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From : TliK PiUVATIS SECRETARY • • • ~ > >s | p ^ 0 HOME OFFICE WHITEHALL SWFA 2AP 20 April 1 977 You asked in your letter of 19 April 1977 for the views of the Home Secretary, in consultation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, en whether an attempt should be made to bring about the removal to Uganda of President Amin's two young children who came here for a fortnight's holiday in the care of a doctor and two staff members on 12 April (the;/ were given two months' leave as is customary for short visits). The Home Secretary's view is that no such attempt should be raade, on the expectation that the party will depart normally in a few days' time and well before any action of ours could ijring about their departure. At least one child of the President has come and gone uneventfully before. There would be no basis for President Amin to use the presence here of his young children as a ground to assist his own entry in June. A parallel case is that of Colonel Ojukwu, the former Biafran leader, who has for some years been excluded from this country but whose family are permitted to enter the UK (his son is at school in Ireland - in which case the Common Travel Area arrangements apply). The Amin children could only have been kept out by a personal direction of the Home Secretary, on the grounds that their presence would not be conducive to the public good. Now they are here, they could be removed compulsorily only if the Home Secretary orders their deportation. That could only be done in practice on conducive to the public good grounds that did not deprive the children of their ordinary rights of appeal. It is the Home Secretary's strong view that there would be no case for considering deportation on conducive grounds in the interests of national security etc. so as to deprive the children (like Agee and Hosenball) of statutory appeal rights. The exercise of any deportation powers could hardly be justified in the case of two children aged 6 and 3, whoever their father is. There is no precedent for deporting in their own right very young children for any reason at all. Nor would the Hjme Secretary and the Foreign Secretary recommend at present an attempt to persuade President Amin to remove the children, for example by a warning that their security could not be guaranteed while they were here. There is no means by which this could be done without the risk of President Amin giving it wide publicity. The Home Secretarj' understands the Foreign Secretary's view is that both deportation and pressure to remove the children would risk retaliation against the British community in Uganda, It might well be read by President Amin (as well as the public) as indicating a decision by HMG to keep him away from the CHGM in June (for which he would then have several weeks to form his intentions and tactics). ^