Rotting Among the Tsetse
The British government sought to hide the brutality of its conduct during the Kenya Emergency. Previously hidden files reveal an unpalatable truth.
In the years before Britain’s former colonies – from Ghana to Malaysia – gained independence, thousands of documents were quietly removed from the record to safeguard the ‘honour’ of the British Empire. A decade has now passed since the British government was forced to admit that it had stolen and hidden these files. Now held in the National Archives, they were unearthed during a lengthy legal proceeding brought by former Mau Mau detainees claiming compensation from the British government for atrocities committed during the eight years of the Kenya Emergency.
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