Chikwa
Senior Member
- Jul 26, 2012
- 138
- 38
UK To Compensate Kenya's Mau Mau Victims
More than six decades on, survivors of one of darkest chapters in the history of the British Empire are to receive compensation.
Britain is set to pay compensation to around 5,200 victims of torture in prison camps set up during Kenya's Mau Mau conflict in the 1950s.
Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell the Commons on Thursday that the survivors, who suffered abuses including castration, rape and beatings, will get £2,600 each.
It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The abuses took place during the so-called Kenyan 'Emergency' between 1952 and 60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets.
Those attacks sparked panic among white settlers and alarmed the government in London, prompting one of the British Empire's most shameful episodes.
Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to the Mau Mau veterans seeking compensation, said: "We have agreed on an out-of-court settlement.
"(The negotiations) have included everybody with sufficient evidence of torture. And that number is about 5,200."
Britain is set to pay compensation to around 5,200 victims of torture in prison camps set up during Kenya's Mau Mau conflict in the 1950s.
Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell the Commons on Thursday that the survivors, who suffered abuses including castration, rape and beatings, will get £2,600 each.
It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The settlement will reportedly total £14m, which equates to 339,560 Kenyan shillings per claimant - in a country where average national income per capita is around 70,000 shillings.
The Mau Mau nationalist movement originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Its loyalists advocated violent resistance to British domination of the country.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained during the uprising.
Britain tried for three years to block the Mau Mau veterans' legal action in the courts, drawing condemnation from the elderly torture victims who accused Kenya's former colonial master of using legal technicalities to fight the case.
Caroline Elkins, a Harvard history professor who acted as an expert witness in the case launched in 2009, said the settlement would be the first of its kind for the former British Empire.
"(It) should be seen as a triumph," she said.
Britain had first said that responsibility for events during the Mau Mau uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected.
The Government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. But a judge in October's ruling said there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible.
SOURCE:SKY NEWS
My Take
It is time the UK and other former European colonizers apologized for the crimes they committed, but £2,600 wont bring back the lives they took nor will it change the books of history.
More than six decades on, survivors of one of darkest chapters in the history of the British Empire are to receive compensation.
Britain is set to pay compensation to around 5,200 victims of torture in prison camps set up during Kenya's Mau Mau conflict in the 1950s.
Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell the Commons on Thursday that the survivors, who suffered abuses including castration, rape and beatings, will get £2,600 each.
It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The abuses took place during the so-called Kenyan 'Emergency' between 1952 and 60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets.
Those attacks sparked panic among white settlers and alarmed the government in London, prompting one of the British Empire's most shameful episodes.
Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to the Mau Mau veterans seeking compensation, said: "We have agreed on an out-of-court settlement.
"(The negotiations) have included everybody with sufficient evidence of torture. And that number is about 5,200."
Britain is set to pay compensation to around 5,200 victims of torture in prison camps set up during Kenya's Mau Mau conflict in the 1950s.
Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell the Commons on Thursday that the survivors, who suffered abuses including castration, rape and beatings, will get £2,600 each.
It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The settlement will reportedly total £14m, which equates to 339,560 Kenyan shillings per claimant - in a country where average national income per capita is around 70,000 shillings.
The Mau Mau nationalist movement originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Its loyalists advocated violent resistance to British domination of the country.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained during the uprising.
Britain tried for three years to block the Mau Mau veterans' legal action in the courts, drawing condemnation from the elderly torture victims who accused Kenya's former colonial master of using legal technicalities to fight the case.
Caroline Elkins, a Harvard history professor who acted as an expert witness in the case launched in 2009, said the settlement would be the first of its kind for the former British Empire.
"(It) should be seen as a triumph," she said.
Britain had first said that responsibility for events during the Mau Mau uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected.
The Government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. But a judge in October's ruling said there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible.
SOURCE:SKY NEWS
My Take
It is time the UK and other former European colonizers apologized for the crimes they committed, but £2,600 wont bring back the lives they took nor will it change the books of history.
