***Despite the trauma of Idi . Amin's brutal expulsion of tens of thousands of people of Asian origin from Uganda in 1972, some of those evicted from the country are returning to see whether they can re-make their lives there. Gemini News Service looks at a cautious home-coming.***

THE train snakes across East Africa from Nairobi to Kampala, carrying Mayur Doshi toward the future, and through the pash This was the train he rode, in the opposite direction, more than 20 years ago when he and thousands of people of Asian origin fled their Ugandan homes, ordered out by one of the world's most notorious tyrants. Idi Amin.

Today, after 14 years in Bombay and 11 in London. Doshi is taking the train to a new life in Uganda, and says he is determined to focus only on the present.

"we want to build Uganda again — if the government is going to remain stable." he says.

Nevertheless, memories crowd in as the train approaches Kampala: of being threatened at gunpoint as he fled, and of women being taken off the train and raped and robbed by soldiers.

"Many Asians used to travel by train. Now 1 see not one Asian travelling, and it makes me said." Doshi observes.

In 1972, Uganda's Aslan’ population numbered close to 100.000: today it is 5.000 in a population of 17 million. The majority, left the community in a three-month period in 1972, in a move Amin though would win him popular support but which offended many people's sense of justice and disrupted the economy.

Today, under President Yoweri Museveni, economic growth is following in the wake of a stable political climate. and Asians — the generic

term used here — have begun to trickle in.

The recession in Britain -has propelled a number of Asians back to Uganda, as have attacks against Asians in neighbouring Kenya. While Doshi describes Nairobi as "deteriorating." he sees Uganda, with its "brilliant, virgin land." as a country on the upswing:

The scars of past destruction are readily visible throughout Uganda, but so are Signs of rebirth in construction. new roads and development.

Doshi says the sight of

protesting university students on his maiden journey back three weeks earlier gave him even greater Joy than signs of ■ economic growth. He saw it as evidence that "democracy has * come back.’’

Doshl's wife and children, however, remain in Britain, not yet wanting to risk returning. "One person from a family comes, the rest watch." says boshi . "If I have to run. I can run alone. You cannot run with your family."

Rajnibhai Tailor, who left Uganda in 1973 and returned in 1980, believes that most Ugandans view Asian settlement positively. He says that most Aslans used to live in small towns and villages rather than major cities, and that it is those villages." the grassroot.’' which want the Asians back.

But many Asians are reluctant, to invest at local level, fearing they may once again lose everything, and the community now is concentrated in the main towns. Only some are investors; many are more transient workers.

Tailor, whose thriving motor vehicle and tyre business is bedecked with "I love Uganda” stickers, believes the bulk of

Uganda's Asians abroad, particularly those who are old or middle-aged, will not return: "Once you've lived a free life, in a Western sooiety. it can be hard to return to Africa.

Dennis Lobo, 65, who came to Uganda in 1960 to work for a sugar factory which had advertised in India, and lived a nomad’s life in. exile until his return four years ago. says things' will never quite be the same for Uganda's Asians.

Finding work has become difficult. He says of Asian life: "There's not much juice in it. compared to before. NO-one's doing business with heart and money together. They come because there are opportunities here, but there's a certain fear. No-one knows what will happed tomorrow.”

Inside the AP Swaminarayan Temple only about 10 men pray each night, a reflection of a shrunken community.

The’..temple was reclaimed in 1992, after years of use as a school, disco and beer hall. Some, temples were sued as mosques.

At the time of their enforced exodus. Asians had to abandon approximately 8,000 properties. Tailor helped lead a drive to have the government

return confiscated property. About half has been returned, and compensation provided for the others who no longer want their homes or businesses.

Reclaiming property has sometimes required returnees to evict African families who had occupied thetr homes. "When someone has been staying in a house for 20 years, and you have to remove him, it hurts." points out Arvind Patel, a 42-year-old businessman who helps maintain the Swaminarayan Temple.

Relations with the African population are a sensitive issue for many Uganda Asians. Trakambla Bhatt, a Hindu priest who came from India to help restore the spiritual centre of the Asian community, the Sanatan Dharma Mandal temple which is a feature of the Kampala skyline, stresses the benefits for Uganda of the presence and investment of Aslans, Nothing that each night the temple feeds up to 100 poor or disabled Africans. Bhatt comments: What's done is done; we want to forget about the past now'.

Many of Uganda's Asians were descendants of labourers brought to Africa to build the

Nairobi Kampala railway. The labourers stayed on. playing a significant role in economic .development. By 1972. Asians owned about 90 per cent of the property in Kampala.

Many Asians acknowledge that their success fed resentment against them and laid fertile soil in which Amin's hatred could take root. Referring to the hostility some Asians still encounter in Ugandan cities. 58-year-old Praful Patel says:" The hatred is not because we are Indian; it is because we are richer.'*

A third generation resident whose family arrived in 1916, Patel says he will die a Ugandan citizen. "Some families have been here 100 years, but they are still called Indians." he notes with bitterness. "Many of us know nothing of India."

Past events are a constant reminder to Asians that their fate may depend on the goodwill of the African majority. "At one time we were trying to help Africans." Patel says. "Now we need help from them."

Nevertheless, while Aslans were dispersed all over the world. Patel notes that they did not suffer as much as the Africans who stayed behind.

"Indian families were scattered, but every African family lost someone," he says. Perhaps, he adds, that shared experience of suffering may ultimately unite Africans and Asians as Ugandans.

AMY WALDMAN is an American freelance Journalist currently based in Johannesburg.