HC Deb 07 July 1959 vol 608 cc1315-26

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

12.51 a.m.

Mr. John Dugdale (West Bromwich)

I am glad that even at this late hour the Under-Secretary of State is present although a number of other Ministers who should have been here are absent. I make no apology even at this hour for raising this question, which is of tremendous importance to the people of Uganda, and, indeed, to a large number of people in Africa, and, I would venture to say, to many people also in England, Scotland and Wales.

Last Tuesday the Secretary of State for the Colonies refused to have an inquiry into the shooting that took place by the police at Katwe in Uganda. He told me, in effect, that my evidence was wrong, that he did not trust the sources from which it came, that no one had been killed and, therefore, that it did not matter very much. I differ from him in both respects. In the first place, I do not claim any infallibility for my evidence. The right hon. Gentleman does for his, and I think it is wrong for a Secretary of State to claim infallibility for evidence and to refuse an inquiry. Once he begins to do that he is on a very dangerous and slippery slope.

In the second place, apparently the right hon. Gentleman thinks nothing of the fact that seven people were wounded by the police. I do, and many people in this country do. If seven people had been wounded by the police in this country there would most certainly have been an inquiry. Why is it that if seven people in England are wounded by the police there is an inquiry, and if seven Africans are wounded by the police in Uganda it is not right that there should be an inquiry? One cannot work on two principles. One has to have exactly the same principle for both countries, and I believe that every African would hold that view too.

Let me refer first to the background to the shooting. On 9th April a police ordinance was issued. It said: To declare that … it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to convene an assembly at which it is reasonable to suppose that more than two hundred and fifty persons will be present unless a permit has been obtained by such person or persons to convene such assembly. To start with, who is to decide that it is reasonable to suppose that more than 250 persons will be present? It is a ludicrous ordinance. How can anybody know in advance that there will be 250 people?

Secondly, why is it necessary to have such an ordinance? There had been no incident in which the police fired on a crowd since 1949, so far as I know. That was a long time ago. Also, it is since the introduction of this ordinance that the incident has occurred. The ordinance would, therefore, seem to have produced a worse state of affairs than existed before, quite unnecessarily. I would add that on the last occasion when the police fired on a crowd an inquiry was ordered, and there was an inquiry by Sir Donald Kingdon, who was the former Acting Chief Justice. It is just such an inquiry for which I ask now.

The facts were that on Thursday, 4th June, it was a nice fine day and a crowd of people in a suburb of Kampala decided they would like to dance, sing and play games and watch wrestling matches. If the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies says that is not true, I would remind him that the newspapers in Uganda, including British newspapers which support the Government and which differ from me in many respects and have passed many strictures on me, said that this gathering was in no way political and was a gathering of people amusing themselves.

But the police came along and said that the ordinance stated that not more than 250 must be present, and they said "Break up the meeting." I would like to quote what the Colonial Secretary said in his original reply, describing apparently what the police found: They were drumming and dancing and in 'an excited state'. As outdoor gathering of more than 250 had been declared illegal without a permit, the police officer investigated. One of the men wearing a tie with the letters U.N.M. on it and many of the people were shouting 'freedom' ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1959; Vol. 606, c. 1161.] I would ask whether the Under-Secretary is aware that people are constantly shouting "freedom" in Uganda. I was at a football match out there at about that time, and several thousand people were shouting "freedom", yet none was arrested. Why was that? If whenever people shout "freedom" in Uganda they are to be arrested, a large portion of the population will be arrested in a short time.

The Secretary of State's report says that one known U.N.M. leader was seen on the outskirts of the crowd. That apparently made the police think it was not a bona fide social gathering. That leader was probably Mr. Ntambi. He is chairman of the Uganda Traders Association, and he was indeed a former member of the proscribed Uganda National Movement. He was there because his office was quite close to the scene, and he heard a great disturbance and noise and went out to see what was happening. He has since been charged, but when the time came to bring him to court the prosecutor asked leave to withdraw the charges because it was found on further consideration that there was insufficient evidence. Yet the presence of this man at the scene was one of the reasons for making the police think that it was an illegal meeting which they ought to break up.

Most of the people, when called upon to do so, dispersed. About a hundred or so remained. These people had no right to remain, I agree, but I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you were at an entertainment of this character and the police suddenly came and told you to disperse, would you not feel a little angry? Would not any hon. Member feel angry? After a time they became so angry that they started shouting and abusing the police and refusing to move. That is what happened, so the police fired, first of all tear gas, and then, later, gun shot. They fired, as far as I can see, rather wildly. I myself saw marks in houses about a quarter of a mile away, and I think that they might have fired, if at all, with greater accuracy and care. As far as I could see, they had no reason to fire at all. I frankly agree that it is very hard to stand here and say whether or not at a given moment if one were a policeman in a given place one should or should not open fire. I agree it is difficult for the police to decide that, but I should say they were put in that position by the ordinance the Government brought in. Why should they be put in that position?

