped unlock the memories of the past.

With a report from producer Shelley Ayres

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