Kenya: Declassified

 

These UK files/articles on the brutal UK war in Kenya in 1950s highlight mass killings, starvation as policy, torture, forced labour, rape as well as cover-ups and destroying of evidence.

 

Documents

‘Kenya: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, (13 November 1957, National Archives, at page 85)


Articles

1950s war against ‘Mau Mau’

Mark Curtis, The Mau Mau war in Kenya, 1952-60 (Extract from Web of Deceit, 2003)

‘Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire’ (Guardian, 18 August 2016)

‘“Unsound” minds and broken bodies: the detention of “hardcore” Mau Mau women at Kamiti and Gitamayu Detention Camps in Kenya, 1954–1960’ (Katherine Bruce-Lockhart, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2014)

‘May 2013: The Mau Mau victims’ (British Radical History Group, 2013)

‘UK officials burned, dumped “embarrassing” Kenya colonial documents’ (Daily Nation, 30 November 2013)

‘Academic sleuthing uncovered British torture of Mau Mau fighters’ (The Conversation, 6 June 2013)

‘British abuse and torture in Kenya’s counter-insurgency, 1952–1960’ (David Anderson, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2012)

‘Mau Mau massacre cover-up detailed in newly-opened secret files’ (Guardian, 30 November 2012)

‘Mau Mau massacre documents revealed’ (BBC, 30 November 2012)

‘Sins of colonialists lay concealed for decades in secret archive’ (Guardian, 18 April 2012)

‘British colonial files released following legal challenge’ (BBC, 18 April 2012)

‘The colonial papers: FCO transparency is a carefully cultivated myth’ (Guardian, 18 April 2012)

‘Myths of Mau Mau expanded: rehabilitation in Kenya’s detention camps, 1954–60’ (A.R.Baggallay, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2011)

‘Mau Mau in the High Court and the ‘Lost’ British Empire Archives: Colonial Conspiracy or Bureaucratic Bungle?’ (Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, November 2011)

‘Soldiers in the Court Room: The British Army’s Part in the Kenya Emergency under the Legal Spotlight’ (Huw Bennett, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, November 2011)

‘Secret memo gave guidelines on abuse of Mau Mau in 1950s’ (Guardian, 11 April 2011)

‘Kenyan Mau Mau uprising documents released’ (BBC, 6 April 2011)

‘UK bid to cover up Mau Mau torture exposed’ (Daily Nation, 5 April 2011)

‘The Other Side of the COIN: Minimum and Exemplary Force in British Army Counterinsurgency in Kenya’ (Huw Bennett, Small Wars & Insurgencies, December 2007)

‘British counter‐insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56: Extension of internal security policy or prelude to decolonisation?’ (David Percox, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 1998)


Other

‘MI5 spied on suspected communists & anti-colonial leaders, secret files reveal’ (RT, 21 August 2015)

Somalia “could be base for subversion” – 1960 Foreign Office documents’ (Guardian, 27 September 2013)