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Roundup: Kenya’s ex-freedom fighters to sue Britain for war crimes

Kenya’s ex-freedom fighters said on Friday they would institute legal proceedings against the British government for reparations.

Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, a high-powered legal team based in Nairobi and London said they were working to ensure that the Mau Mau fighters are compensated for war crimes committed by the British.

“There is no question that the Mau Mau have strong case against the British in terms of the terrible things that happened to them back in the 1950s. I am very pleased that the Kenyan people are giving their support to enable this case to be brought,” said Martyn Day of Leigh Day and Co. Advocates, one of the London-based legal teams.

Speaking during a news conference in Nairobi to launch the fund- raising for the ex-fighters legal fee, Day said there was overwhelming evidence to win the case, which will be filed in a London court on October 20 of this year.

The Mau Mau, drawn largely from Kenya’s biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, launched their rebellion against colonial rule in 1952, especially in the “white” highlands favored by settlers, waging war from the Aberdare and Mount Kenya forests.

According to official figures, more than 11,000 rebels were killed, along with up to 100 Europeans and up to 2,000 African loyalists, many from the Kikuyu Home Guard.

The ex-freedom fighters said they intended to sue the British government for an unspecified sum of money that will be used to pay reparations to survivors of British colonial brutality in Kenya.

“We are primed and ready to go with the legal case; the only thing we are waiting for is our Kenyan team to find the funds to enable the case to be brought,” Day told reporters.

“We remain hopeful we can get the case off the ground here in the near future. There are many legal hurdles for us to overcome in the months ahead but I am optimistic that justice in the end will prevail,” he said.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200605/06/eng20060506_263297.html

TIME FROM 1954

TANGANYIKA: Invasion by Lion-Men

Tom Marealle, the tall, cheerful king of 300,000 Chagga tribesmen, was one of the first to recognize that Kenya’s Mau Mau terrorists were spilling over the border into Tanganyika Territory. Last week one of Tom’s ebony tribesmen had seen something moving among his coffee trees and, thinking it was a mere lion, he had charged it with his spear. Instead of a lion, a lion-man sprang out and pointed a pistol at the charging Chagga. The pistol misfired, and the Chagga’s spear drove through a Mau Mau terrorist, whose hair was plastered with red clay into the shape of a lion’s mane.

Chief Marealle, whose peaceful, prosperous tribe owns 12 million coffee trees on the southern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,500 ft.), picked up his telephone and flashed a warning to the British authorities. Then the chief drove off in his car to interview mountain villagers, who had frightened tales to tell of other lion-men, slinking through the forests in the direction of Arusha, a town that lies exactly halfway between Cape Town and Cairo.

Pursuit by Posse. To Tanganyika’s able governor, Sir Edward Twining, 54, the news came as no surprise. Last fall, when Mau Mau “missionaries” began administering their bloodcurdling oaths to the Kikuyu tribesmen who live on the border of Kenya and Tanganyika, Twining’s police rounded up 6,500 suspects and packed them off to detention camps. The Mau Mau vowed revenge, and last week’s invasion was their way of getting it.

The lion-men got more than they bargained for. Tanganyika’s Africans (who own all but i% of the land in the territory) oppose the Mau Mau. King Marealle’s warning roused the coffee farmers, black and white alike; they quickly formed a posse, which was soon reinforced by a contingent of Masai nomads who came up from their grazing grounds among the salt lakes and craters of the Great Rift Valley. Posse and terrorists met head-on near Arusha.

The Chagga did most of the fighting, and the Mau Mau ran away, leaving rifles, pistols and five prisoners behind. After them went the Masai. They caught one terrorist on a bus bound for Kenya; he had cut off his lion mane, but the telltale scars of Mau Mau oathtaking could plainly be seen on his arms.

“Pretty Mean Savages.” At week’s end Governor Twining flew to Arusha, proclaimed martial law in three frontier forest reserves. “We are dealing with desperate armed gangsters,” the governor said. Tanganyika’s whites agreed, but unlike their blimpish neighbors in Kenya Colony, some of them understood that the Africans themselves (notably, the prosperous Chagga) are equally interested in keeping the terrorists out. “The Mau Mau made a big mistake in sending this invasion force,” said one white official, and a Chagga farmer agreed. “They looked like savages to me,” he said.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819915,00.html