the empires ghost returns

8/6/2019 The Empires Ghost Returns

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Cover StoryKENYA/BRITAIN

The Empire sghost returnsFew names so iconically capture the fearlessspirit of Africa's anti-colonial struggle likethe "Mau Matf. Until recently, however, thehistory of Kenya's Mau Mau movement andits brutal suppression by the British remainedlargely untold. With their history now restored,the ordinary men and women, now in their70s and 80s, who suffered unspeakable acts oftorture in colonial Kenya are seeking justice inthe British High Court. This case might just bethe Mau Mau's last battle. If not, justice delayedwill be justice de nied. Carina Ray reports.O 23 JUNE 2009, A GROUP OF FIVE KENYANS,represented by the UK-based solicitors,Leigh Day 0 Co, filed a suit against theBritish government in the British HighCo urt for alleged torture durin g the colo-nial period. A day later, the group arrivedat the doorstep of 10 Downing Street todeliver a letter in vt-hich they detailed their struggle for justice coPrime Minister Gordon Brown, At once stoic and fragile, theseelderly men and women are holding up a mirror to the Britishgovern men t and pub lic. Reflected in that mirro r is a history thatis neither the sole province of Britain nor Kenya, but rather a

shared past which is still very much alive today.Far from parting ways at independence, the two countries havremained \'ery much tied together, in no small part because Britainstill has major economic and geopolitical intereses in Kenya. Iduring the colonial period the ties that bind were those ot "kith

and kin ", today the British public's primary conne ction to Kenyaand Africa more generally, is through a repackaged form of the"white man's burden" that allows a wider swath of the public topartake in the "civilising mission" through any number of charitable organisations or simply by shopping, thanks to schemesuch as Product (RED).

The "lend-;i-helping-hand-to-Africa-frenzy", however, maska more troubling phenomenon; the desire on the part o formecolonial powers and their respective publics to distance themselvefrom their barbaric colonial past and the abhorrent human rightabuses that were systematically inflicted on colonised populationsCharitable endeavours, as well-meaning as they might be, do noaddress the specific histories of abuse that have left individualand communities scarred for l ife. Therein lies the importancof the Mau Mau's reparation suit . Its outcome will ultimateldeterm ine whe ther the final reflection in the m irror is one ohypocrisy or justice.

Backed by the Nairobi-based N C O , Kenya Hu ma n RightCommiss ion (KHRC), and the Mau Mau War Veterans ' Association, the claimants, Ndiku Mutua, Paulo Nzili , WambuguWa Nyingi , and two women, Jane Muthoni Mara and Su.sanNgondi, are asking for an official apology and compensation fothe inhumane abuses and lifelong injuries they suffered durin

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On 24 June, the Mau Mau delegation arrived at the doorstep of 10Downing Street to deliver a lette r to Prime M inister Gordon Brownin which they detailed their struggle for justice. Far right: DedanKima thi (rig ht) , who would become the legendary leader of the MauMau, poses for a historic p hotograph w ith some of his comrades in1952

the "Emergency Period" in Kenya (1951-1960), when the colonialgovernment ' s bruta l repression of the Kenyan independencest ruggle c l i tnaxed. Spearheaded by what came to be knownas the Mau Mau, the freedom fighters in the forests referredto themselves as the "Land and Freedom Army", a name thatsuccinctly described their raison d'tre: they wanted to recoverlands that had been taken from them during the period of whitesettlement in the early 20th century and they wanted freedomfrom colonial rule.The central role that historians are playing in the making ofthis case alerts us to what is at stake in writing African history a nddraws attention to the ever-pressing need for even more histori-cal research on fricas past. The Oxford historian and directorof i ts African Studies Centre, David Anderson, and HarvardUniversity's Caroline Elkins, have written the most recent andexhaustive studies of the human rights abuses during the Kenyan"Emergency". Indeed, it was Anderson's Histories of the Hanged:Ihe Dirty War in Kenya an d the End of Empire {2005) and Elkins'Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain s Gulag in Kenya(2005) that revealed the full extent of the period's immense bru-tality and lawlessness for the first time.While academic books typically receive little attention and areonly read by a handful of specialists, Elkins' bo ok went on to wina Pulitzer Prize for General N on-Fiction in 2006 and raised inter-national awareness of the "dirty" history she and Anderson haveboth so painstakingly documented. Their work, in conjunctionwith the lifting of tbe colonial ban against the Mau Mau move-ment in 2003, has made it possible to bring forth the necessaryevidence to launch the suit in the British High Court.According to the KHRC^. Elkins has agreed to serve as anexpert witness should the case go to trial . In a recent articlein the British daily. The Times, Anderson, however, distancedhimselt from the case by saying that he thinks it is "'driven bypolit ics and money". His scholarship, nonetheless, st i l l standsas the most relevant pronouncement that Anderson could makeon the case. His speculations about the claimants' motivationsare less germane. Ironically, Anderson, who has done so muchto advance the cause of justice for the Mau Mau, is now cham-pioning a view shared by many Mau Mau detractors who seekto delegitimise the merits of the case by attributing it to greed.One need only look a t the comment board that accompaniedthe online version of the Times article to see the unfortunatepopularity of this view.But let us for a moment assume that this case is about money.What would be so wrong with that? Civil suits exist partly toprovide a form of rett ibution when justice can't be sought, forany number of reasons, through the cr iminal court system.Indeed their main purpose is to exact material compensationfor physical and emotional injuries. The near impossibili ty ofcriminally trying individual perpetrators in this case, whether

