Sixty-two years on, UK court rules they can sue for damagesIT was a historic victory last Friday for Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73. Sixty-two years after their ordeals at the hands of British officers during the final days of the British Empire, a London court has granted them leave to sue for damages.The three elderly Kenyans were among those detained and tortured for many years during the Mau Mau rebellion.The Mau Mau rebellion (also known as the Mau Mau Revolt, Mau Mau Uprising and the Kenya Emergency) was a military conflict that took place in Kenya between 1952 and 1960. It involved a Kikuyu-dominated anti-colonial group called Mau Mau and elements of the British Army, auxiliaries and anti-Mau Mau Kikuyu.The movement was violently repressed and failed to capture widespread public support. The capture of rebel leader, Dedan Kimathi on 21st October 1956 signaled the ultimate defeat of the Mau Mau uprising, and essentially ended the British military campaign. It has been argued that the conflict helped set the stage for Kenyan independence in December 1963, but this view has been disputed by historians who claim that the rebellion merely delayed Kenya's independence, as the UK could not hand over control to the Kenyan authorities until stability had been restored.It created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the Home Office in London, and also resulted in violent divisions within the Kikuyu community.But the decision made by a London High Court last Friday was considered as a major victory for the tortured victims.The headway came after three years of legal bottleneck in court. Government lawyers had vigorously opposed the victims' application, insisting that the suit was statue barred.But the court rejected the claims from the government's lawyers that too much time had elapsed since the seven-year insurgency in the 1950s, and that it was no longer possible to hold a fair trial.The veterans during that time suffered what their lawyers described as 'unspeakable acts of brutality', including castration, beatings and severe sexual assaults. While the case lasted, a fourth claimant discontinued with the matter while the fifth, Susan Ciong'ombe Ngondi, died two years ago at the age of 71.The same high court judge, Justice McCombe, who gave the verdict had last year rejected the government's claim that the three claimants should be suing the Kenyan government as it had inherited Britain's legal responsibilities on independence in 1963.McCombe then said there was 'ample evidence ' that there may have been systematic torture of detainees'.However, on Friday he ruled that a fair trial was possible, and highlighted the fact that thousands of documents came to light last year after the Foreign Office admitted to a secret archive of colonial-era files.The archive, at Hanslope Park, a highly secure government communications centre 55 miles north of London, was unacknowledged until the Mau Mau veterans brought their action, at which point its existence was discovered by historians working for their lawyers.A subsequent inquiry established that staff at Hanslope Park had been led to believe that the files belonged to another organisation and not to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).'According to a canard that was widely shared and passed down during handovers,' the inquiry found, the FCO was holding the archive after a fire at the other organisation.During the course of their attempts to have the claims struck out ' efforts that the claimants' lawyer, Martyn Day, described as 'morally repugnant' ' the British government's lawyers accepted that all three of the elderly Kenyans were tortured by the colonial authorities.Day said: 'The British government has admitted that these three Kenyans were brutally tortured by the British colony and yet they have been hiding behind technical legal defences for three years in order to avoid any legal responsibility. There will undoubtedly be victims of colonial torture from Malaya to the Yemen, from Cyprus to Palestine, who will be reading this judgment with great care.'Among those who are known to have been watching the case closely are a number of veterans of the Eoka insurgency in Cyprus in the 1950s. One of them has already met the Mau Mau claimants' lawyers. Any Cypriot claimants would be able to rely not only on the Hanslope Park documentation, but also upon the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Those files are kept secret for 40 years, and then opened to public scrutiny. The Red Cross documented hundreds of torture cases in Cyprus, where reporters covering the conflict referred to British interrogators as HMTs ' Her Majesty's Torturers.There may also be claims from Malaysia, where large numbers of people were detained during the 12-year war with communist insurgents and their supporters that began in 1948. Relatives of 24 unarmed rubber plantation workers massacred by British troops are currently fighting through the British courts for a public inquiry.Many former prisoners of the British in Aden may also have claims against the British government, although as Aden is now part of Yemen, British lawyers may have difficulty making contact with potential clients there.Human rights activists in Kenya estimate put the number of people detained by the British colonial authorities, who are still alive at more than 5,000 of the 70,000-plus.With this victory, many more are expected to bring claims against the British government, as the ruling has made it possible for victims of colonial atrocities in other parts of the world to sue.But many more men and women around the world who were imprisoned and allegedly mistreated during the conflicts that often accompanied the British retreat from empire may also be considering claims: cases that could bring to light evidence of brutal mistreatment of colonial subjects.Already the British Foreign Office has acknowledged that the ruling had 'potentially significant and far-reaching legal implications', and said it was planning to appeal.'The normal time limit for bringing a civil action is three to six years,' said spokesman for British Foreign Office. 'In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision makers are dead and unable to give their own account of what happened.'In Nairobi, the news from London was relayed to two of the complainants, Nyingi and Mara, by mobile phone. They had been sitting silently with their supporters in the meagre shade of a sun-scorched garden and reacted with joy when the news came, hugging, dancing and eventually raising their hands to the sky to pray.Nyingi, who was detained for about nine years, beaten unconscious and bears the marks from leg manacles, whipping and caning, said: 'For me ' I just wanted the truth to be out. Even the children of my children should know what happened. What should happen is that people should be compensated so they can begin to forgive the British government.'Mara said: 'I'm very happy and my heart is clean.' Asked what she would tell her four children, she said simply: 'I will tell them I won.
Click here to read full news..
