Army tortured Mau Mau rebels in 1950s

[struggle4progress]

Documents detail abuse during Kenyan uprising

Owen Bowcott
Saturday February 5, 2005
The Guardian

<snip> The documents show that the general commanding the British army in Kenya during the 1950s Mau Mau rebellion admitted to his political masters in Whitehall that some troops had tortured suspects. <snip>

The letter stated: "There is no doubt that in the early days ... there was a great deal of indiscriminate shooting by army and police. I am quite certain prisoners were beaten to extract information. It is a short step from beating to torture and I'm now sure ... that torture was a feature of many police posts".

Gen Erskine wrote that some settlers were "operating a private army" in police uniforms, killing suspected Mau Mau members. <snip>

Documents of the army's practice of "deep interrogation" in Northern Ireland, also released under the new act, stated: "The Compton inquiry found that five techniques (hooding, wall standing, subjecting to noise, deprivation of food and sleep) constituted physical ill treatment." <snip>

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,9061,1406496,00.html

[shrike]

1. "Something of Value"

I'm reading Howard Ruark's novel about the Mau Mau uprising. While it is fiction, Ruark is doing a good job, so far, of depicting colonial attitudes and those of the native population.