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Mau Mau


Lt Kije

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3 Kenyans who fought the British colonial forces, have been given leave to take the British government to court, for torturer they received, it could open the flood gates, as in the Kenya the British have already accepted they did use torture, which included castration.

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If our stupid judicial system continues to allow these types of claims, we will have the ancestors of the Romans and Vikings who were killed thousands of years ago after compensation....

 

We really are the easy touch of the world!

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Think we've sunk to the bottom now Baz, the UK really is a global bog roll - scrap the lion as an emblem and adopt the Labrador puppy! :angry: btw Mau mau were killing white settlers, but managed to kill a lot more of their own folk. Think as ever, this is yet another example of the compen culture. :roll:

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British POWs received componsation from the Japanese, and I am not sure castration is an approved torture technique, and to be honest the British government will appeal, the Kenkans are now very old, so it is in doubt if the will receive money, for the people who don't agree does that go for the British POWs who have received money?,. Or are you saying one rule for the British, and one rule for everyone else?

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In the case of Japan; they surrendered unconditionally to the Allies; and as "the loser" could have been subjected to war reparations, which imo should have included compensation for war crimes victims. The fact British POWs had to struggle for decades for some recognition, merely highlights our current weakness in the world and the fact that Germany and Japan were let off the hook in response to political expediency. In the case of Kenya, the Mau Mau were a terrorist organisation (just like the IRA) engaged in an illegal war against the Colonial Authority, which involved masscres of their own people who wouldn't support them EG: in one village all the folk were driven into their huts, which were set on fire, and any attempting to escape were butchered with machetes. eventually, in a no holds barred operation the Mau Mau were defeated militarily and their Leader seized and executed. However, the British policy of de-colonisation gave way to a transfer of sovereignty to local moderate politicians like Jomo Kenyata, who presumably took on all the responsibilties, including any compen baggage from the UK. However, the arguement ultimately revolves around the question of "time" or a statute of limitations ; as Baz said; how far back do we go? Should we be suing Italy for the Roman occupation etc? :roll:

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Obs completely agree their should be limitations, Kenya did not take on any responsibility's for compensation, how far back should the limitation go? Their leader was cought , but it could be argued that their rebellion set the stage for their independence. And do you castrate someone to get information from them?

 

So how far back should limitations go? When all that took part are dead?

 

I also agree the Mau Mau were pretty brutal when waging their fight for independence and were probably a lot more guilty of war crimes than any unit in the British army, perhaps in hindsight when we were leaving we should have made Kenya draw a line under the whole affair.

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Too right they should have got compensation immediately - we supposed to have won the b***y war. The nonesense we've allowed politicians and the legal profession to get us into is the attempt to sanitize war with rules. War itself is a crime against humanity; but once engages imo anything goes - it's about winning after all. We've got the nonesense of African dictators being hauled before the international courts for war crimes, while Bush and Blair evade justice - how hypocritical is that? We've got the idea, that you can fight a war and avoid civilian casualties; despite all the hype over surgical targeting, bombs are yet to be designed that can discriminate between the enemy and "innocent" civilians. :roll:

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I am obviously not aware as to whether those discussing the Mau Mau situation have seen the following 'Time Line' history of the movement, here it is:-

 

Timeline: Mau Mau Rebellion

August 1951 to March 1954

 

By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide

See More About:

 

african history timelines

mau mau

independence of kenya

jomo kenyatta

 

The Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the 1950s whose main aim was to remove British rule and European settlers from the country.

 

August 1951

Information is filtering back about secret meetings being held in the forests outside Nairobi. A secret society called the Mau Mau, believed to have been started in the previous year, requires its members to take an oath to drive the white man from Kenya. Intelligence suggests that membership of the Mau Mau is currently restricted to members of the Kikuyu tribe, many of whom have been arrested during burglaries in Nairobi's white suburbs.

 

24 August 1952

The Kenyan government imposes a curfew in three districts on the outskirts of Nairobi where gangs of arsonists, believed to be members of the Mau Mau, have been setting fire to homes of Africans who refuse to take the Mau Mau oath.

 

7 October 1952

Senior Chief Waruhui of the Kikuyu tribe is assassinated in Kenya -- he is speared to death in broad daylight on a main road on the outskirts of Nairobi. He had recently spoken out against increasing Mau Mau aggression against colonial rule.

 

19 October 1952

The British government announces that it is to send troops to Kenya to help the fight against the Mau Mau.

