Police investigate British military atrocities in Kenya
01 May 2003
The Metropolitan Police's SO13 anti-terrorist branch launched a war crimes inquiry in January into accusations that British soldiers were involved in atrocities during the 1952-1960 Mau Mau uprising in Kenya.
The uprising started after Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu, were unable to persuade the colonial government to return their historical lands. By 1952, frustrated at their lack of progress, the Mau Mau launched an uprising demanding land and political freedom in the towns and countryside. It is thought that tens of thousands of Africans died, killed either directly by British security forces and their African supporters, or indirectly through starvation and illness. The use of "pseudo-gangs", groups of ex-guerillas who changed sides after capture and were formed into gangs led by SAS officers in "unofficial" operations, has been blamed for many of the worst excesses.
The inquiry follows allegations made at the end of last year by the Guardian newspaper and the BBC and will run alongside a similar investigation carried out by the Human Rights Commission in Nairobi. There dozens of witnesses have already given evidence, reporting allegations of murder, deliberate starvation, rape, genital mutilation and beatings. Many of these acts were said to have been carried out at detention camps and police stations, where prisoners were tortured to force them to admit that they were supporters of the Mau Mau.
The UK inquiry will determine whether the Conservative governments of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold MacMillan allowed the brutal suppression of the Mau Mau uprising. Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has been accused of trying to obstruct the investigation after a spokesperson for the Foreign Office said that responsibility for the atrocities passed to the Kenyans after independence. The legal firm Leight Day have had a bid for legal aid rejected after the government denied legal responsibility. The firm won a case on behalf of Kenyans injured by abandoned, unexploded British army munitions last year. The government was forced to pay £4.5 million in compensation to 233 local tribesmen who had received injuries. They are also fighting a case on behalf of women raped by British servicemen in Kenya over the past 20 years.
See Bloch & Fitzgerald "British Intelligence and Covert Action: Africa, Middle east and Europe Since 1945" (Brandon) 1983 for details of British military operations in Kenya; Voice 26.5.03; Guardian 14, 23.5.03