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Express Newspapers / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
British police examine suspects for the seven initiation cuts on the body that marked a member of the Mau Mau secret society in this November 1952 image.
LONDON — It is a court case that could reverberate round the world: Three elderly Kenyans are suing the U.K. government for torture inflicted by the colonial regime during the African country's struggle for independence.
If the Kenyans win — a ruling on the case is expected later this week — claims from others involved in the so-called Mau Mau uprising are highly likely and experts say it could set a precedent that would help victims of abuses in other countries that were once part of the British Empire.
The court case could also attract the attention of President Barack Obama. In his book “Dreams From My Father,” Obama said he was told by his step-grandmother Sarah that his Kenyan grandfather Onyango was held for six months in a detention camp by the colonial authorities. “When he returned … he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice,” Obama wrote.
Compared to his compatriots seeking compensation from the U.K., Onyango Obama got off lightly: In court, the two men and a woman described being savagely beaten, castrated, sexually assaulted, and witnessing killings during British rule in the 1950s.
Such stories are not confined to the former British Empire.
France, for example, has refused to apologize for its actions as former colony Algeria struggled for independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, with former president Nicolas Sarkozy saying “repentance” had “no place in our relations.”
And Germany only finally said sorry for a particularly extreme case of genocide by German forces in Namibia on the 100th anniversary of the massacre of tens of thousands of Herero people. Germany does pay aid to Namibia, but has to date refused to compensate the Herero directly.
The United States also has a colonial past with Spain handing over Philippines in 1898. Some, as noted by Filipino academic E. San Juan Jr., say the resulting Philippine-American War saw the deaths of about 1.4 million Filipinos while others put the toll in the hundreds of thousands. Despite this, Philippines and the U.S. have close relations and many Filipinos have positive feelings toward Americans.
More international coverage from NBC News
In contrast, ill will still exists in Kenya over British colonial rule, but in July, there was a potential breakthrough when the U.K. government admitted for the first time that civilians were tortured during the Mau Mau revolt.
Guy Mansfield, a lawyer representing Britain, told the three Kenyan claimants — Paulo Muoka Nzili, Wambuga Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara – that he did "not want to dispute the fact that terrible things happened to you.”
However, the U.K. is still arguing that the events of the uprising took place too long ago to enable a fair trial to be held. The defense team expects a judge to rule on this argument this week. A decision against the government would leave it with few legal options.
'Children were killed'
Previously the U.K. claimed that the victims should sue Kenya, rather than the U.K., an argument the Kenyans’ lawyer, Martyn Day, dismissed as "nonsense" and that was rejected by a judge in a previous ruling.
In July, Nyingi, 84, told the U.K.’s High Court through an interpreter that he was detained for nine years during which he was beaten unconscious as 11 others were battered to death, according to a report by the Press Association news service.
Ben Stansall / AFP - Getty Images, file
A lawyer representing the U.K. government told Wambuga Wa Nyingi and two other Kenyans that he did "not want to dispute the fact that terrible things happened to you."
"In the years before independence people were beaten, their land was stolen, women were raped, men were castrated and their children were killed,” Nyingi said.
Nzili, 85, said he was abducted by Mau Mau fighters, but later escaped only to be arrested by the colonial authorities, who castrated him. His treatment left him “completely destroyed and without hope.”
Mara, 73, told the court she was beaten with sticks and sexually assaulted with a glass bottle containing hot water after she gave food to Mau Mau members.
Day, the lawyer, told NBCNews.com that “without any question … the [U.K.] government is very worried about the implications of any decision” in the case.
From ITV News: Tutu urges UK to show compassion to Kenyan torture victims
In addition to “many, many more people in Kenya,” he said he thought “significant numbers of groups of people the former British Empire who would be looking at that judgment.”
He said a victory for the Kenyans could help the victims of abuses in countries like Malaysia — the source of recent legal action against the U.K. -- Cyprus and possibly India claim compensation.
Day said some people in Britain “feel perhaps we are superior to the Germans and Japanese and countries where atrocities have occurred, but actually there is always a significant proportion of people who are pretty grim.”
France’s ‘horrific crimes’
The years leading up to independence for Algeria saw one of the world’s most violent and bitter conflicts to end colonial rule, which was the subject of a critically acclaimed film, “Battle of Algiers.”
