State Research Bureau (organisation)

The State Research Bureau (SRB), initially the State Research Centre (SRC), was a Ugandan intelligence agency. Active from 1971 until 1979, it served as a secret police organisation for President Idi Amin's regime. The SRB retained numerous agents and maintained a wide network of informants.

State Research Bureau

Agency overview
Formed	1971
Preceding agency	General Service Unit
Dissolved	1979
Type	Secret police, intelligence agency
Headquarters	Nakasero, Kampala
Employees	~3,000
Agency executive	Amin Ibrahim Onzi, Director

Background

On 25 January 1971 Idi Amin, Commander of the Uganda Army, took power in Uganda following a coup which overthrew the government of President Milton Obote. His advisers suggested that he try to differentiate himself from Obote by disbanding the General Service Unit (GSU), Obote's intelligence agency, which was highly unpopular within the general populace.[1]

History

In February 1971 Amin dissolved the GSU and through a decree established the State Research Centre. Major Amin Ibrahim Onzi was appointed director, and technical assistance was sought from Israel in its formation. Its responsibilities were to gather military intelligence and conduct counterintelligence. The headquarters was located in a building on Nakasero hill in Kampala, next to the State Lodge Annex. In early 1972 Amin ejected Israeli technicians from Uganda and changed the name of the organisation to the State Research Bureau (SRB). Agents from the Soviet Union were brought in to replace them, and they subsequently instructed SRB personnel in the methods of the KGB. Many were sent to the Soviet Union for specialised training.[1] Others undertook military and police training in the United States and United Kingdom.[2]

...the headquarters of the State Research Bureau—like most of the things in Amin's Uganda, the name was a gross abuse of reality. There was neither research, nor were state matters dealt with, nor was it an office...thousands of Ugandans met their tortuous end in its subterranean cells.

—Journalist Godwin Matatu, 1979[3]

Male SRB agents commonly wore dark sunglasses, Kaunda suits, and bell-bottoms. Attractive Rwandan Tutsi women were recruited as undercover operatives and stationed at airports, banks, hotels, restaurants, government offices, hospitals, and locations near Uganda's borders.[1] Most personnel served for one year with the SRB before being reassigned to other government positions.[2] Empowered by a sweeping February 1971 decree which gave state agents wide latitude to act, the SRB tortured and executed many suspected dissidents, provoking international outrage.[1] For its role in state repression and killings, the SRB came to be derisively known among the Ugandan population as the "State Research Butchery".[4] In June 1974, in response to criticism of his regime and specifically accusations of numerous "disappearances" of persons in Uganda, Amin established a commission of inquiry to investigate abuses of state authority. The commission concluded that the SRB and another state security agency, the Public Safety Unit, were responsible for most of the disappearances.[5]

By 1979 the bureau employed about 3,000 men and women as agents, many of them Nubians. Most of them fled Kampala when the city fell to Tanzanian and Ugandan rebel forces in April 1979.[3] Shortly before they left, several agents tossed grenades into the holding cells of the SRB headquarters, killing about 100 detainees. The Tanzanians freed 13 survivors.[6]

Notable personnel

• Faruk Malik[7]

Citations

1. Mugabe, Faustin (18 December 2017). "Terror under Amin's notorious State Research Bureau". Daily Monitor. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
2. Francis 2012, p. 99.
3. Matatu 1979, p. 13.
4. Mzirai 1980, p. 118.
5. Hayner 2010, p. 239.
6. Matatu 1979, pp. 12–13.
7. Honey, Martha; Ottaway, David B. (28 May 1979). "Foreigners Aided Amin". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2 December 2019.

References

• Francis, D. (2012). Policing in Africa. Springer. ISBN 9781137010582.
• Hayner, Priscilla B. (2010). Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions (second ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781135245580.
• Matatu, Gordon (May 1979). "The End of Uganda's Nightmare". Africa. No. 93. pp. 10–16.
• Mzirai, Baldwin (1980). Kuzama kwa Idi Amin (in Swahili). Dar es Salaam: Publicity International. OCLC 9084117.
• Seftel, Adam, ed. (2010) [1st pub. 1994]. Uganda: The Bloodstained Pearl of Africa and Its Struggle for Peace. From the Pages of Drum. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. ISBN 978-9970-02-036-2.