Lessons from Kenya’s case against Britain
JAMAICANS have a tendency to see British colonialism through rose-tinted glasses. But last week it was announced that Britain is to pay out £19.9m in costs and compensation to more than 5,000 elderly Kenyans who suffered torture and abuse during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s. It is a timely reminder of just how brutal British imperialism could be.
The end of Empire in the British West Indies was a relatively peaceful process. However, in other parts of the British Empire, throwing off the imperial yoke involved blood, violence and armed struggle. And, of all the conflicts experienced by Britain during its end of empire, Kenya is now regarded as the most violent.
The Mau Mau, a guerrilla group, began as a violent campaign against white settlers in 1952. The uprising was eventually put down by the British colonial Government, but at a terrible price in human suffering. The Kenya Human Rights Commission estimates that 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed. A further 160,000 people were detained in appalling conditions.
The British Army adopted a counter-insurgency strategy based on collective punishment. Africans living in the so-called Kenya Emergency areas were deemed guilty until proven innocent. Those who demonstrated loyalty to the colonial regime, perhaps by joining the home guard militia, received preferential treatment.
But the rebels were sent to detention camps or forced into new villages under close surveillance. Above all, the British Army was ruthless in its use of torture and brutal interrogation techniques. Amongst the compensation cases before the British courts were men who had not only been beaten, but were castrated and suffered other severe sexual abuse.
The British authorities have fought this case for many years. The suspicion was that the British were deliberately dragging matters out. They may well have hoped that, one by one, the claimants would die off. But in 2011, the High Court in London ruled that the four test cases did have “arguable cases in law”.
The response of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) was to try and argue that the cases were being brought outside the legal time limit. So the cases had to go back to the High Court. The FCO then tried to claim that there were “irredeemable difficulties” in relation to the availability of witnesses and documents.
But in October last year, the court ruled the victims had indeed established a proper case and allowed their claims to proceed to trial, despite the fact that so much time had elapsed. At the same time, more documents detailing the torture and abuse were discovered. So the British Government finally gave in and negotiated an “out-of-court” settlement.
The process culminated in Parliament last week where British Foreign Secretary William Hague made the following unprecedented statement: “I would like to make clear now, and for the first time, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, that we understand the pain and grievance felt by those who were involved in the events of the emergency in Kenya. The British Government recognises that Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration.”
Hague also announced that Britain would help build a memorial in Kenya to the victims of torture and abuse during the colonial era.
Kenya was not the only part of the world where the British countered nationalist freedom fighters with violence and brutality. So there may be other cases of this kind. But these elderly Kenyans who successfully sued the British for the torture that they endured have taught the rest of us two lessons.
First, the British should not be allowed to rewrite the history of the British Empire, presenting it as some kind of benevolent association. Second, that the arc of history bends slowly but it bends towards justice.
— Diane Abbott is a British Labour party MP and spokeswoman on public health
https://www.dianeabbott.org.uk