BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained

Subject: BS: Shameful legacy
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 05:21 AM

Just read an interesting article in todays Guardian.

In the early 1950s, Mau Mau rebels murdered 32 people in an uprising against colonial rule in Kenya. Britain's response was brutal: 150,000 Kenyans were detained in camps where, survivors claim, prisoners were beaten, tortured, sexually abused and even murdered. Fifty years on, a handful of them are suing the British government.


It has been 50 years and there is much to remember. But what still stands out from his time in the camps is a tall white man in shorts with a swagger stick. "When we first arrived we didn't know who he was, but we quickly knew he was in charge," says Espon Makanga. "All the other whites and the black guards waited for him to speak, and when he gave the order that is when it began. After that it never really stopped. I came to hate that man. I can never forgive him."

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM

The torture was not carried out by "rogue soldiers". It was a policy sanctioned by the highest levels of the military and political establishment. It flows from the need to use force and fear to repress resistance.

An official British investigation found that the British army's torture techniques "played an important part in counter-insurgency operations in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and the British Cameroons (1960-1), Brunei (1963), British Guiana (1964), Aden (1964-7), Borneo/Malaysia (1965-6), the Persian Gulf (1970-1) and in Northern Ireland (1971)".

Beatings, sexual humiliation, hooding, sleep deprivation, bombarding with white noise-all these techniques were pioneered by the British army in places like Kenya. White British settlers had ruled Kenya since 1890 and they were determined to face down all calls for change. In 1952 the British declared a state of emergency in response to demands for independence spearheaded by the African Mau Mau organisation. The British wanted an excuse to quell a growing movement for self government and land reform.

The Mau Mau were demonised as bestial, savage and intent on slaughtering white settlers. Only 32 Europeans died at the hands of the Mau Mau during the five-year state of emergency-more whites died in traffic accidents in the capital city, Nairobi.

Kenyans were forced into concentration camps, or "protected villages", and routinely tortured. Some 150,000 Africans died as a direct result of the British strategy. A former British officer described a British detention camp in Kenya in 1954: "Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment, flogging-all in violation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights."

There was a "constant stream of reports of brutalities by police, military and home guards", wrote Canon Bewes, a British missionary. "Some of the people had been using castration instruments and two men had died under castration." Other brutalities included slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging people to death, pouring paraffin over suspects and setting them alight and burning eardrums with cigarettes.

A British district officer admitted, "There was outright abuse of power and some of the crimes committed were horrific. One day six Mau Mau suspects were brought into a police station in the neighbouring district to mine. The British police inspector in charge lined them up against a wall and shot them."

A mobile gallows travelled the country. Over 1,000 were hanged, their bodies displayed at crossroads and market places. The appalling human rights abuses were only stopped when a public outcry greeted the murder of 11 Kenyans by guards at the Hola concentration camp in March 1959.

The British used these methods against an independence movement in another British colony, Malaya. In the 1950s Malaya was one of the most profitable corners of the British empire, providing a third of the world's rubber and tin.

Malayan Communists spearheaded resistance to the British, who claimed their extreme methods were necessary to defeat this threat to the free world. But a Foreign Office secret file from the time said, "The war against Malayan bandits is very much a defence of the rubber industry."

With trade union organisation and strikes on the rise, the British Labour government declared a state of emergency in 1948. This was its pretext for cracking down on guerrillas and labour movement activists.

To combat an insurgent force of between 3,000 and 6,000, British forces embarked on a brutal war. This involved aerial bombing, massacres of villagers, dictatorial police measures and the wholesale "resettlement" of hundreds of thousands of people. Malayan high commissioner General Sir Gerald Templar bragged of his "winning hearts and minds policy". This involved British troops beating up squatters, shooting villagers, cutting off water supplies to villages and imposing arbitrary curfews. The British were forced to leave but they left a legacy. Many of the techniques they used in Malaya were copied by the US in Vietnam, such as the use of defoliants like Agent Orange.

No one should be surprised by British soldiers' use of torture. It is a systematic and longstanding policy. It was an inherent part of Britain's attempt to impose its colonial rule around the world and is an inescapable part of British imperialism in Iraq today.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 10:39 AM

I have read this article in todays Guardian, I found it depressing, the most extremes of torture was suffered in these detention camps in Kenya, one british officer a former prisoner of war of the Japanese stated that the cruelty, beatings and murders were worse than he experienced under the Japanese.
Another black chapter from Britains colonial past.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 10:47 AM

">i>British imperialism in Iraq today."

eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 10:49 AM

Damn...made a mess of that....

