For me, the gripping court case for the week is not the appearance of six Kenyans before the International Criminal Court. The case that drew my attention is the start of the hearing of the Mau Mau case before Justice McCombe in the High Court in London.
In this case, four Kenyans have brought a representative suit in which they seek damages, compensation and a “statement of regret” from the British Government for the atrocities the British committed against Kenyans between 1952 and 1961.
The case quite unpleasantly for the David Cameron Administration brings to the fore what is now referred to as “imperialism in human rights discourse”.
In a month when the British Government has told the world that it is protecting Libyans against their government, and is at the forefront of The Hague trials for six Kenyans, that same government is refusing to compensate for the gross human rights abuses it wantonly committed against innocent and defenceless Kenyans.
The facts of the Mau Mau case are simple. The case is premised on a pattern of systematic torture, starvation, mass killing and, in some instance, burning alive of Kenyans.
The use of rape and sodomy as a form of torture and punishment was also prevalent and widespread among British soldiers.
The most common form of sexual abuse according to the pleading filed in court were “the insertion of sand into the men’s anus’’ and the insertion of glass bottles filled with hot liquid into women’s birth canals.
In one horrifying incident, 11 men were clubbed to death in the presence of the British Governor to Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring.
To the credit of the British Government, it doesn’t deny the facts alleged by the Mau Mau claimants.
In fact, pursuant to an order by the court, the government released 300 boxes and 17,000 pages of documents that vividly describe the atrocities.
These documents were secretly shipped from Kenya a few months before independence and were thought to have been lost or destroyed.
In one of the documents, a district commissioner called C.M. “Monkey” Johnson wrote to the Attorney-General asking for amnesty to be extended because “every one of us, from the Governor downwards, may be in danger of removal from the public service”.
One will be asking that since the facts surrounding human rights abuses by the British Government are not in dispute, why is the case being contested? The answer lies in the senseless defence adopted by the British Government. It is not that the same is just laughable.
It is more a testimony to the fact that Britain has no regard for the human blood it so needlessly spilt. It is a validation of “human rights imperialism” that the West plays as its trump card.
In supporting The Hague trials of the six Kenyans and justifying the invasion of Libya, Britain is simply adhering to its deep imperialistic instinct.
It has nothing to do with human rights in the sense the rest of the world knows. In both instances, it is in line with its strategic interests in Kenya and Libya.
Robert Jay QC, the lawyer for the British Government, has applied to strike out the case on two grounds.
First, that legal liability of the British Government was transferred to Kenya in 1963 upon independence. Second, he contends that facts underpinning the case are old and the cause of action has simply “ceased to exist”. That contention is both ugly and untenable.
What is disappointing is the press coverage of this historic trial in Kenya. Both the print and electronic media have given it a wide berth.
Even the civil society, probably because their benefactor is on the dock, have kept quiet.
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