So much so, that when Algeria celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence on July 5 this year, France was pointedly not invited.
During the 1954-1962 revolt, a million lives were lost and people were murdered, raped and tortured by both sides; the newly independent Algeria was left economically devastated.
“The horrific crimes committed by the French during colonization are entrenched in the memories of Algerians,” explained Farouk Ksentini, president of Algeria’s National Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. “We suffered like animals from humiliation, exploitation, expropriation and slaughter … France must repent for its crimes.”
Dominique Berretty / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
French security forces take to the streets after a riot broke out in Algiers, Algeria, in 1960.
Ksentini said he was aware of only one Algerian who had been financially compensated by France over the conflict. In 2001, a French court awarded an invalidity pension to Mohamed Garne, conceived after French soldiers raped his mother.
To date, no French president has said sorry. During an official visit in 2007, Sarkozy told two Algerian newspapers he was in favor of “a recognition of the facts, [but] not for repentance which has a religious notion and no place in our relations state-to-state.”
The current President Francois Hollande may shift French policy; during his election campaign last year, he condemned colonization and declared, “The truth must be said.”
German extermination order
In Namibia in 1904, German General Adrian von Trotha gave an infamous order that “the Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' [cannon]. Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children."
Fotosearch via Getty Images
A group of starving Herero survivors return after being driven into the desert of Omaheke by German forces in Namibia in about 1907.
The order was issued after a number of Herero rebelled and killed more than 100 German soldiers. There are different figures, but according to one estimate more than 60,000 people -- a significant proportion of the population that some put as high as 85 percent -- were dead within three years and thousands of Demara and Nama people were also killed.
Germany's return of Namibian skulls stokes anger
In 2004, Germany issued a formal apology. It also makes aid payments to Namibia, but has not directly paid compensation to the Herero.
Kuaima Riruaku, the paramount chief of the Herero and a politician in Namibia’s parliament, told NBC News that his people were still feeling the effects of the massacre.
“They destroyed the Herero as a people. They destroyed the culture and the manhood,” he said.
“We’ve lost a lot of things, our land and our property … our cattle and everything that was confiscated by the German government,” he said.
“Now we’re in the minority [in the Herero’s homeland]. We [would have been] the majority here if we didn’t fight the Germans,” he added.
Riruaku said for years Germany had ignored the Herero’s request for reparations.
“It’s taken more than 25 to 30 years, but now they seem to listen … there’s a little chance of hope,” he said. “Now we just talk to one another as human to human … they seem to understand why we are doing this.”
He said Germany should reach a financial settlement with the Herero “in order to … restore their humanity.”
Asked whether too much time had passed for such a deal, Riruaku said “that was the argument before … but the wound and the scar … are not yet forgotten.”
A spokeswoman for the German foreign ministry told NBC News that the German government “admits to the moral and historic responsibility towards Namibia, but the federal government does not allow for individual payments of compensation to representatives of the respective ethnic groups.”
'Kill everyone over 10'
Another infamous order in colonial history was issued by U.S. General Jake “Hell-Roaring” Smith, whose reported command to “Kill everyone over 10” during the Philippines-American War of 1899-1902 caused outrage in the United States.
Retired Philippines Navy Commodore Rex Robles, 69, told NBC News that “the most prominent issue against the Americans in the Filipino-American War was the devastation of Samar, where hundreds were killed in cold blood by American troops in that province in retaliation for an ambush by Filipino rebels."
Captain Jf Case / Hulton Archive via Getty Images
American troops fire on insurgents in the Philippines during the Philippine-American War, circa 1899.
"The issue of the ‘Bells of Balangiga’ lingers to this day. The sacred church bells were taken by the Americans as war booty and never returned,” he added.
He said the Americans were “illegitimate conquerors,” adding that the Filipino forces had “fought valiantly against the usurpers, but were faced with superior force and logistics."
However, Robles said that Filipinos in general have a “positive attitude and feeling toward America.”
“This is fostered by the U.S. image as liberators from the Japanese occupation [during World War II], as well as the all-pervasive propaganda stemming from the American propaganda machine,” he said.
David Anderson, professor of African politics at England’s Oxford University, said propaganda was used by countries to cover their past crimes.