I now turn to something that happened after the shooting but was directly connected with it. I went to visit the hospital and saw people there who were ill. As I told the House, I saw one woman who had, not shrapnel, but gunshot wounds in her chest. She was having blood transfusions and was in a bad state. Two days afterwards I went to the scene where the shooting took place and saw a man who said, "I want to see my sister-in-law. I want to take my brother to see her. He has been trying to see her all this time and cannot see her in hospital ". I found it was this same woman. I said, "I will go immediately to the hospital and you shall see her." I went and found a policeman standing in front of the ward refusing permission to anyone to see what were called "accused persons". prisoners.

What were they accused of? Their only crime, as far as I could see, was that they were wounded. Nothing was proved against them. I understand that most of them have been discharged as not guilty and no case has been brought against them. In fact, I gather from the Secretary of State that no case was made against them. These persons when sick have the right to see their next of kin. I immediately rang up the assistant commissioner of police who was horrified to find that permission had not been granted. Why should what the Secretary of State calls "an innocent abroad" have to go to the hospital to see that these people should be allowed to see their next of kin? That does not seem to be a satisfactory state of affairs.

I sum up with a few general observations. My own impressions are, first, that the people of Uganda are a friendly people. There is no Communism there; at any rate it is negligible and I did not find any. I do not think the Colonial Office believes there is any there. It certainly is not in the Uganda National Movement. There are no white settlers there and no problem like that to disturb the country. There is only a kind of schoolmasterly paternalism which upsets the people considerably, a sort of ham-handedness and also, of course, the close neighbourhood of Kenya with all its problems. If the Government are not careful, they will drive these very friendly people into the same kind of attitude as the people of Nyasaland. That is something we have to be careful about. I hope they will not. It will be entirely the fault of Her Majesty's Government if these people become unfriendly.

The second thing is that the orders to the police were exceedingly vague and exceedingly difficult to execute. The third thing is that while I believe the top police officers are good, I think it quite possible that some of the juniors are not of the highest standard. I should like to have an inquiry into this. I think it one of the things which should be inquired into. Of course, this is nothing beside the horrors of Hola, but are we to have no inquiry until something on the level of Hola is reached? Is that the attitude the Government take up?

I believe we should find where the blame, if any lies, because only in that way can the Government prove to the people of Uganda, and indeed to the world, that they are as deeply concerned about the manner in which the police treat Africans as they are about the manner in which police treat people in this country. Until the people in Uganda can be satisfied of that, they can have no confidence in Her Majesty's Government. I ask the Government to have such an inquiry.

1.5 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery)

Let me deal first of all with the background to this situation and with the facts.

In February, the Uganda National Movement was formed under the leadership of Mr. Kamya. In support of its policy and aims it declared a boycott of non-African goods and public transport services. By mid-April the policy of boycott had led to acts of violence and a good deal of intimidation, mostly practised against Africans. Bars were threatened in the towns, and bar-owners and barmen. Coffee and banana plants were cut down on smallholdings, and as a result of the boycott there was a certain amount of unemployment. In one instance at least the unemployed organised themselves into a body and clashed with the Uganda National Movement because they held the movement responsible for their lack of work.

As a result, certain districts of Buganda were declared "gazetted areas" in which, among other things, meetings of over 250 people were declared illegal. On 23rd May, because these disturbances had spread, the whole of Buganda was declared a disturbed area in which the police were empowered to control movements and weapons, to declare curfews and to prevent and prohibit meetings of more than 250 people. At the same time the Uganda National Movement was declared an illegal organisation, although its members tried to evade this decision by re-forming themselves first of all into the Uganda Freedom Movement and later into the Uganda Freedom Convention.

On 30th May six of the ringleaders of this movement were arrested under the provisions of the Deportation Ordinance. On 4th June the right hon. Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) arrived on the invitation, I understand, of the former Convention leaders who had deposited a sum of money to enable two Members of the House of Commons to go to Uganda, This was the day of the incident at Katwe. Katwe is a densely populated quarter of Kampala. It is in a disturbed area, where no meetings of more than 250 people were allowed. There was a certain tension that day. The Convention leaders had declared three days mourning for the arrest of those of their number who had been detained. Shops had been closed. The authorities, though vigilant, were calm. That morning there was a small demonstration at Natate to celebrate the right hon. Gentleman's arrival; they were told that he "was going to set us free." This gave rise to no trouble. There was a football match in the afternoon, Buganda against the Middlesex Wanderers, and here again there was no trouble.

