Legacy of Colonialism Kenya 1952-60

Kenya and its native Kikuyu people were colonized by the British Empire in 1920. By 1952 tensions between the white settler/colonists and the Landless Kikuyu who had organized into the Kenya Land and Freedom Army became violent. Labelled by the British as the Mau Mau, over 1,5 million native Kenyans were interned including US President Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather who like many others was tortured whilst in British custody.

By 1955, over one thousand alleged rebels had been executed on portable gallows. By the end of the conflict in 1960, over 50,000 Mau Mau had been killed. Two hundred British soldiers and police and 32 white settlers also died. Many senior Army officers involved in the suppression of the uprising went on to serve in Northern Ireland including Frank Kitson who established the covert counter insurgency Military Reaction Force in Belfast in 1971. Former RUC Chief Constable Kenneth Newman also served in the colonial police in Kenya.

In 2013, the London Courts awarded £20 million compensation to five thousand Kenyans who were victims of torture or rape during the Mau Mau uprising. 

More recently controversy has arisen over on-going serious gender based human rights violations by British soldiers who maintain a permanent training base in the Nanjuki area of Kenya. As far back as 2003 an Amnesty report catalogued hundreds of cases of rape by British soldiers in the area.

In 2024 a Kenyan Parliamentary Inquiry took evidence from dozens of civilian witnesses about criminal behaviour by soldiers on and off duty.  

Agnes Wanjiru murder: Kenya family's anger over UK army 'cover-up' - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedd92vn5lko

UK: Decades of Impunity: Serious Allegations of Rape of Kenyan Women by UK Army Personnel