Was querying Guests closing sentence, of course

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 10:52 AM

I am not proud of this legacy, which I abhor as much as the next man.
If I wish to initiate potentially emotive subjects, I shall do so under my own name. I have more respect for those who do likewise.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 11:04 AM

So.... today is NOT "Bash the USA Day"?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 11:04 AM

Well, whoever it was wasnt going to put his name to it, Alanabit, not with a comment like the one I highlighted added to it....

Its that kind of meaningless nonsense that for some blinkered people (I speak in general) will blur the truth of the main body of Guests post.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 11:08 AM

Seemingly not, Wysiwyg....as despite the accusation of American imperialism implicit though unsaid in that post, Guest does not appear to mind it.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 01:53 PM

Before we get away from the point Paul, more importantly do you have an opinion on this colonial savegry.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 07:57 PM

The truth takes time to get out. I have no doubt that in fifty years time the truth about Iraq today will look a whole lot different from what we are given to understand, and a while lot astier.

This what holding down an empire involves, always - sustained brutality to hold down the inhabitants. Or else genocide and "ethnic cleansing", where the inhabitants are eliminated, or confined to reservations of one sort or another.

It's not a question of knocking the British or the Americans particularly - they just tend to be the ones in the limelight in an English speaking site. And of course the Americans are the biggest player, based in the most successful surviving empire.

The inmportant thing is that when the truth comes out about past atrocities, this should be a spur to hunting out the truth about what is happening today, and stopping the same kind of thing happening all over.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Oct 06 - 08:21 PM

Ard Macha, yes I do.

I've read about the Mau-Mau Rebellion, & how it was an example of EXTREME avagery on both sides. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely...) the attitude of the British Military seemed to be that the treatment HAD to be brutal because the Mau-Mau were being so. They seemed to miss the irony that they dismissed the Mau-Mau's brutality as being typical of an ignorant, savage tribal culture (unlike those Kenyans who had adopted Western ideals....) while faiing to see that being a Westerised, so-called 'civilised' culture, should have behaved BETTER.

Malaya I saw differently, my Dad had been in Singapore with the R.A.F. until just before the Japanese occupation (& then again later as a P.o.W.) but not there during the 'Emergency'. Partly through my Dad, & partly through what I read, I had believed it had been characterised by an effective 'hearts & minds' campaign. I learned a little different when I got to know a guy with a Brtish Army father & Malay mother (who had lived I think all his life in UK) born in the 60's & thus after it was all over. I still don't think it was in the same class as the Mau-Mau Rebellion, but still far from being as 'civilised' as I had previously thought.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 04:40 AM

To experience your country under occupation gives you an insight in to the mind-set of your occupiers.
Every native is looked upon as inferior being not having the intellectual knowledge of the uniformed goons, it can be a pitiful sight when you are stopped and questioned by these supermen, who after many attempts to spell your address finally give up while you help them out.
You can be lucky and only receive a verbal bashing or as happened on many occasions have the butt of a rifle banged
in your body, or a   few kicks from a hefty boot.

Paul stop and imagine being confronted by a squad of uniformed Irish in some street in Hull, and receiving the same treatment, you may not have to spell out your address, but you could be left lying in the street while your invaders enjoy the moment.

This treatment occured on a daily basis in Ireland`s occupied six counties during all of our years under British rule, not forgetting the civilians that were murdered to be later covered up by the Britsh white-wash machine.

Now you know why I pitied the Kenyans or any other race that had to endure occupation.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 06:43 AM

It is interesting to have a look at the numbers in the second post. Of course, the numbers in different sources differ, but two facts meet the eye at once:

(1) 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM does not even mention the several thousand black victims of the Mau Mau uprising. Whole villages that had not joined the rebels were burnt down and inhabitants hacked to death.
(2) 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM's use of the words "white" or "European" is very creative. Even if one takes the lowest available numbers of "white" deaths one does not get the figures 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM reports. 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM simply does not count soldiers as "white" or "European" even if they were. What 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM perhaps means without telling us is "European civilian" deaths.

