[During the colonial era, Britain routinely committed ethnic
cleansing and applied genocidal policies in Kenya. It is time Britain
apologized and paid reparations to millions of Kenyans who suffered
under British rule. ]
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BRITISH GENOCIDE IN KENYA: TIME FOR A RECKONING  
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Mehdi Alavi
January 2, 2023
Fair Observer
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_ During the colonial era, Britain routinely committed ethnic
cleansing and applied genocidal policies in Kenya. It is time Britain
apologized and paid reparations to millions of Kenyans who suffered
under British rule. _

A memorial in honour of victims of torture in Kenya, including Esau
Khamati Oriedo, during the British colonial era., Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

 

On August 20, a group of Kenyans
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a case against Britain at the European Court of Human Rights. They
were seeking justice for the atrocities the British committed against
them during the colonial era. They are seeking $200 billion
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reparations for the crimes perpetrated in the tea-growing regions in
the Kenyan Highlands. Unsurprisingly, Britain has failed to address,
leave aside apologize for, these atrocities in Kenya.

To be fair, the British have apologized for one of their darkest acts
in Kenya. In 2013, the government “finalized an out-of-court
settlement with thousands of Kenyans who were tortured in detention
camps during the end of the British colonial reign.” The British
were crushing the Mau Mau — Kenyan rebels from the Kikuyu tribe —
who fought in the 1950s and 1960s. It took years before the historic
apology and the unprecedented settlement was finalized in 2013.

In 2022, Kenya is back in the news for seeking justice for another
brutal British act. With nearly 56 million, Kenya
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a dynamic East African country. It now has a literacy rate of 78% but
its per capita income is barely $1,879, ranking lowly 144 in the
world. Many argue that many of Kenya’s current problems are a legacy
of British colonialism.

British Colonization

For millennia before British colonization, the people we now call
Kenyans
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many tribes. There was sporadic violence but these tribes lived in
relative peace and harmony. Some communities farmed, others raised
livestock, while others practiced a combination of both activities.
Some were hunters and those by Lake Victoria fished. Production served
the needs of communal survival. Family and clans shared ownership and
cooperated in production as well as distribution. These communitarian
societies ensured that no one fell into abject poverty. Boundaries
between different ethnic groups were fluid. Trade and intermarriage
were prevalent. Notably, communities generally operated without the
modern version of the chief.

British colonization
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apart the social fabric of the communities who now live in Kenya.
British rule kicked off with the 1884/85 Berlin Conference
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which deprived Kenyans of their natural, territorial, and political
rights. In 1894, Britain declared  Kenya a protectorate of the Crown.
Its officials created Kenya and drew the nation’s boundaries without
ever consulting the Kenyans themselves. These new boundaries divided
existing communities and brought disparate ethnic groups into a new
country. The British created an atmosphere in which communities had to
compete for resources and survival. They ruled over the communities
with an iron hand. Their military expeditions stole people’s lands
and forced many to migrate in a genocidal campaign.

The British
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the land they coveted. They instituted forced labor, turning Kenyans
into the property of the British settlers. In 1902, they inaugurated
the hut tax, which forced the natives to work for the British to pay
the tax or be forced to serve the British settlers. In 1913, they
introduced the land bill. This gave British settlers a 999-year lease
and effectively confiscated nearly all Kenyan land. In 1919. they
required all native men to wear identity discs, more than a decade
before the Nazis adopted the same policy with the Jews. In the 1920s,
natives were forced to live on reservations and subjected to flogging,
much as the British had done to the indigenous peoples from North
America to Australia.

Mau Mau Uprising

After World War II, India gained independence in 1947. This inspired
the African independence movements. In 1952, the Mau Mau movement for
self-determination began. When Princess Elizabeth and her husband
Prince Philip visited Kenya that year, Elizabeth reportedly went up
into a treehouse as a princess and came down as Queen Elizabeth II
[[link removed].]. 

Whilst the royals were putting up a pretty face, British forces were
planning one of the world’s worst ethnic cleansing operations. They
went on to smash the Mau Mau through brutal methods. When Kenya
achieved independence in 1963, the British destroyed all their
official records. In this Cold War era, the US was aware of British
atrocities but looked the other way.

Supported at the “highest levels”, the British purged the capital
city Nairobi of Kikuyu
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placing them in “barbed-wire enclosures”. They interrogated
thousands of detainees. Their interrogators resorted to all types of
torture, including forced labor, beatings, starvation, and sexual
abuse. Records show that one of those “tortured was the grandfather
of former US President Barack Obama”.  

In a span of 18 months, the British dropped “6 million bombs
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forests to disrupt guerrilla activity.” Then, the British “dusted
Kikuyu areas with photographs of mutilated women to intimidate the
populace.” 

In her book, _Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s
Gulag in Kenya_, Caroline Elkins
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that thousands of Kenyans  fought alongside British forces against
Germany in World War II. The British repaid the Kenyans with
barbarism, not gratitude. They locked up around 1.5 million Kenyans in
detention camps and barbed-wired townships in response and killed
thousands.

