British colonialists bent laws to deny activists justice

By Amos Kareithi

In a court presided over by the greedy hyena, the goat should expect no justice, so goes the saying.

That was the case when the colonial administration took Mau Mau activists and suspected sympathisers to court, in its bid to wipe out the freedom movement.

Government agents, who controlled legitimate means of violence, were also quick to bend the law to suit their goal of breaking the resistance, as revealed by British colonial secret files.

As early as 1952, the Penal Code was changed to provide for death sentence for any suspects connected with administration of oath.

Although the governor at the time realised the consequences of imposing death sentence for any other offence other than murder, extracts from minutes of a meeting held on November 26, 1952 indicate he still sanctioned the practice as a temporary measure.

During another meeting to discuss emergency powers on August 17, the same year, the fate of politicians, among them J M Kariuki, who had allegedly incited the public to violence over the last 18 months, was sealed.

Jomo ‘disowns’ Mau Mau

The meeting was told a list had been prepared and that leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta were to be arrested, although they knew they could not sustain any charges against them.

Although they knew the evidence they had against the politicians could not sustain charges even in a ‘quasi-judicial proceeding’, E R Davies of the Native Council told the meeting he was determined to "put Jomo away by some means or other under the present law".

A plot was hatched to hold a big anti-Mau Mau meeting in Kiambu by the local DC, Mr NF Kennaway on August 24, 1952, where elders and church leaders would attend.

Kenyatta, the senior Government officers were told, had already been roped in by David Waruhiu and Eliud Mathu to disown Mau Mau.

The Government was growing impatient with its inability to convict suspected Mau Mau adherents and sympathisers as witnesses had a habit of refusing to testify even after recording statements with the police.

A Nairobi magistrate is quoted in a circular dated September 12, 1952, to have said some witnesses were dispatched for holidays in undisclosed places, making then unavailable to testify.

The criminal investigations department was frustrated by lack of co-operation and cites a case where Moris Mwai Koigi bragged about Mau Mau oath to 300 listeners in public but none could be persuaded to testify against him.

Chief Nderi of Nyeri, who wanted to testify, received a warning letter on the day of the hearing, cautioning him of dire consequences should he betray his people and country. The chief was later killed.

Desperate to contain the building up rebellion, the War Council, in 1955, introduced new measures, which gave Government forces the authority to kill as many ‘terrorists’ as possible.

Punish communities

The council further introduced communal punishment for the entire Gikuyu, Embu and Meru communities for co-operating with the ‘enemy’.

"This will also include concentration of the whole Kikuyu and Embu tribes into villages by August 31, 1955. Separate instructions will be issued for Meru," reads minutes of the meeting of the War Council.

To punish the detained communities further, they were denied a chance to grow crops or keep livestock, while food rations were controlled and the villagers subjected to forced labour.

The Judiciary also changed the rules to allow the changing of a charge sheet during any stage in trial and to save the Government any embarrassment of losing a case as a result of defective charges.

W S O Davies, who was the registrar of Supreme Court of Kenya, instructed magistrates to impose corporal punishment on any male aged between 16 to 45.