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UK Must Compensate Mau Mau

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
OPINION
June 3, 2003
Posted to the web June 3, 2003

By Vincent Bartoo
Nairobi
The British Government should pay for the atrocities committed against Mau Mau
freedom fighters and their families during the struggle for Kenya's
independence.
Eldoret-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD) said the British
should own up to the human rights abuses committed by its colonial Government
against Kenyans during the liberation war.
CHRD Executive Director, Ken Wafula, said Britain should unconditionally
compensate surviving victims and families of those killed in the Mau Mau war.
"Britain should just do the honourable thing and come to the negotiating table
without having the victims and families of those killed go to court to compel
them to do so.
The documentary was very saddening as it brought out the shocking truth.
The victims and their families suffered a lot and they should not be made to go
through more suffering in their quest for compensation," Wafula told the East
African Standard.
He was reacting to a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary Kenya:
White Terror aired on KTN on Sunday in which survivors of the war recounted
their ordeals at the hands of British soldiers.
In the documentary, victims gave heartrending testimonies of the anguish and
suffering they went through during the war, intended to crush the Mau Mau
rebellion.
Women told of how some of them were raped and their young children killed by
British soldiers who were punishing them for their husbands' role in the war.
Wafula lauded BBC for highlighting the plight of the liberation war victims.
He said that those who served in the colonial Government and who subsequently
took part in the perpetration of the injustices should be sued.

   

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