In her 70-year reign, Elizabeth never acknowledged or apologized for
British atrocities. Neither did any prime minister. Winston Churchill
was then prime minister. Lionized in the UK even today for taking on
Adolf Hitler, Churchill escapes scrutiny for his racist, imperialist
and ruthless actions in the colonies. In 1919, he wrote
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“strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized
tribes.” He ordered that British forces put down the 1920 Iraqi
rebellion with an iron hand. Churchill advocated
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terror” among the natives so that they would come to heel. In Iraq,
the Royal Air Force flew missions for 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of
bombs and fired 183,861 rounds. They used chemical weapons
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Iraqis, over 60 years before Saddam Hussein who targeted Iranians,
Shia Arabs and Iraqi Kurds. Under Churchill, the British government
unleashed similar brutality upon the Kenyans.

The British [[link removed]] forced
the natives away from their ancestral lands and into reservations.
Only a few years after the Holocaust, the British locked up 1.5 Kikuyu
people in concentration camps, torturing, beating, and starving them
to death in large numbers. This was an egregious act amounting to
naked genocide. Their signature on the UN Charter did not hold them
back.

An example of British brutality was revealed in court in 2012. Four
Kenyan victims appeared before the High Court
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London. Jane Mara, one of the victims, was 15-years-old at the time.
She was repeatedly beaten by the interrogators. They pinned her down
on her back while four guards held her thighs wide open and kicked a
heated glass bottle into her vagina. After that excruciating pain, she
witnessed the same torture inflicted on three other young women. Men
were not spared either. The British
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pliers to squeeze male testicles. 

The US Supported the UK

After World War II, the US became top dog. The Cold War began. The UK
was now a trusted ally. Therefore, the US overlooked British
atrocities in Kenya. Washington
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well aware of the British conducting genocide in Kenya. Just as in the
Congo and in Vietnam, the US sided with the white imperial powers
against the colored peoples of the colonies. Remember this was still a
time when the US itself was segregated along racial lines. The US
wanted to free Eastern Europe from Soviet rule but it wanted to
perpetuate British, French or Belgian rule elsewhere.

In the first half of the 20th century, Vanderbilt University
scholar Juan M. Floyd-Thomas 
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in the _Journal of American History _that Americans thought of East
Africa as “a real white man’s country.” They believed that Kenya
deserved Western imperialism and white supremacy. Over centuries, the
US practiced ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, enslaved African
Americans and subjugated ethnic minorities. These races were deemed
biologically and intellectually inferior to the white race.

As is their habit, the US mainstream media, including _The New York
Times_ [[link removed]], followed the
official US narrative. They painted a picture of the African continent
described as  “synonymous with terror, hopelessness, and
conflict.” The media represented the Mau Mau fighters as terrorists
and criminals with communist connections. They failed to recognize
that Kenyans were involved in a liberation movement. Just like George
Washinton and Thomas Jefferson, they too were fighting for
independence.

UN Failure and Case for Reparations

After World War II, the UN has consistently failed to stop genocide,
prevent ethnic cleansing or rescue victims. It has been unable to
bring the guilty to justice. The UN has failed all around the world
from Cambodia to Sudan.

The UN represents the interests of powerful nations. Five of them have
veto power in the Security Council. Naturally, the Peace Worldwide
Organization considers the UN
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failed institution, and gives it a mere 12 out of 100.

The UN has failed to deliver justice to the Kenyans too. Despite
British denials and cover-ups, evidence of their atrocities is
overwhelming. So, an International Court of Tribunal for Kenya (ICTK)
would be a good first start. Just as Holocaust victims have been
compensated, their properties restituted, Kenyans must also get
compensation and restitution.

The British must acknowledge, apologize and make reparations for the
genocide and atrocities they committed during colonial times.
Importantly, reparation payments should go directly to victims and
their descendants, not into the coffers of Kenya’s corrupt
government. A sum must be set aside for education and infrastructure
to compensate for the ravages of colonization.

No sum can ever wipe out the suffering of the Keynan people. However,
reparations are important for three reasons. First, victims get
justice. Second, poor countries and poor victims get valuable
financial support. Third, they set an important precedent of imperial
masters being held accountable. Germany paid compensation to Jews who
suffered unspeakable tragedy during the Holocaust, This has made the
country less likely to repeat the atrocities of the past. The UK must
be held to account so that the British do not repeat the colonial
misadventures of Kenya and India in places like Iraq and Libya

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND DO NOT
NECESSARILY REFLECT FAIR OBSERVER’S EDITORIAL POLICY.

_MEHDI ALAVI is an author and also the founder and president of Peace
Worldwide Organization ([link removed]), a
non-religious, non-partisan charitable organization in the United
States that promotes human rights, freedom, and peace for all.
Annually, it releases its Civility Report, reporting on all countries
that are members of the United Nations. The report also evaluates the
performance of the United Nations and the United Nations Security
Council._

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* Kenya
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* Britain
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* colonialism
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* reparations
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