Mau Mau Kenyans want to sue U.K.

[mord]

I wonder if it's any of Hussein Obama's releatives                   











Mau Mau veterans lodge compensation claim against UK

Five Kenyans to present letter to No 10 calling for full inquiry into their claims of rape, castration and beatings during 1950s

   

    * Audrey Gillan
    * guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 June 2009 17.52 BST
    * Article history

Mau Mau prisoners

Mau Mau prisoners were held in terrible conditions, according to recent studies. Photograph: Terrence Spencer/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

A group of elderly Kenyans allegedly tortured and assaulted during the repression of their country's independence movement in the 1950s is to present a letter to No 10 tomorrow morning calling on the British government to launch an investigation into their treatment.

Today three men and two women, who say they were variously beaten, raped and castrated during the Kenyan "emergency" from 1952 to 1960, lodged a claim for compensation against the government at the high court and demanded an official apology. Tomorrow, they will ask Gordon Brown for a meeting to discuss their position.

The five are veterans of the Mau Mau movement, which rose up against the British colonial administration. Their lawyer, Martin Day, said he believed they had a good chance of success.

"This will be the first time that the British government has had to account for its terrible, terrible deeds. This case is about justice for those individuals who had a terrible, terrible time. A number of them suffered from castration, women suffered from horrendous sexual abuse, many, many Maus Maus were beaten, tortured and killed," he said. "This case is about bringing all those issues before the British court and a British judge to say 'what we did was wrong'."

The Mau Mau movement remained proscribed as a terrorist movement in Kenya until 2003, leaving those who had been members or accused of being members to "live under a shadow", Day said. This was part of a "quiet conspiracy" between the Kenyan and British governments.

The five plaintiffs travelled to Britain from rural Kenya, many clutching walking sticks as they made their way along London's streets.

Paul Multe, a former Kenyan MP, pointed out that the youngest of their number was in their late 70s. "Is it really moral that Britain should delay the hearing of this case?" Multe asked. "Is it not highly immoral that Britain should choose to do that for the purpose that these veterans will just die away?"

The five are: Ndiku Mutua and Paulo Nzili, who both say they were castrated, Jane Muthoni Mara and Susan Ngondi, who say they were seriously sexually assaulted, and Wambugu Wa Nyingi, who was imprisoned for nine years in spite of never having taken the Mau Mau oath.

Nyingi said he witnessed 14 men being killed in one camp and 11 in another, surviving only because he lay for three days amid their corpses and the guards assumed he was dead.

The Foreign Office said: "It is, of course, right that those who feel they have a case are free to take it to the courts. But as we have previously indicated to the solicitors, we expect to contest the cases on questions around liability and limitations. Because of the prospect of legal action and without seeing the detail of this, it would not be right to comment further on the particular aspects of this case."

The figures for the number of people detained during the Kenyan emergency period is disputed; the official estimate is 80,000.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/23/mau-mau-veterans-compensation