At 5 p.m. a crowd gathered in an open space near the new market in Katwe. It decided that it would hold a Ngoma, or dance. Sheep and goats were slaughtered and there were certain social activities to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. According to all the reports at our disposal, the atmosphere was fairly tense.

Mr. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

Whose reports are they?

Mr. Amery

Reports which we have received from the Government in Uganda. Many of the crowd were wearing either Convention mourning or Convention political favours. There were active members of the Convention movement among then. The crowd rose to well over 250. The police officer at patrol, with the help of the Muluka Chief, attempted to persuade people to disperse, but they were only partly successful. The crowd fell to about 100, but the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in thinking that it stayed at that low number, because it built up again to well over 250. It was in these circumstances that the police sent for reinforcements.

When the reinforcements arrived the police officer called on the crowd to disperse within ten minutes. More reinforcements arrived under a more senior officer and a fresh warning to the crowd was issued in English, Swahili and Luganda. About this time individuals in the crowd began to collect and pile stones. Five minutes after the last warning—in other words, five minutes after the ten minutes had elapsed—the senior officer ordered the baton sections to form up, and they advanced towards the crowd with a view to dispersing them in fulfilment of their duty to see that the law was maintained and that a crowd of over 250 was not allowed to continue. They came under very severe stoning at 20 yards' range—so severe that the baton section had to be withdrawn. The tear-gas section was then called up and this, again, proved ineffective.

By this time, the crowd was already a thousand strong, and the police—about 54 other ranks and seven officers—found themselves surrounded, and were driven back to their transport under heavy stoning. There were a number of police casualties. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was no reason for them to fire at all. Our evidence is that the police were in imminent danger of being over-run by the crowd, and it was in those circumstances that the officer in charge ordered the Greener gun section to fire. The Greener gun, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, is a kind of shotgun that fires with a deafening noise, gives an impressive flash, and has a wide spread of small shot which, unless it hits a vital spot, is very seldom lethal. In those circumstances, the officer in charge had, in our view, no choice but to give the order to fire.

Presently, further reinforcements arrived—two officers and 64 other ranks. Their transport was halted by stoning before they could arrive to the support of their colleagues, and they, too, were forced to fire their Greener guns before they could get through to their colleagues. As a result of the shooting, dispersal of the crowd began, although stoning by small groups continued after the fall of night and until about 10.15 p.m.

Altogether, 29 shots were fired, although a number of the shots were fired over the heads of the crowd. The police first fired warning shots over the heads of the crowd and then had to fire into it. As far as I know, nine Africans were wounded, of whom seven were detained in hospital. One woman, as the tight hon. Gentleman said, was seriously wounded, but nobody was killed. Of the police, 44 were injured, though none seriously.

I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that nobody had been found guilty, or that very few had. Sixteen people were charged with taking part in a riot. Of these, four were released for lack of evidence, five were convicted and given the choice of a 400s. fine or four months' imprisonment, four were convicted and sentenced to four months in prison, one was acquitted, and two cases are pending.

I do not think that the facts are in doubt. The crowd was over 250 strong, so that the police had a duty incumbent on them to disperse it, all the more so as they had reason to believe that there was an element of political agitation in it—

Mr. Dugdale

Is it correct to say that there were about 500 when they were first asked to disperse and that, as a result of their being asked, it rose to 1,000?

Mr. Amery

When the shooting began there were more than 1,000—or about 1,000.

There was evidence to the police that there was an element of political agitation. The people were called on to disperse in accordance with law. The minimum force was used, in the sense that an attempt was first made to disperse them by words, then by batons, then by tear gas, and only when all else had failed and the police were in danger of being over-run themselves did they resort to shooting. The evidence of the violence is that 44 police had been injured as against only nine of their assailants. There were no fatal casualties, and we think that the police acted reasonably in the face of severe provocation. In those circumstances, quite frankly, we see no reason for an inquiry

In certain respects, the stories that the right hon. Gentleman and I have told the House differ, and differ in the interpretation put on the incident. In such matters, we have to consider the veracity or reliability of witnesses. I therefore feel bound to comment a little on the right hon. Gentleman's visit in more general terms. Whether it was wise for a Privy Counsellor and a former Minister of State at the Colonial Office to go to Uganda as the guest of the leaders of a movement that had already been banned in Uganda is a matter for the House to judge. I would have thought that when he got there he would have been well advised to have sought official advice about the situation as well as the advice of his hosts. When the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stone-house) went out on a rather controversial visit some time ago, he observed the courtesies very fully and saw the authorities as well as the others.

