BRITISH conscripts were sent out to Kenya in the 1950s, where they were turned into brutes and sadistic killers, in the war of British imperialism and its settlers against the Land Freedom Army (Mau Mau), who were fighting to regain the land that was stolen from them as well as for their freedom.
It was in this war that the likes of General Frank Kitson learnt the trade of counter-insurgency, which he then wrote about in his book, Low Intensity Operations. They refined the techniques during the emergencies in Cyprus and in Aden, and during the 1970s in the north of Ireland.
In fact, there is a close connection between the ‘black on black operations’ in Kenya – when British troops blacked up and took chemicals to darken their eyes so that they could infiltrate the Mau Mau or carry out actions that the Mau Mau were blamed for – and the actions of the SAS and other special operations groups in the north of Ireland, including the Bloody Sunday massacre.
In Kenya, in places such as the Hola Camp, British troops executed, tortured, raped and castrated those who fell into their clutches.
Like the deeds of the Nazis, these tactics were sanctioned right from the top of the political leadership of British imperialism, including its Colonial Secretary.
The carnage was so great and the brutalisation of teenage British conscripts so extensive that some newspapers of the day, such as the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror, were forced to campaign against the atrocities.
The Kenyan massacres and atrocities serve as a timely reminder of just what British imperialism is capable of when its vital interests are threatened, and that it will truly stop at nothing, however brutal, twisted and demonic the tactic.
This timely reminder comes from the test case action which began at the High Court yesterday by four Mau Mau heroes, three men and a woman who were brutalised in British concentration camps.
The four Kenyans travelled 4,000 miles from rural Kenya to give their evidence to the High Court. They were subjected to unspeakable acts of torture and abuse at the hands of British officials in the 1950s and early 1960s, including castrations, sexual abuse and repeated beatings.
The treatment they endured has left them all with devastating and lifelong injuries. These four people represent the wider community of hundreds of elderly Kenyans who are still alive and who were subjected to systematic violence and abuse in colonial Kenya.
The four are not looking to the British Government for enormous sums of money to compensate them for what they went through. What they primarily seek is recognition in the form of an apology, that what was done to them was so wrong, and a welfare fund that would enable them to see out their years with some element of dignity.
The mentality of British governments never changes. The current British government is seeking to strike out the claims on the grounds that it is the Kenyan government that is legally responsible for any abuses committed by the British colony.
They take no responsibility for what they have done. It was the same story in the north of Ireland with Bloody Sunday, until they could continue denial no longer.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission says 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the repressions. It says 160,000 people were detained in appalling conditions.
An official report in 1961 determined that more than 11,000 Africans, most of them civilians, and 32 white settlers died during that period.
President Obama’s grandfather was among those who were detained and abused at the time.
We wish the four the best for their claim on behalf of hundreds more surviving Mau Mau at home.
Their story and the refusal of the British government to take responsibility, allied to the experience of the Yugoslav, Iraq, Afghan and Libyan wars proves that the people of the world will not be safe until British capitalism, and imperialism, is destroyed by a socialist revolution.