The U.K. was a world leader on torture and taught other countries how to do it, he said, but had created “a myth” that such behavior was not “British.”
He noted similarities between the language used to try to legalize torture by the British in Kenya – euphemisms such as “dilution” – and the George W. Bush administration’s insistence that waterboarding was not illegal, but simply “enhanced interrogation.”
What is torture? Ex-CIA official renews debate
“It’s very important to have a broader perspective. Torture has gone on, kind of everywhere and every time.” Anderson said. “It’s not a novelty, and in conflicts, bad stuff happens, so it should not surprise us.”
Anderson, who wrote a book called “Histories of the Hanged: Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,” said right-leaning U.K. commentators tended to dismiss “people like me” for “bashing the empire.”
"That totally misunderstands the point and that is not what I’m doing," he said. "The fundamental for me is if torture happens, then we need to do something about it."
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Leave a Comment:
I'm not certain I'd worry about the precedent set by this one case. Colonialism did a lot of things positive and negative. All in all, the positives outweigh the negatives in most countries for the inhabitants today.
I know many of you find my comment revolting, but surely you'd rather have the life expectancy, education, foreign ties, and institutions afforded you by your former colonizer?
Before you say you would like to have met the modern world on your own terms, say being part to an unmolested African tribe meeting the modern world for the first time in 2002, really think about it.
that is nonsense,colonialsm did not help anybody.What you consider 'civilisation' was just another way to create robots that were under control of the colonial 'civilizers'.Life was better before colonialism because people had their own lifestyle which worked in tandem with nature and hundreds of years of structures that were destroyed in an instance
You're talking about the group at the very bottom of the bell curve, born with IQs so low that they are basically retarded, drooling morons that can only murder each other with machetes, no knowledge of the wheel before the late 16th cent. Never developed a written language in 25,000 years. Spoon feed them or they die. They are like sharks: they breed and, given the chance, they kill humans. They are excess population. They are very expensive pets.
Colonialism did not help anybody? Well, there are tribes that weren't ever colonized. Lifespan in the 30s, brutal, violent, short, painful lives... you have a romanticized notion of tribal life.
But I suppose you and I have a different idea of what life should be like, right, marco?
Thankfully, you've just argued against reparations, because any money given to these people whose nature-based paradise we destroyed will only make it harder for them to live in tandem with nature.
Knight Bus, WTF are you talking about?
What a shame, try to justify the atrocities by de-humanizing the victims. If that is the strategy then you have miserably failed. You are calling those people backward tribes, what about the Algerians and the Filipinos. they were educated/civilized, and they did not want to be murdered, robbed and rapped over and over, they wanted freedom...
Sam, the Filipinos had been colonized by the Spanish for over 400 years before the Americans had ever shown up. Before the Spanish arrived the Philippines was not a nation but were hundreds of small tribe nations located over thousands of small islands.
Aside from the first few years when they were trying to gain control over the country, the Americans overall treated the Philippine people much better then the Spanish did. Encouraging the natives to learn how to be self governed. Additionally the Americans strongly encouraged and even provided educations (something the Spanish never did) These (as well as liberation from Japan during WW2) are key reasons why Filipinos generally have positive opinions of Americans.
For anyone interested in the details of American colonialism in the Philippines, check out "In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines". The author does not try express that the experience was favorable or negative to either country, but instead tries to paint a cause and effect picture, working all the way up to the 1980's. Anyone who is thoroughly interested in American and/or Philippine history will very much enjoy.
Remember that book is stacked with all kind of lies because we are not even certain that was his "father" so to me that is so full fiction.
Looks like Obamas community organizer tactics have made it all the way to his brothers in Kenya.
Troll alert...
The US Marines were organized, in part, to end the capture and enslaving of white europeans and Americans by Africans along the Barbary Coast. They accomplished this, along with European nations under the orders of President Thomas Jefferson as related in the Marine Song phrase "To the shores of Tripoli". Africans traveled as far as Norway, capturing villagers and seamen for the slave trade. The colonization of North Africa by European countries was in response to this threat. No apoligies are necessary here.
The British ended the slavery of Kenya when they kicked out their 200 year captors, the Sultans of Oman. Slave plantations were run in Kenya by the Sultans and Kenyans were captured and sold into slavery in India. The British were involved in the push to free the slaves during the US civil war and fought to end slavery around the world. The Brits are heroes, not monsters, to victims of slavery.
