UHURU

Yesterday four Kenyans, Ndiku Mutua, Paulo Nzili, Wambugu Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara, who are in their 70s and 80s, appeared before the High Court in London claiming compensation for the treatment they’d received at the hands of British Colonial Officers in Detention Camps between 1952 and 1961. These abuses occurred during the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule in Kenya. 

58 years ago today on the 8^th April 1953, Jomo Kenyatta (known to his followers as the Burning Spear) the leader of the Kenya African Union Movement is sentenced to seven years hard labour for his part in the organization of the rebel Mau Mau movement. He is sentenced together with five other Kikuyu Nationalists Bildad Kaggia, Kung’u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei and Achieng’ Oneko. In 1963 Mr Kenyatta took control as the first prime minister of a self governing Kenya and denied he was ever a member of the Mau Mau, his trial is generally regarded to have been rigged by the British because he was an advocate of self rule for Kenya and other African Nations.

The remainder of the nationalist movement kept up the pressure for the release of the detainees. The Kenyan African National Union (KANU) 's election slogan in the 1961 election was Uhuru na Kenyatta (Independence and Kenyatta). KANU won the election and then refused to form a government unless Kenyatta was released. Despite Governor Sir Patrick Renison's famous dismissal of Kenyatta as the leader "unto darkness and death", it was clear that he was indispensable; he was duly released in 1961. The rest of the Six were released soon thereafter.

When Kenyatta went on to the presidency of Kenya; Kaggia and Ngei served as ministers; Oneko was detained by Kenyatta between 1969 and 1974, before later serving as MP for Rarieda in Kenya's 7th Parliament; Kung'u Karumba disappeared in 1975, while in Uganda on business; Fred Kubai twice served as MP for Nakuru East - from 1963 to 1974, and from 1983 to 1988 - before his death in June 1996.


It somehow seems fitting that court proceedings should be continuing on an anniversary of the conviction of The Burning Spear.  The case has been progressing for some time. From the BBC:

At the scene 7-4-2011

Dominic Casciani

BBC News home affairs correspondent

Rarely is the High Court well attended but today press, public, academics and students queued to sit alongside four elderly Kenyans who have waited half a century for their day in court. The claimants, three of whom wore woolly hats and thick coats, listened intently as lawyers for the government declared the UK was not responsible for what happened in one of its then colonies. The big question behind this hearing is who exactly is legally liable? And the government claims that boils down to who was paying for whom. On paper, Parliament and Whitehall had no role in running the camps where torture took place because they were paid for, and staffed by, Kenya's legitimate colonial government. But lawyers for the Kenyans argue the truth lies in previously unseen documents. They say the files expose a paper-trail from torture in Kenya to the highest reaches of Whitehall.

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Mr Jay, for the foreign secretary, said the role of the regular forces of the British Army was to fight the battle against the Mau Mau in the forests but they played no part in the "screening" activities - a system of interrogation to identify suspects - within the camps. He rebutted the claim that the liabilities of the colonial administration passed to the UK upon Kenya's independence in 1963. Mr Jay also argued the case was not valid because of the amount of time that had passed.

So it goes on. No one seeks to acknowledge any responsibility. It's as if violence happens in a vacuum. The Mau Mau revolt was pretty violent on all sides, but oppression is still oppression and the quelling of descent is not an excuse for barbarity. 

On a lighter note on the 8th April 1992,  the satirical British magazine Punch publishes it's final issue on 8 April after 150 years due to falling sales and subscriptions