Why horror of emergency era remains embedded in history

By Amos Kareithi

Majority of Kenyans who survived the emergency era atrocities have since died but the echoes of the cries will never fade from the collective memory of the country

When the colonial Government decided to strike against the revolting peasants in Kenya, ruthlessness and utmost secrecy was required. Although the emergency era operations were shrouded in secrecy, some details have over time emerged of how the colonialists, with the backing of their masters in London, dealt with the revolt, in the process killing thousands of peasants while orphaning numerous children. Hansard records show that one day after the State of Emergency was declared in the Kenya Colony in 1952 top mandarins in London were at pains to explain to lawmakers that this was the only option to restore peace. When Lord Munster, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the colonies, took the floor on October 21, 1952, to update his colleagues on the situation in Kenya, just hours after a State of Emergency had been declared; he won over both the Government and the opposition into supporting the scheme.

He argued: “As the House is aware, a State of Emergency was proclaimed in Kenya last night. Secrecy was essential if the ringleaders were to be arrested quickly and violence avoided. The timing of the operation was arranged to coincide with the arrival of the First Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers from the Middle East.”

At the time, two battalions of the King’s African Rifles were stationed in Kenya, while an extra one, and two companies, had been moved from Uganda and Tanganyika. These troops, Lord Munster explained to a hushed house had been brought in solely as a reserve.

The tension leading to this state of affairs had according to Lord Munster been building since the middle of September during which period the situation had become progressively worse. “Once, crimes were committed by stealth, but now law and order are challenged in broad daylight. A hired gunman who did not even know his victim murdered Chief Waruhiu on the highway. Firearms and gelignite continue to be stolen and firearms, instead of knives, are being increasingly used by the terrorists,” he explained.

The arrival of the detachment of troops from foreign countries to beef up security in Kenya contradicted the Government’s initial assessment of the situation for although it predicted a short shocking operation that would instantly stamp out rebellion by amputating and beheading the Mau Mau. Lord Munster summed up the Government’s apprehension about the Mau Mau’s capability of unleashing terror: “Mau Mau terrorism is carefully planned, centrally directed and its object is to destroy all authority other than Mau Mau. Its leaders are establishing their own courts in their attempt to usurp the functions of Government.”

Difficulties and complexities

“Action against these leaders was imperative. The ordinary process of the law is necessarily slow. In present conditions in Kenya it would have allowed time and opportunity for those behind the outrages to organise widespread disturbances, in which numbers of innocent people might have been killed. The declaration of an emergency has enabled the Kenya Government to detain the ringleaders and their lieutenants, about 130 altogether. The prisoners will then be screened, and some may be released when the tension eases.”

He added, “I certainly hope that the forces which are now available in Kenya as a reserve will prove sufficient to stop any further spread of the Mau Mau terrorism. And I hope that they, supporting the police, will end as soon as possible the difficulties and complexities that have developed in the colony.

When the undersecretary was making this statement, little did he know that the operation that was calculated to last a few months would drag up for several months and bring up the worst in both the Government troops as well as the rebellious men it was trying to nail. The entry of Kings African Rifles (KAR) in Kenya gave one of Uganda’s most prolific soldiers, Idi Amin Dada, a perfect training ground where fiction and facts have been used to relive his days in Kenya. Amin, who was born in 1924 in Koboko in Uganda, had joined the British colonial army in 1946 as a junior cook, but rose through the ranks and eventually fought against the Mau Mau revolt in the mid-1950s.

Perhaps his experiences in Kenya helped hone his sadistic skills during this period. He would later use these skills as president of Uganda in 1972 and ascend to international infamy for his alleged love to inflict pain on civilians and his personal enemies.

Caroline Elderkin in Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya writes that thousands of young men, both black and white cut their battle teeth in Kikuyu reserves. Such men, Elderkin writes, was Amin, whose KAR had been deployed from Uganda. By the time Amin and his men came into Kenya, a combination of other forces comprising of Kenya Police Reserve, Kenya Regiment, the Home Guard and the Kenya military had distinguished themselves in combating the Mau Mau.

According to Elderkin, these forces had been involved in a screening campaign to determine who was sympathetic to the Government or was on Mau Mau’s side. The operation had achieved the objective of terrorising all perceived sympathisers of the Mau Mau and balkanised them to hate the Government intensely.

Screening campaign

In the eyes of the Government all such civilians were Mau Mau savages and were treated as such as the line between combatants and the non-combatants was blurred as the Government hunted down its enemies.

As the situation worsened the Government, through the War Council in June 1955, passed a raft of measures aimed at destroying the will and the capacity of the Kenyans to oppose the colonialists violently.

The resolutions that took effect on September 1955 mandated Government troops and security agents to kill and capture as many freedom fighters as possible and at the same time deny them vital supplies such as food and ammunition. Even as the Government combed both the Aberdare and Mt Kenya Forests in pursuit of the “terrorists,” it also formulated a mechanism of punishing civilians deemed to be cooperating or sympathising with the enemies of the Government. The War Council also directed that all loyalists who supported the colonial authorities be rewarded and insulated from prosecution, as it would later emerge.

Backed by the Government with such Cabinet resolutions, the soldiers the police and other security agents perpetrated some of the most unspeakable atrocities against civilians in modern times. It is against this background that some of the most harrowing atrocities were committed.

To date some people still cling in repulsion as they recount the horrors they witnessed. Elderkin captures one of the atrocities that were committed by security forces. At that time, the Government troops went in full force to Kandara, in Murang’a (then known as Fort Hall district). A woman who survived the nightmare later told Elderkin what she experienced, “British security forces just went crazy. They stripped us naked and started beating some of the people. Some people were led off and shot.

Others were executed right there. Later the whites ordered them buried beneath the road and tarmacked it over again.” According to the survivor, “For a long time, you could see the dried blood that had oozed to the surface and out of the surface.”

Complicity of soldiers

Similar massacres were replicated in Nyeri and other parts of Central Kenya where wives of suspected Mau Mau fighters, their children and relatives were targeted by Government forces and at times summarily executed. The complicity of soldiers in such massacres is given credence by one Provincial Commissioner CM Johnson, whose letter shows the Government was fully aware of the wickedness and brutality of its forces even the supposedly disciplined soldiers towards civilians but was unwilling to investigate. Johnson’s letter dated January 26,1956, concedes that some soldiers attached to the fifth KAR had indeed massacred 21 people in Karingani and Mugomoni locations in Meru between June 17 and 18 in 1953.

In the letter, the PC also discloses that the Government had paid a sum of £105 (Sh13,650) but said that he was opposed to any form of investigations.

“What does worry me is that it was considered necessary to make enquiries into an incident that took place before January 18, 1955. We must stick strictly to the Amnesty and refuse to institute any enquiry into any allegations of malpractices prior to the amnesty.”

Such was the blood and tears that watered the tree of freedom in Kenya, culminating with independence, 49 years ago. Majority of Kenyans who survived the emergency era atrocities have since died but the echoes of the cries will never fade from the collective memory of the country for it’s deeply embedded in our history.

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