The fact of course remains that many more blacks have died from outrageous actions by the security forces (including black members BTW) and the British Army but such an ingenious presentation of the numbers by 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM basts in my eyes a shadow upon the motives of 13 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 07:32 AM

So are you saying the figures are wrong ? Please list correct figures then. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 11:05 AM

So Wolfgang the Brits will be honoured by your presence as you vie with the Kenyans and dispute their evidence, i`m sorry you find the figures wrong, I suppose this didn`t take place, well they are only blacks after all, they could be wrong.
Wolfgang the Kenya people voted to have the British removed from their country, or are you disputing this also

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 11:22 AM

You have just had your Introduction to the voice capitulation ard mhacha, don't expect an answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 11:23 AM

And may I add I was not the Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 01:54 PM

Just back from a short trip to St.Andrews in Scotland, nice part of the world, "a wee bit blowy". So I haven't missed a great deal here.

Wolfgang, I am not being funny here. What actually is your nationality ?
why do you seem to appear on threads concerning British injustices more than most? I could be wrong here but without trawling through old threads I seem to recall you arriving in a mood of defiance, and challenging facts and figures on more than one occasion.

I have nothing to add to this thread either way, as it's something I know little about other than what I have read above.

I accept the fact that on matters concerning the North of Ireland many British members challenge what I say, and they have the right to.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 02:49 PM

Wolfgang was correct in pointing out that the introductory post only gave some of the figures contained in the article referred to, but not linked to. The result was it looked as if only 32 people were killed by Mau Mau in the uprising.

That figure referred to a particular episode - the total number killed by Mau Mau was far higher, and most of these, by a long way, were black Kenyans, though the number killed by Mau Mau was nowhere near as high as the number killed by the British forces. The article in the Guardian is worth reading. In fact I'd think that anyone contributing to the thread really ought to read it first. Rather surprisingly, no one so far has given a link to it. So here is such a link. Mau Mau veterans to sue Britain over torture and illegal killings in Kenya.

It is a shameful enough record - it doesn't need to have the figures massaged in the way the unnamed GUEST who started the thread (possibly inadvertenly) did.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 06:21 PM

You are so right Wolfgang, the British murdered no one in Kenya.

Check this site www.sextoys.co.uk there is a Slippery Tongue licking device for $16.00.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 07:56 PM

I think the unnamed assumes people cannot read:

The fact of course remains that many more blacks have died from outrageous actions by the security forces Wolfgang Date: 14 Oct 06 - 06:43 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: ard mhacha
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 06:30 AM

The article states that 100,000 Kenyans died in those British internment camps, no one should be surprised, Britains colonial record of dealing with the natives has for long been covered up.
To get an insight in to how these white settlers lived in Kenya read White Mischief by James Fox, it can be bought on Amazon books.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 08:43 AM

Visited the internment camp at Long Kesh last week where hundreds were held without trail or charge between 1971 and 1975., not a nice place. We are working hard at the moment to restore it and keep it as a living museum, can't let the world forget, and WE won't.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 05:17 PM

GUEST, wouldn't it be enough to say many, many groups of people have done far too many nasty things to each other over the last 50 no 500 no 5000, since the begining of recorded history at the very least. Why launch yet another thread to bash Britian or America over dusty history? Just come out openly and vent your dislike on something current at least.


Posts that use selective quoting of stastics to distort the situation tend to be ripped apart, and rightly so. Lose the iffy numbers, and find a name, and people will be much more tolerant.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST,Norman Winstanley
Date: 15 Oct 06 - 06:42 PM

Bunnahabhain, forgot your own history ?

Ask yourself this question. We are who we are today and how we feel today because of the events of history.

"A man who forgets the history of his land and people is worthy of neither respect or answer".

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 08:17 AM

No, I haven't forgotton my own history ( I am assumng you mean the country, not my personal history), and know more about it than most people,   except round here, as this is a generally well read, interested bunch of people). History is opinions, as wellas facts though, and eevreyone has their own opinions.

I just don't see how the Tearing our hair, and crying 'Weren't our grandfathers evil' does anything, especially as everyone is guilty if you go back enough generations.

If people want to go over something like this, then at least pick somewhere like Ireland, where the history is still relevant today.

The British Empire wasn't nearly as bad as some of the others in the way it treated people. I know less bad isn't much, but everything is relative, especially in the real world.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 06 - 08:29 AM

Clearly this is someone who hasn't read the history of the British Empire !

