DUMP ASIANS - TORY CALL

UGANDA'S Asian community has become the centre of the most vicious politicking between the military junta in Kampala and the Tory government Edward Heath's special Cabinet emissary, Geoffrey Rippon, held talks in the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, yesterday.

But so far during his whirlwind tour he has not met any of the East African leaders -General_ Idi Amin of Uganda, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya or Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

In his only serious statement on the 90-day expulsion order, Rippon said at Nairobi airport: 'Our view is that if people are expelled, however unreasonable and inhumane that action might be, we have to accept responsibility?

But at the same time Rippon has given no specific pledges to the 20,000 British passport holders who face being deported over the next few weeks.

When asked directly about the government's plans to admit the British subjects he complains General about 'the complexity of the problem'.

Meanwhile Rippon's colleagues in the, Monday Club-he used to be a prominent member before joining the Cabinet — have sent him a cable suggesting that the refugees should be taken to a 'convenient Indian Ocean island under British colonial administration'.

They could use the island to set up 'some kind of transit camp'.

Answering questions in Dar es Salaam: Rippon refuted the suggestion that the Asian problem uncovered a racialist aspect of British immigration laws.

It had rather exposed the racialist nature of General Amin's policy, he said.

'That's what we would like to say to the Ugandan government,' he added. 'You can't treat people like cattle.' Rippon did not mention, however, that he had supported the racialist Kenya Asian Act passed by the Labour government and then strengthened by the Tories.

Arrangements were in progress late yesterday for Rippon to see Amin on his return journey to London today.

This followed a radio broadcast by Amin in which he said he had not deliberately tried to snub Heath's special envoy.

TWO YOUNG Arab girls were given life sentences by an Israeli military• court at Sarafand yesterday for complicity in the hijacking of a Belgian airliner last May.

Rima Tannous, 21, and Therese Halassah, 19, were convicted on three of four charges arising from the hijacking.

Both girls faced the death penalty under the Defence Emergency Regulations but the military prosecutor asked for the lesser séntence.

The court rejected their plea that they had been forced into the Al Fatah organization and had taken part in the hijacking against their will.