If we must dig into history, let's get it right.
Kenyan nations were not enslaved,except a few unlucky ones at the coast,the Arabs got slaves from Congo and Malawi and central Africa.The warrior Maasai prevented Europeans and Arabs from getting to the hinterland until the British signed a 'brotherhood' pact with Olonana ole Batian,for an allied force due to the rise of Nandi military power.The British later took advantage of good relations with the Maasai to steal land from the other nations such as the Kikuyu,which led to the maumau war.
Hey, what happened to the slavery? The British ended it to the extent they were able. You pivot to land and who took it. Not the same, eh?
The only thing that gives Africa a shred of hope in the future is their ex Colonial masters.
Every African country that kicked out all the Whites is in total despair.
The ones where there are still Whites - doing OK.
Enough with this crap.
the great Chinese power is back,to hell with the British
jomamax just say any foolishness that pops up between the empty space between your ears.
The time is nigh for elections, this is NBC.
Its a mess. They wanted independence and they have it. They hated colonial rule, rightfully so, and now they are killing each other in Africa and in most areas not so better off. The colonial times were what they were. Nobody would agree that some of thier heavy handed policies were just, but it is HISTORY now. Get on with your lives and make it better for fututre generations and quit blaming the past or you will never be able to move on. Waste.
Amen to that.
I really no longer care how many federally funded mosques Obama builds over his next 4 years, or how many fat, illiterate Blacks and White butch-ladies he puts on the Supreme Court the next four years, or how many illiterate Blacks are pretending to teach children in schools and getting Govt. checks for it, because my wife and I are GONE! After 38 years of a small business, eating cheaply, neither of us buying a new car for a combined total of 48 years, and investing very, very wisely, we are finally able to sell everything and move to an ALL WHITE country, and within 24 months we will be gone (and never have to interact with Blacks again). Either Eire or Norway will do fine because we don't care how high the taxes are, ITS WORTH IT TO ESCAPE.
you should be searching for Hitler's grave, I think it will solve your sorrows
Don't be so damned sure, Knight Bus.
Europeans may not take all that kindly to the likes of you.
you know where Norway is? Its on land thats shaped like a penis! Its the fags, they're gonna get you after you escape from the blacks!
neanderthals might have been killed off by cro-magnon , how much was paid to the few survivors then ? besides that thought , how many billions have been wasted in africa up to this point ? if africa were blockaded for 50 years or so the slate would be wiped clean and all could be done all over again anyway .
you should be asking how many trillions are stolen from Africa by the west instead
You're talking about the group at the very bottom of the bell curve, born with IQs so low that they are basically retarded, drooling morons that can only murder each other with machetes, no knowledge of the wheel before the late 16th cent. Never developed a written language in 25,000 years. Spoon feed them or they die. They are like sharks: they breed and, given the chance, they kill humans. They are excess population.
This is great news for the lawyers. There is a lot of meat on these bone once you get the carcase open. Then, feeding time!
What do they expect these countrys to do? raise the dead from their graves? they are only doing this for more money, and i frankly dont support giving federal money to those countrys anyways, private donations are fine, but the government shouldn't donate it, this is just a grab for money by those countrys, and i frankly dont support it
it is obvious that in today's mind set, holding people responsible is not actually the fact, holding entire cultures responsible is much more rewarding, acting as if all in the U.S.A. were responsible for slavery is unforgivable as troops massed and went to fight a war against their cousin's and distant relatives to free slaves, in Europe it was no different to claim that someone or a culture is responsible is unforgivable these law suit groups are being directed by fortune seeking lawyers, and the court will either dismiss, and be held in contempt by the historic victims or the court will hold the children guilty for the sin's of the father, either way our systems are broken statutes of limitations should be re-enforced where no matter what the crime if you do not say anything for 15 years, your claim should be denied because of the burden of proving innocence is to compromised, and photos and memories are not accurate.
As I see it Kenya and Hawaii now owe us 5 trillion dollars as reperations.
This is getting out of hand the people in power then are gone now !! Get over it !!
What makes most responders here so slimy is the fact you think that the money we send them now can make up for the torture and death of people in the past. It is a very sad way to look at life.
