Soldiers guard
suspected Mau Mau fighters behind barbed wire in the Kikuyu reserve in
October 1952, during the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule
in Kenya. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images
The decision to compensate the victims of torture and illegal detention during the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya (Britain has said sorry to the Mau Mau,
7 June) is heartening and must lend weight to claims for compensation
by those whose civil and human rights were abused by British security
forces in the first colonial counterinsurgency campaign of the postwar
era, in Palestine.
Illustration: Gary Kempston
Will the government now apologise for the torture and murder of a
16-year-old boy, Alexander Rubowitz, who was seized by an undercover
police squad led by Major Roy Farran in the Rehavia district of Jerusalem on 6 May 1947? Rubowitz was a member of LEHI, the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel,
a proscribed underground organisation responsible for numerous
assassinations and bombings. But when he was apprehended he was doing
nothing worse than distributing anti-British propaganda. He was taken to
a deserted area outside Jerusalem, where Farran struck him repeatedly
on the head with a rock, causing his death. Farran admitted this to his
commanding officer, Colonel Bernard Fergusson, and said the policemen
with him had stripped the boy's body and mutilated it. The corpse was
never recovered. Farran was subsequently investigated by the Palestine
police force and arrested. He fled custody twice. In October 1947 a
court martial acquitted him on the grounds that, if there was no body,
no murder could be proved. Subsequent attempts by the Rubowitz family to
bring Farran to justice using criminal and civil proceedings were all
foiled. (...)
UK To Compensate Kenya's Mau Mau Victims
It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The abuses took place during the so-called Kenyan 'Emergency' between 1952 and 60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets.
Those attacks sparked panic among white settlers and alarmed the government in London, prompting one of the British Empire's most shameful episodes.
Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to the Mau Mau veterans seeking compensation, said: "We have agreed on an out-of-court settlement.
"(The negotiations) have included everybody with sufficient evidence of torture. And that number is about 5,200."
The settlement will reportedly total £14m, which equates to 339,560 Kenyan shillings per claimant - in a country where average national income per capita is around 70,000 shillings.
The Mau Mau nationalist movement originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Its loyalists advocated violent resistance to British domination of the country.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained during the uprising.
Britain tried for three years to block the Mau Mau veterans' legal action in the courts, drawing condemnation from the elderly torture victims who accused Kenya's former colonial master of using legal technicalities to fight the case.
Caroline Elkins, a Harvard history professor who acted as an expert witness in the case launched in 2009, said the settlement would be the first of its kind for the former British Empire.
"(It) should be seen as a triumph," she said.
Britain had first said that responsibility for events during the Mau Mau uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected.
The Government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. But a judge in October's ruling said there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible.
UK To Compensate Kenya's Mau Mau Victims
Britain is set to pay compensation to around 5,200 victims of
torture in prison camps set up during Kenya's Mau Mau conflict in the
1950s.
Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell the Commons on
Thursday that the survivors, who suffered abuses including castration,
rape and beatings, will get £2,600 each.It follows negotiations that began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly victims of torture while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies could sue the UK.
The abuses took place during the so-called Kenyan 'Emergency' between 1952 and 60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets.
Those attacks sparked panic among white settlers and alarmed the government in London, prompting one of the British Empire's most shameful episodes.
Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to the Mau Mau veterans seeking compensation, said: "We have agreed on an out-of-court settlement.
"(The negotiations) have included everybody with sufficient evidence of torture. And that number is about 5,200."
The settlement will reportedly total £14m, which equates to 339,560 Kenyan shillings per claimant - in a country where average national income per capita is around 70,000 shillings.
The Mau Mau nationalist movement originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Its loyalists advocated violent resistance to British domination of the country.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained during the uprising.
Britain tried for three years to block the Mau Mau veterans' legal action in the courts, drawing condemnation from the elderly torture victims who accused Kenya's former colonial master of using legal technicalities to fight the case.
Caroline Elkins, a Harvard history professor who acted as an expert witness in the case launched in 2009, said the settlement would be the first of its kind for the former British Empire.
"(It) should be seen as a triumph," she said.
Britain had first said that responsibility for events during the Mau Mau uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected.
The Government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. But a judge in October's ruling said there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible.
