Mau Mau legal victory key in unearthing past atrocities

tortured during a rebellion against the British colonial government.
There are many cases of people crying for justice, or at least a mere acknowledgment of the wrongs they suffered during the colonial era. And like the ongoing legal battle by the Mau Mau fighters — most of whom are now in their 80s — there is little media attention to these legitimate pleas for justice.
Now, the discovery of thousands of documents detailing the atrocities committed by British colonial governments in many countries could bolster claims for compensation.
But there is a catch: Britain has been destroying thousands of documents related to its activities during the colonial era in what has been described as an attempt to whitewash history. So what is it that the British have been trying to suppress over the decades?
According to The Guardian newspaper, the British government systematically destroyed documents detailing its shameful acts. However, some of the documents were secretly stashed at a UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office archive.
The archive came to light last year when the survivors of alleged torture of Mau Mau fighters by colonial authorities got the legal green light to sue the British government.
Thereafter, the Foreign Office was compelled to release 8 800 secret files from 37 former colonies it had been hiding at a highly secure government communications centre.
A historian appointed to oversee the review and transfer of the documents, Tony Badger of Cambridge University, said the discovery of the archive put the Foreign Office in an “embarrassing, scandalous” position.
“These documents should have been in the public archives in the 1980s. It’s long overdue.”
The documents include monthly intelligence reports on the “elimination” of the colonial authority’s enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, including a case of a man said to have been “roasted alive” and papers detailing the lengths to which the UK went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
And there are indications in the documents that the most sensitive — and potentially most damaging—  files from Britain’s late colonial era were destroyed.
One document details instructions issued by Iain Macleod (Secretary of State for the Colonies) in 1961 for the systematic destruction of documents so that post-independence governments do not get any material that “might embarrass Her Majesty’s government”, and that could “embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others, e.g. police informers”.
Among the documents that appear to have been destroyed were: records of the abuse of Mau Mau insurgents detained by British colonial authorities, who were tortured and sometimes murdered; reports that may have detailed the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers in Malaya by soldiers of the Scots Guards in 1948; most of the sensitive documents kept by colonial authorities in Aden, where the army’s Intelligence Corps operated a secret torture centre for several years in the 1960s and every sensitive document kept by the authorities in British Guiana, a colony whose policies were heavily influenced by successive US governments and whose post-independence leader, Cheddi Jagan, was toppled in a coup orchestrated by the British and Americans.
A Test Case
The documents that were not destroyed appear to have been kept secret not only to “protect the UK’s reputation” but also to shield the government from litigation. If the Mau Mau litigants are successful (victory achieved) in their legal action, thousands more victims of British colonial crimes could very well follow suit.
It is understood that former Eoka guerillas — who were detained by the British in the 1950s in Cyprus and possibly many others who were imprisoned and interrogated between 1946 and 1967 as Britain fought a series of rearguard actions across its rapidly diminishing empire — are watching the Mau Mau case closely.
Political scientist Professor Jonathan Moyo says: “This is just a confirmation of what we have always been saying all along: the British committed a lot of atrocities during the colonial era and have their hands dripping with blood.
“What hurts us the most as Africans is the continued denial by the British to accept liability for their past actions. In Zimbabwe they are refusing to fund the land reform programme as earlier agreed and you can see the same being repeated in this case involving their torture of freedom fighters.”
He adds that Africa has a strong case for compensation but has been failing to speak with one voice to ensure that the parasitic relationship with former colonial powers is corrected.
“What we have been failing to do is to make those European countries pay for looting our resources and killing our people.
“The so-called aid that we receive is a drop in the ocean as compared to what they got and are still getting from this continent.
“The case for reparations is an outstanding issue that needs to be dealt with to ensure progress and development for the continent.”
Dr Charity Manyeruke, a lecturer with the University of Zimbabwe, adds that the Mau Mau suit is a test case that could spur former British colonies to seek justice.
With the exposure of the secret files, the case for restorative justice is even stronger, she notes.
“What this means is that Africans, and generally all former colonies, now have a window of opportunity to seek reparations.
“The injustices of colonialism have not been adequately captured and up to today Africa has failed to meaningfully develop because of the legacies of these past wrongs. It is important that former freedom fighters take the fight to the British to ensure that justice is done.”