Kenya drops Mau Mau ban

2003-08-31 21:28

Nairobi - The Kenyan government on Sunday dropped a colonial-era ban on Mau Mau freedom fighters, who spearheaded the east African country's independence movement in the 1950s and are now claiming compensation from Britain for mistreatment during that era.

"The government has finally lifted the clause in the laws of Kenya that outlawed the independence movement, Mau Mau," National Security Minister Chris Murungaru said.

Murungaru said "it was time to recognise men and women who suffered for us to get independence", adding that the former Mau Mau members were now "free to form a society and get registered".

Between 1952 and 1956, colonial power Britain found itself at war with the Mau Mau, a militant African nationalist movement that originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya.

The ban on the movement, introduced in 1950 to stem mounting opposition to British colonial rule, became obsolete following Kenyan independence in 1963 but was never formally repealed.

The government had pledged in June to scrap the clause by December 12, the 40th anniversary of the country's independence.

For the past four decades, veteran Mau Mau fighters have been seeking recognition as a registered society in order to claim compensation from Britain for mistreatment at the hands of British colonial authorities.

The majority of Mau Mau veterans, with no official status in Kenyan society, have since died in abject poverty.

Regrets

"It will be the first time that the old Mau Mau fighters get official recognition from the government of Kenya," Murungaru said, adding that he regretted previous Kenyan governments had ignored calls to lift the ban.

The Mau Mau, with backing from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC), have instructed British lawyer Martyn Day, who specialises in personal injury claims, to seek compensation from British authorities.

Last November, at least 1 500 Mau Mau veterans gave accounts of torture and other abuses to the London-based lawyer.

In October 1952, after a campaign of sabotage and assassination attributed to the Mau Mau, the British Kenya government declared a state of emergency and began four years of military operations against Kikuyu rebels.

By the end of 1956, more than 11 000 rebels had been killed in the fighting, along with about 100 Europeans and 2 000 African loyalists.

More than 20 000 other Kikuyu were put into detention camps, where they were pressured into converting to the political views of the government and abandoning nationalist aspirations.

As British troops fought the Mau Mau in the forests, the colonial government took strict measures against civilians, mamy of whom were forced into detention camps and so-called protected villages.

Yet the Mau Mau resistance spearheaded the Kenya independence movement, and Jomo Kenyatta, who had been jailed for involvement in Mau Mau activities in 1953, became prime minister of an independent Kenya 10 years later.

- AFP