Sindhis in Uganda under great stress!

Sindhis are very enterprising and they take great risk and plunge in to foreign lands and make a bright future for themselves and their families. But some times they are not so lucky. Specially, if they go to those places where there is lack of security. Our Sindhi community friends are under great stress nowadays with the riots that broke out in Uganda. An Asian man in Uganda yesterday and two other people were killed during a protest over a plan to cut down nearly a third of a rainforest reserve to grow sugarcane, Police chiefs had approved yesterday 's march, called to protest plans to cut down tens of thousands of acres of Mabira Forest to expand the estate of the local Sugar Company, Scoul. Protest organizer Frank Muramuzi said the march began peacefully, before a "misunderstanding" with the police. All of a sudden everybody scattered and police opened fire with tear gas and live ammunition. As scores of demonstrators hurled rocks at police in the pouring rain, officers rescued more than 100 Asian men, that included Sindhis, besieged in a Hindu temple and elsewhere, and rushed them to a police station. Dozens were arrested. Some of them were inside the temple and the protesters started attacking them from outside. The scenes were similar to those of 1972, when the late former dictator Idi Amin expelled Uganda's Asians. Thousands have returned, but are viewed with suspicion by some Ugandans who resent their domination of many businesses. One Indian supermarket owner who gave his name as Kumar said rioters pulled him from his motorbike then beat him. The controversy began last year when President Yoweri Museveni ordered a study into whether to ax 17,000 acres or nearly a third of Mabira. Mabira -- which has been a nature reserve since 1932 -- is one of Uganda's last remaining patches of natural forest. The government's proposal angered some parliamentarians and residents. They argued that the environmental costs of slashing the rainforest would far exceed the economic benefits of the plantation