Simply a case of more N*****s wanting more free stuff. It never stops.
We need the return and reenstatement of segregation ASAP. Bring back Jim Crow and save the schools.
Go crawl back in your hole, troll.
All they are asking for is loose shoes, a warm place to $h1t in a section eight, and free White wimmenz.
(If you give a Black a fish, he is able to feed himself for a day. If he finds a place to steal fish he can feed hilmself for a lifetime.)
Atrocities were committed by both sides, only the invaders should have to pay. If you invade another's country, expect them to fight back. I know i would! Therefore; it stands to reason, reparations should be given. End of story!
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT!!!
Declare your own personal war on Economic Terror
Vote OUT Obama's Bin Lyin
A bigger threat to our Country than Al Qaida
Vote Romney/Ryan for your future
Weren't Our founding fathers a bit anti colonialism
If you stop kicking me I should be grateful to you? I think not. Get a grip
Reality has a Liberal Bias.
Subjects such as this one seem to bring the vile white supremacists out of their holes in droves.
Just one more argument for getting all US forces back onto US soil and securing OUR borders. What happens in the rest of the world is none of our business, unless, of course, we decide to invade another country and declare war on a duly elected government and take over their natural resources -- like we're doing with the opium crop in Afghanistan.
OMG, how arrogant, and disgraceful europeans are that they believe that they should not and will not be held accountable for the horrific actions of their past..... The are refusing to acknowledge what they did to thousands upon thousands of people.......reparations are due. I can only say that one day I hope and pray that the evil that europeans (point blank .....white people ) will be visited upon them. and because God is a just God, every white man, woman and child will suffer and burn in hell, simply because of the very nature of who you are, and what you are....... The sins of the fathers will one day be visted upon the children, and then they will know a very true and deserved pain.......
If we pay will you leave it be? No, didnt think so. You want nothing less than the genocide of European people.
Let's all pay for the sins of our grandfathers and great grandfathers. Nonsense has risen to new heights. What idiot judge allowed this case to proceed.
Lawyers, with their bogus lawsuits, are bottom feeding scum acting with bull$hit altruism when their real motive is greed.
We cannot undo or rectify what has happened in the past. It is done, it is history, albeit history that has been modified towards a particular ideology to eliminate guilt or responsibility. Let it go and get on with making the present and the future better. Who in their right mind wants to carry yesterdays garbage around for the rest of their miserable lives, whining and crying about their victimization. Oh, woe is me, therefore give me money and make me rich. Lawyers!! Pah!!
Good grief, how many lawsuits could be filed against the descendants of Genghis Khan or Attila or the Ottoman Empire or the Roman Empire or Alexander the Great, etc., etc., etc. The list is virtually endless.
Clueless thieves & murderers followed by well-meaning fools who brought "civilization" to places that had their own balance with nature.
Alas, it has always been so.
paganponderer: Are you kidding me? How do you know they were innocent? They could have eaten each other, did ritual killing or massacred rival tribes. What your saying is civilization went into Utopian societies to wipe out their harmonious lifestyles? Get real.
Balance with nature my A$$. That is a Disney myth, just like the "Noble Savage".
Setting up a strawman with that "utopia" comment. I said nothing about utopia or harmony. Just balance like in the animal kingdom... where animals eat other animals.
They had a high birthrate in those places to offset the high deathrate. West introduces medicine... deathrate goes down, birthratestill high. Hello, overpopulated cesspools.
The West went to those places because they wanted loot. They were no better than modern day hoodlums in a ghetto shoplifting or carjacking, Any "civilizing the savages" was either post facto justfication for doing what they wanted to do anyway out of greed, and to make it easier to rule them,
paganponderer: It is true about wanting something from many different places. However they also had the opportunity to branch out or increase their lot. They chose not to either from not being able to or by not having any ambition. Having more people means greater production and voices in government. Why did some advance and others did not? Think about the business model. Had they been cooperative things may have went in another direction.
If you want an answer to that question, read Pulitzer-prize winning book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
If you want a glimpse into what the future may hold for us, read his "Collapse" book.
I am sure it is thought provoking and insightful. I do not want you think we are not in agreement on most issue's, but you only have to open your eye's to see the world as it really is. The most dangerous thing in the world today is the GRID.