Fifty three years ago, early last month, the government of the United States of America announced that its substantive ambassador to Uganda, Thomas Patrick Melady, who had been in Washington for five months of consultations with his superiors, would not be returning to his duty station in Kampala.
A statement issued in Washington on July 6, 1973, by Mr Robert Blackwill, the spokesperson of the United States’ Department of State on behalf of the executive secretary, Theodore L. Eliot Jr, also announced that Washington would not be naming another person to replace Melady.
According to The Office of the Historian, which prepares and publishes official documentary history of the US’ foreign policy, the announcements were precipitated by the decision by President Idi Amin to send out two telegrams in which he not only mocked President Richard Nixon, but also criticised the US’ policy on Cambodia.
Amin criticised the US involvement and bombing campaigns in the Cambodian conflict.
It should be remembered that the US’ involvement in Cambodia dated back to March 1965, when its Marines landed in South Vietnam, where they were later joined by other American forces to back up the South Vietnamese army in its fight against the Khmer Rouge (Communist forces) in the North of Vietnam. US bombers attack targets in North Vietnam.
According to information published on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, by 1967, the North Vietnamese army and South Vietnamese insurgents were operating from inside Cambodia, which forced US forces and their South Vietnamese forces to resort to cross-border incursions.
In March 1969, president Nixon secretly ordered the US Air Force to carry out an extensive bombing campaign which was aimed at disrupting the supply lines of the North Vietnamese forces.
In March 1970, Norodom Sihanouk, who had led Cambodia since it gained independence from France in 1953, was overthrown while he was out of the country. Gen Lon Lol, a pro-American member of the armed forces, took charge of the country.
Norodom Sihanouk responded by allying with the Khmer Rouge and urged all Cambodians to join the Khmer Rouge in fighting to take control of Cambodia.
Information on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reveals that the call had the effect of causing war to break out all over the whole of Cambodia.
In April 1970, US and South Vietnamese ground forces entered eastern Cambodia to attack Communist sanctuaries there. The Vietnamese Communists, meanwhile, moved deeper into Cambodia and began seizing large sections of the countryside for the Khmer Rouge.
Amid increasing pressure at home over the Vietnam War, president Nixon ordered US ground forces out of Cambodia, but gave the green light for Gen Lon Nol’s government and army to continue receiving military assistance.
The US Air Force also continued carrying out airstrikes on suspected enemy positions in the Cambodian countryside.
Information on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reveals that US fighter jets dropped more than 2.7 million tons of bombs on more than 113,000 sites in Cambodia.
Amin’s protests
It is not clear whether president Amin’s protests were linked to the visit earlier in 1973 to Uganda of the president of South Vietnam, Nguyn Van Thiu, or his ties Norodom Sihanouk, whom he had earlier hosted on a state visit to Uganda, but in his July 3, 1973, telegram, Amin took issue with the US’s bombing campaign in Cambodia.
Whereas he did not get into discussing the effect of the bombing on the population, the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests that more than two million people fled their homes to escape communist rule, ground fighting and the bombing campaigns which took a heavy toll on combatants and civilians alike.
It adds that most of the displaced persons fled to the capital, Phnom Penh and a few provincial cities where Gen Lon Nol still had some control.
Mocking Nixon
At the time, president Nixon’s government was under pressure under what was famously known as the Watergate scandal, a political crisis that was precipitated by the June 17, 1972, break-in at the headquarters of the National Democratic Committee by five men who were heavily linked to Nixon’s re-election campaign.
Efforts by Nixon to cover up the crime failed, leading to an investigation that eventually brought to light the existence of tapes of secretly recorded conversations within the White House, which the Supreme Court ordered Nixon to surrender.
Amin latched on to the Watergate Scandal to also call on Nixon to resign. Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974, slightly over a year after Amin had urged him to step aside.
In the same telegram, president Amin called for the appointment of more African Americans to positions in the US government.
None
‘Dear Mr President, it now appears clearly from the latest developments that the leadership of your government will not recover from the scandal of the Watergate affair. The best chance, therefore, for the United States of America to restore its dignity in the world is to have a new leadership which should have a majority of the Black Americans in it. Although the present executive leadership of the United States of America is against me, they should know that I am not at all against them or the United States,’ Amin wrote.
He added, ‘In fact, as far as we in Uganda are concerned, we do not hold any ill-feelings against the United States of America and whatever criticisms we have labelled against the United States have been constructive and based on truth and a deep sense of friendly concern. An American government having a majority of Black representatives will be assured of big support in the non-aligned world in which about two thousand million people live. By the same token, the problems that America faces domestically will be considerably reduced if not solved altogether.’
US hits back
Two days after Amin’s telegram to president Nixon, the US Department of State hit back, describing the contents of the telegrams as ‘insulting’, adding that Amin’s messages were ‘totally unacceptable in both substance and tone’.
‘Although we usually simply ignore Amin’s steady stream of vituperation, these are perhaps his most obnoxious messages yet involving the President, and they clearly call for a firm reaction on our part,’ Mr Blackwill’s statement read.
The Office of the Historian also revealed that on July 6, 1973, the State Department called in Uganda’s top diplomats in New York to ‘reject Amin’s assertions’ which it they say ‘grossly distorted’ the US’ foreign policy and to question whether Uganda wishes to reciprocate the US’ ‘desire for good relations’, and to inform Uganda’s diplomat of the US’ decision not to appoint a new ambassador at this time’.
‘Our own charge in Kampala has delivered a similar written and oral protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,’ the statement read.
By the time the tiff between Uganda and America descended to this level, American presence in Uganda had drastically shrunk.
According to the Office of the Historian, all employees attached to humanitarian agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had already been ordered to leave the country for their own safety.
The number of members of staff had also been reduced to six Marines and 12 essential employees and members of their families.
The number of American citizens who were engaged in private work was said to be about 280 in number.