Mr. Dugdale

I really must—

Mr. Amery

Will the right hon. Gentleman let me finish the sentence? If he will allow me to take it a little further, I will then give way. The right hon. Gentleman visited the Resident of Uganda, but he visited him accompanied by one of his hosts. As a Privy Councillor and a former Minister of State, he would have received confidential information had he gone alone. He chose not to go alone. He did not see the Governor or the Chief Secretary until just before the end of his visit.

At Iginga, the right hon. Gentleman put a question to those who met him which gave them the impression, and, I think, would have given any reasonable person the impression, that he wanted to compare the present Governor unfavourably with his predecessor. I say nothing about bad manners in a matter of this sort, but it seems to me unwise of the right hon. Gentleman who had not even seen the Governor himself at that stage.

Mr. Dugdale

I did see the Chief Secretary as early as was possible. I did not see the Governor because the Governor was constantly on safari and found himself unable to see me.

Mr. Amery

The information we have is that the Governor had hoped, when the right hon. Gentleman arrived, that the right hon. Gentleman would call upon him. He did not choose to do so, and, no doubt, the Governor had other engagements later on during the right hon. Gentleman's visit. In the early stage, no effort seems to have been made by the right hon. Gentleman to see the Governor. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that we have full confidence in the Governor.

Now as regards his credibility, the right hon. Gentleman in a statement on 11th June implied that the Asian community was opposed to minority safeguards. Here is a statement made by the Central Council of Indian Associations and the Central Council of Muslim Associations: This question of the representation of non-Africans in the Legislative Council is under consideration by the two Central Councils. No decisions have been reached, and will not be reached until we have our respective conferences, probably next month. We expressly pointed out "— this is to the right hon. Gentleman— that the Central Council has not formulated any views. Until this was done, we were not in a position to convey the views of the Asian community. We asked him not to misinterpret our views in any public statement. What did the Representative Members' Organisation, the Members of the Legislature, say? They said: The Representative Members' Organisation deprecated very strongly the remarks attributed to Mr. Dugdale as printed in the Uganda Argus on Friday, 12th June. This gentleman came to Uganda at the invitation of a political party, previously proscribed under another name, and after listening to them and spending a few days in Uganda, has the temerity to criticise this Government and its method to seeking to restore order. These are Africans and Asians speaking, not Europeans; there is a very small proportion of Europeans among them. The statement concludes: It is to be hoped that the British public are made aware of the fact that the reports circulated by the gentleman in question are calculated to do untold harm among the law-abiding citizens of this country and create completely false ideas in the minds of the readers of the English Press. The right hon. Gentleman has been described in the Uganda Press as "the innocent abroad". In the light of his experience and past position, such innocence seems to me to verge dangerously on lunacy.

Looking to the future, the boycott still goes on, though rather less rigidly. Boycott, intimidation and violence can be brought to an end only with the wholehearted co-operation of the Buganda Government. We look to fruitful discussions with the Kabaka locally so that the position of Buganda can be fully considered in the context of the general constitutional inquiry. These discussions cannot start until the boycott has come to an end, and, indeed, it is very unlikely that discussions could profitably take place until Buganda has resumed its membership of the Legislative Council. We continue to look to the Kabaka and his Ministers to do all that they possibly can to restore the situation in Buganda to normality.

1.20 a.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

The hon. Gentleman has given us a very unsatisfactory reply to the very restrained speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale). My right hon. Friend limited himself to dealing with the Katwe incident, but we have not had a single word to justify the order which was given to the police to enforce a thoroughly unsatisfactory ordnance restricting the size of crowds to 250 in an area which, as the Under-Secretary of State himself has admitted, is a densely populated one. I know the area around Katwe very well. I lived quite near it for two years. In that area, within a matter of minutes, it is possible for a crowd of 1,000 or more to collect. It is quite obvious that, if there was a disturbance or a crowd there, other people within a few hundred yards would collect in no time at all. In the circumstances, it is quite wrong to expect the police to enforce the ordnance limiting the size of crowds to 250.

The reason for this incident goes back to the wholly unsatisfactory administration of the situation in Uganda and also to the state of impasse between Buganda and the Uganda Government, for which the Under-Secretary and the Colonial Secretary must accept most of the responsibility, arising as it does from the aftermath of the deportation of the Kabaka for which the previous Colonial Secretary was responsible.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order

Adjourned at twenty-one minutes past One o'clock.