In 1972, speaking on Radio Kampala on this day the President of Uganda Idi Amin Dada (pictured) declared "economic warfare" by announcing a set of Africanisation policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians, Jews and Europeans.

Idi Amin declares economic war on ethnic minoritiesNot only would Amin's repatriation plans for Africanization ravage the national economy, they would attempt to destroy the lives of two ethnic groups who had been born in the country, their ancestors having come to Uganda when the country was still a British colony. Yet the reactions of these persecuted minorities would be very different.

Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly from the Indian subcontinent, many owned businesses, including large-scale enterprises, that formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy. Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens and most of them held British passports. This was later amended to include all 80,000 Asians, with the exception of professionals, such as doctors, lawyers and teachers. A plurality of the Asians with British passports, around 30,000, emigrated to Britain. Others went to Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, Sweden, and the U.S.

"In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order". ~ Idi AminSince 1903, 250,000 Zionists had settled the 5,000 square mile Mau Plateau after British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain gave a portion of British East Africa to the Jewish people as a homeland under the British Uganda Program. The offer was a response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.

Recognising an unmistakeable threat to the future of the Jewish Homeland, and determined to prevent a repeat of the Russian pogroms, a special forces mission, "Operation Thunderball" was ordered by the Zionist leadership. Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu led a team of commandoes from the Israeli Defense Force who secretly landed in Entebbe Airport and drove an exact replica of Amin's Mercedes into the Presidential Compound where Yoni killed the Head of State with a burst from his Kalashnikov. Netanyahu was also shot in the raid, but survived due to the timely intervention of Dora Bloch, a 75-year-old hostage who had been seized at Mulago Hospital in Kampala with some of her doctors and nurses.