 

21 October 1952

With the imminent arrival of British troops, the Kenyan government declares a state of emergency following a month of increasing hostility. Over 40 people have been murdered in Nairobi in the last four weeks and the Mau Mau, officially declared terrorists, have acquired firearms to use along with the more traditional pangas. As part of the overall clamp down Jomo Kenyatta, president of the Kenya African Union, is arrested for alleged Mau Mau involvement.

 

30 October 1952

British troops are involved in the arrest of over 500 suspected Mau Mau activists.

 

14 November1952

Thirty-four schools in Kikuyu tribal areas are closed in the continuing clamp down on Mau Mau activists.

 

18 November 1952

Jomo Kenyatta, president of the Kenya African Union and the country's leading nationalist leader is charged with managing the Mau Mau terrorist society in Kenya. He is flown to a remote district station, Kapenguria, which reportedly has no telephone or rail communications with the rest of Kenya, and is being held there incommunicado.

 

25 November 1952

The Mau Mau has declared open rebellion against British rule in Kenya. British forces respond by arresting over 2000 Kikuyu suspected of Mau Mau membership.

 

18 January 1953

Governor-general Sir Evelyn Baring imposes the death penalty for anyone who administers the Mau Mau oath - the oath is often forced upon Kikuyu tribesmen at the point of a knife, and calls for the individual's death if he fails to kill a European farmer when ordered.

 

26 January 1953

Panic has spread through Europeans in Kenya after the slaying of a white settler farmer and his family. Settler groups, displeased with the government's response to the increasing Mau Mau threat have created their own Commando Units to deal with the treat. Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor-general of Kenya has announced that a new offensive is to begin under the command of Major-general William Hinde. Amongst those speaking out against the Mau Mau threat and the government's inaction is Elspeth Huxley, author (who wrote The Flame Trees of Thika in 1959), who in a recent newspaper article compares Jomo Kenyatta to Hitler.

 

1 April 1953

British troops kill twenty-four Mau Mau suspects and capture an additional thirty-six during deployments in the Kenyan highlands.

 

8 April 1953

Jomo Kenyatta, known to his followers as Burning the Spear, is sentenced to seven years hard labour along with five other Kikuyu currently detained at Kapenguria.

 

17 April 1953

An additional 1000 Mau Mau suspects have been arrested over the past week around the capital Nairobi.

 

3 May 1953

Nineteen Kikuyu members of the Home Guard are murdered by the Mau Mau.

 

29 May 1953

Kikuyu tribal lands are to be cordoned off from the rest of Kenya to restrict movement of potential Mau Mau terrorists.

 

July 1953

Another 100 Mau Mau suspects have been killed during British patrols in Kikuyu tribal lands.

 

15 January 1954

General China, the second in command of the Mau Mau's military efforts is wounded and captured by British troops.

 

9 March 1954

Two more Mau Mau leaders have been secured: General Katanga is captured and General Tanganyika surrenders to British authority.

 

March 1954

The great British plan to end the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya is presented to the country's legislature -- General China, captured in January, is to write to the other terrorist leaders suggesting that nothing further can be gained from the conflict and that they should surrender themselves to British troops waiting in the Aberdare foothills.

 

The new strategy was fruitful. In late 1954 the British arrested general China, Mau-Mau's main leader at the Mount Kenya demarcation. Subsequently, activity in this area subsided. Meanwhile, in Aberdares, the guerrilla fighters burnt down the Treetops, an institution in Kenya but also a colonial symbol. The hotel would be re-built three years later, on top of a chestnut tree at the opposite side of the waterhole, where it has remained till the present day.

 

In 1955, of the 120,000 partisans that started the revolt, only some 15,000 were still alive and free. In October 1956 general Dedan Kimathi, leader of the Aberdares Mau-Mau, was captured. At the moment of his arrest, only 13 loyals remained beside him. Kimathi, self-proclaimed "Knight Commander of the African Hemisphere and Lord of the Southern Hemisphere", had built up his first clandestine government in the Aberdare forests in 1955, which he named Parliament of Kenya. After his arrest, he was hanged in early 1957.

 

Despite the detention of the main leaders, the Mau-Mau did not disappear completely until the release of Jomo Kenyatta and the country's independence. It is difficult to appraise the actual numbers of deceased, since they vary depending on the source. Official figures published in 1956 cited 11,000 losses among the guerrilla members, 2,000 collaborator Africans murdered and 30,000 suspects arrested. More recent data from English historians refer 30,000 deceased of the Mau-Mau and 80,000 detained, whilst other sources talk about 14,000 dead Africans and 100,000 arrested.

 

BORDERING ON GENOCIDE?.

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