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 04:47 AM

Three cheers for Oliver Cromwell and our own dear Queen.... whoops... wrong thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 05:34 AM

We regret to inform you of the sad demise of the last living brain cell in the head of the well known and least liked member formerly known known as Flamingo Ted.
The name was recently shortened to the more suitable and appropriate title F...ted.
Many will mourn the passing of the brain cell. This well known homoeopathic, who was well known to Transvestites and cross-dressers throughout the folk scene. We do hope he will return, minus the brain cell and keep us entertained.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 08:39 AM

How do you know what I read, Guest?

Lets look at a couple of basic things, shall we?

Slavery. Yes, the British Empire was one of the chief agents in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It was also the frist to ban it, and the Royal Navy kept up substantial anti-slavery patrols to intercept slave ships.

Religion: The British Empire allowed missionaries to operatere freely. Please not how sucessful they have been in many places, such as India, Pakistan, Afganistan, Burma, Eygpt etc. The Spanish and Portugese, in South America rounded up the natives and forced them into communal farms come convents. Result, South aamerica is full of catholics, and the former British Epire mainly has the religion it started with.

I never said the British Empire was a harmless game run by a bunch of Saints, just that it was less bad than others. If you can't accept that, please remove your head from your arse, and try again!

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 12:10 PM

There have been a number of anti British threads started by anonymous Guest, or a Guest with a one off name.
Kenya voted for and was granted independence, as were all the other remaining members of the Empire around that time.
Kenya chose to remain a member of the British Commonwealth, and remains so to this day.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 01:16 PM

Here we go again, the Brit knockers are out in force as usual! Let me tell you that while I totally agree that what was done was wrong, what most of the do gooders and bleeding hearts, along with the professional knockers forget, is that this was done 50+ years ago when we were not so aware of our human rights responsibilities.
You CANNOT apply today's rules to yesterday's misdemeanours, all this apologising for, or feeling guilty about the sins of our forefathers is bloody PC gone mad. It's not a social correction it's a full time growth industry!
Just because there were more of them is it any worse that Gitmo? No of course not, because now we are supposed to know better, but it doesn't work like that, all that works are the 'trigger' words that set the whingers and moaners off again!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 04:05 PM

From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 12:10 PM

There have been a number of anti British threads started by anonymous Guest, or a Guest with a one off name.

THERE ARE BLATANT NAKED DISPLAYS OF HATE AND INTORERANCE AGAINST THOSE WHO DEFEND THE IRISH.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 04:14 PM

Well Guest while I hold no brief for Keith A I will say one thing. Ireland is one of the Mudcat trigger words, and there are a few people around who defend Ireland totally without any regard for the facts one way or the other, and who chunter on Shambles like oblivious to all reason.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 04:28 PM

Guest, I have not an ounce of hate nor any intolerance in me.
I do feel contempt for the paramilitaries of all sides, and that is all.
I post under my own name so my posts are an open book.
Please withdraw your statement, for you can not substantiate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 05:44 PM

Giok, If that was me in there you were referring to among the Brit knockers, please note I didn't contribute to the topic on this thread as I know very little about the subject.

Yes I was in there when the republican movement were blamed on robbing the Northern Bank or when some felt the leadership sanctioned the murder of Robert McCartney. During this period 34 people were murdered by loyalists (who still retain their arms) and this was never the subject of a thread.

Yes I have contributed to threads concerning the history of my nation, all to often when one of the Irish mudcatters appear it's "here we go again".

I make no secret of my support for the republican movement.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 05:53 PM

No Divis what you say makes sense, albeit a somewhat one sided view you are at least consistent and back up your statements wherever possible.
I refer to the small minority, not necessarily on this thread, who leap in and shout down any criticism of Norn Irish politics/politicians, wrong or right.
Some of them even confuse events in the north with those in the republic they are so ill informed.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 06:20 PM

Giok, I meant to add to my previous post that my reply was
"non-hostile " towards you.
Thanks
DS

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 17 Oct 06 - 11:05 PM

Kenya used to export food, now it cannot even feed it's own population. Africa is in a mess and it is not because of the UK....

Subject: RE: BS: Shameful legacy-150,000 Kenyans Detained
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 18 Oct 06 - 12:41 AM

GUEST - 04:05 PM

Give us ONE instance of that....

No, you can't, can you.