Mau Mau rebels: A growing threat in Kenya...again?

BBC News On-Line ^ | 9 November, 2002 | Mike Thompson

[yankeedame]

Saturday, 9 November, 2002, 08:19 GMT

Mau Mau rebels threaten court action

<

Fifty years on, and Kenyan anger is boiling over

By Mike Thompson
BBC, London

Kenyans who fought in the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule in the 1950s say they are preparing to take the British Government to court for alleged human rights abuses.

More than 13,000 Africans were killed in the fighting - including Mau Mau guerrillas, troops and civilians - and about 100 Europeans.

Now a welfare group with more than half-a-million members, the Mau Mau Trust, claims many veterans were tortured and illegally detained by the British.

It is hoping to win compensation.

Slave labour

The Mau Mau Trust claims that many of its fighters were regularly beaten and tortured by British forces throughout their fight for independence.

Some were alleged to have been battered with rifle butts, stabbed with broken bottles and forced to do slave labour.

This treatment is said to have left many mentally scarred and unable to walk again.

Last year, the Mau Mau Trust tried to take legal action in Kenya, but failed to win the Kenyan Government's backing.

Now, they have hired English lawyer Martin Day, who recently won compensation for British prisoners of war detained by the Japanese, as well as for some Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis.

Mr Day predicts that victory in the British courts could win many thousands of Mau Mau veterans six-figure sums in compensation.

Should they fail, the trust's chairman is threatening to campaign for a boycott of all British products in Kenya.

==========================

ALSO SEE:

-Mau Mau warrior returns home 30 May 03 | Africa

-Mau Mau rebels threaten court action 09 Nov 02 | Africa

-Monuments for the Mau Mau 04 May 01 | Africa

-UK army denies Kenya cover-up 22 Mar 01 | Africa

-Mau Mau compensation demand 20 Aug 99 | Africa

[yankeedame]

Also from BBC On-Line in their Country Profiles:

"2002 July - Some 200 Masai and Samburu tribespeople accept more than $7m in compensation from the British Ministry of Defence. The tribespeople had been bereaved or maimed by British Army explosives left on their land over the last 50 years. The deal is agreed at talks in London."

And that, my good friends and neighbors, is what, IMHO, started the fuse burning- this $7,000,000 "compensation" to 200 people in a country where the average yearly income is approx. $1,400.

"Follow the money"

[tet68]

I love it when protestors in third world countries
have signs in english, it means we're winning.

[quebecois]

Is it me, or is the entire planet degenerating into a giant scam to loot money from white middle class taxpayers? Kenya has been on a downward trajectory almost from the moment it gained independence. Instead of using bogus guilt trips to try and shake down the British middle class taxpayers, perhaps these folks should try cleaning up there own hideously corrupt political and economic system?

[Billy_bob_bob]

Africa doesn't have "politcal and economic" systems. Furthermore, Africa doesn't even have nations. Africa is composed of tribes, tribe that traditionally loot each other, and who hate each other like poison.

Because the West insists on dealing with Africa as a collection of nations, all dealings the West has with Africa are doomed from the start. The reality is that once a "leader" becomes "ruler" of an African nation, the end result is that the tribe that the new "leader" belongs to goes on a looting spree of all the other tribes in the nation. If the new "leader" does not support this looting, he is quickly deposed and replaced with a new "leader" who will support this looting. Said looting continues until the other tribe have had enough, then a civil war starts, and the cycle begins again.

Africa is poor because Africa does not have the legal and social infrastructure required for the creation and protection and wealth. Their society is one step removed from the stone age, and Western expectations of behavior are entirely lost on them.

[Imal]

Hey, they're just going where the money is.

Not surprising, considering who their new financial advisor is:

Chairman Mau

[dfwgator]

Oooh Mau Mau, Shamma Lamma Ding-Dong...