white or black, is widely recognised, not least because many aralready dead or nearly so. By way of example, Terence Gavaghan, the colonial officer who was charged with ovetseeing th"rehabili tation programme" of the British concentration campin Kenya, is now 86 years old. Equally, as documents in thUK National Archives clearly indicate, the "UK Governmentwas a t the top of the detent ion camps' chain of command (sepicture on p. 27). As such, exact ing pecuniary damages fromthe British government rather than levying criminal chargeagainst individuals wh o were taking their orders from the statmakes absolute sense in this case. In connection with this, ishould be underscored that if the suit is successful the KHRCplans to establish a fund with the proceeds to care for MaMau veterans. In short , this is not about large cash paymentto individual vic t ims, but ra ther comm uni ty-w ide repara t ionintended to assist victims and th eit families with much-neededhealth care and general maintenance.As Zarina Patel poignantly notes in her article, "Mau MauRaw British Brutality"(seepp. SO-31). many Mau Mau participansustained injuries that have debilitated them for life. In additioto other severe injur ies, two of the c la imants, Ndiku Mutu

"The most recent studies of the hum anrights abuses during the Kenyan 'Emergenrevealed the full extent of the period 's im-mense brutality for the first time."20 I NEW AFRICAN August/September 2009


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and Paulo Nzili , were castrated with pliers. A third claimant,Wamhugu Wa Nyingi, was intermittently starved and tortured,but he was lucky: eleven other men who were beaten alongside himduring the infamous H ola Ca mp incident, died of their injuries.Tlie two female claimants, Jane Muthoni Mara and Susan Ngodi,were both beaten and subjected to forms of sexual violence thatare too heinous to repeat here.

What possible objection could there be ro allowing these menand women ro spend rhe remainder of their l ives being caredfor in ways that might gently salve the wounds of their painfulhistories? Don't they deserve to be compensated for nor only theoriginal injuries rhey sustained, but also the negative impacttheir injuries have had on rheir ability ro make decent lives forthemselves and their families over the last 50 years?

While rhe colonial regime largely acted as a unified entity inits assault on the Mau Mau, following orders from the ColonialOffice in London, Patel also alerts us to the fact that there wereBrirons who spoke up tor justice in rhe face of these abuses. Inaddition ro people like John No tting ham , a young colonial officerwho refused ro rake part in the torture of the Mau Mau, Britonsin the merropoie also condemned rhe draconian "Emergency"legislation rhar subjected as many as 150,000 Kenyans to deten-tion for years on end without rrial in concentration camps, wherethey becam e victims of arbitrary killings, severe physical assaults,and extreme acts of inhumane and degrading treatment. In anopinion column dared 26 September 1952 in the Daily Express,one British reader wrote under the title "RememberHitler": "They[rhe British people] cannot support - and will not countenance- legislation which will turn these people [suspected Mau Mau]

"There is a contrad iction betweenBritain's publicly articulated stand ontorture and its apparent unwillingness toconfront its own history of torture ,"into citizens of a dictatorship as severe as anything set up by rhelate Mr Hitler."

Just as rbere were some Britons who cam e to the defence of th eMau Mau, there were also Africans, known as "loyalists", whoserved in the Home Guard and meted our unspeakable abuses todetainees. This facr is often bandied about by rhe suir's naysayersto support their claim that Africans share the blame. Yet, rhisline of reasoning conveniently evades the question of who wasresponsible for creating the larger system in which these abusesrook place. It also evades the very structure of colonial regimes,which create and depend upon the "native collaborator" to en-sure their survival.

No doubt the British colonial government in Kenya developedthe Home Guard precisely to do its bidding. As part of its quest fornational reconciliarion, the KH RC is wo rking ro address rhe riftscreated by the British colonial regime's divide and rule policies,which were so clearly evident in rhe Kirmation and utilisation ofthe Home Guard, especially during the "Emergency" and whichcontinue to bedevil Kenyan sociery even today.

In "TJje Ever-present Past" (seepp. 24-^), Mukoma Wa Ngugiprovides Imporrant insights into why it has taken so long for thecase to see rhe light of day. In his meticulous analysis of both

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"The Kenyan Human RightsCom mission has taken the lead in backingthe su it because justice for the Mau Mauis essential for Kenya's transition todemocracy."colonial and post-independence Kenyan history, we see how con-servative elements within both sets of regimes have colluded tosilence history. Most importantly, the colonial han on the MauMau, which was maintained by the post-independence govern-ments of Jomo Kenyatta andDaniel arap Mol, meant that the M auMau could not actively orga nise on their own behalf until 2003,shortly after the current president, Mwai Kihaki, was elected, andlifted the ban. This fact provides one important answer to thesuir's detractors who question why the Mau Mau waited so longto seek justice in a court of law: prior to 2003, Mau Mau veteransrisked breaking the law if they engaged in any form of organisedactivity. Th at it wa s the ban rather than a lack of desire that keptthem from seeking justice, is indicated hy the fact that as soonas the ban was lifted the Mau Mau War Veterans" Associationwas formed, beg inning their arduous journey towards an officialapology and compensat ion.

History lives. It does notdie precisely because it is always im-plicated in the present and bears its impress on the future. Yet,we rarely have the oppor tun i ty to encounter history's makers,especially wh en the history they have made challenges officialstate narratives. In "A Test Case for Justice" (see pp . ^o-i). NicoleK. Parshall picks up on this point as she underscores the contra-diction between Britain's publicly articulated stand on tor turean d its apparent unwil l ingness to confront its own history oftor ture . Indeed, Bri ta in ' s own orthodox nat ional narra t ive ispartly imagined through itsanti-slavery activities, including most

British concentration camps inKenya were brutal places whereofficers meted outunspeakable abuses to detainees

famously its abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. Iis a narrative of redemptive progress - the slave trading nationcum anti-slavery pioneers, a formulation that typically sidestepcolonialism altogether, or positions it as nothing worse than amisguided, but nonetheless well-meaning project.If colonialism has yet ro be accepted as the strategic wholesaunderdevelopment of Africa for the express purpose of developinEurope, little chance then that Britain is eager to acknowledgthe systematic hum an rights abuses engendered by colonialismThus, as Parshall points out, states such as Britain that "dominate the conversation [on torture], speaking adamantly againsthe practice, often do little when the issue arrives at their owndoorstep".As Makau Mutua , cha i rman of t he Kenya Human Righ tCommiss ion (KHRC) has pointed out, the K H R C has had totake the lead in bringing forth the suit because justice for theM au Mau is essential for Kenya's transit ion to democracy. Assuch, the NGO is footing a very pricey bill, including researchand legal fees along with the cost of bringing the Kenyan delegation to England tot the filing ot the suit. Largely dependenon donor agencies for their funding, the K H R C has tbund thasome of i ts donors do not want their funds to go towards sucha polit ically contentious endeavour. Nonetheless, it has forgedahead, knowing that in this case justice delayed may very welbe justice denied, as many of th e men and women they hope tohelp arequickly nearing the ends of their lives.

Tliere are some promising signs, however, that the Kenyangovernment is beginning to recognise the significant nature othis case. Among the delegation that cam e from Kenya 10 launcthe suit in London were Gitobu Imanyara, who is a sit t ing MPand Paul Muite, a former MP and a member of the legal teamPrime Minister Raa Odinga has committed himself to raisingthe mat ter at the cabinet level, and President Kibaki recentlyat tended the funeral of the grandson of the Mau Mau leaderDedan Kimathi. The government, moreover, facilitated processin g ofpassports for the veterans to tra\'el to London. Let us hopethat as the Kenyan government is faced with healing the tecenwounds from the December 2007 disputed general election, ireaches back even further in order to address the root causes ofmany of Kenya's current p roblems.New African readers who would like to make a donat ion tothe KHRC's legal fund can go to www.khrc.or.ke for more information. Those wishing to show their moral support for thijust cause can also log on to http://www.thepetitionsite.eom/iwwW'khrc'Or-ke to sign the KHRC's pet i t ion. One needs littlimagination to figure out that the British government will sparno expense in fighting this case lest others further force thefloodgates of its colonial past open. It is all the more impressivthen that a modest NGO from Kenya has taken it upon itselto fight the good fight. TheK H R C and the Mau Mau veterandeserve the suppor t and solidarity of Africans continent-widand beyond. NA

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the empires ghost returns

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