Britain's £2.6 million a mockery to Mau Mau victims

trueBy Asiimwe Stephen

On December 16, 1884, the Berlin Conference took place chaired by Chancellor Von Bismark the captain of colonialism. Sharing, plundering, killing and torturing Africans was agenda number one, very few countries like Ethiopia and Liberia in Africa survived this historical damage.

Last week the prime Minister of Britain, David Cameroon, delegated his foreign secretary, William Hague, to announce that each of the 528 Kenyans enjoined to the Kenyan Human Right Commission case of torture and illegal detentions form six decades ago would receive a paltry 4,000 pounds each.

He proceeded to render a sincere regret for those events, you can imagine a torture of 60 years and each victim is given 4,000 pounds each and total 2.6 million pounds money that cannot buy for Manchester United stockings for one month? What a mockery?

Nations that participated in plunder all over the world or made mistakes have been paying reparations, in 1952, German paid 882 pounds for the World War Two Holocaust, 1971, USA paid $1b plus 44 million acres of land to natives of Alaska, January 30, 1972, British paratrooper soldiers shot dead 14 unarmed human rights demonstrators and injured a dozen others in Derry city. It took 38 years for Britain to apologise; the Irish people have been compensated $ 80,000 to each victim but it has been rejected.

In 1980, the US paid $881b to Klamaths of Oregon for grabbing their land and killing many of them. In 1985, the US paid $32m to Otwa of Michigan for the violation of the Treaty.

In 1990, the US paid $1.2m to Japanese Americans, North Carolina having paid in terms of land and cash. Therefore, the Mau-Mau, Maji-Maji, Shona- Ndembele the 1994 victims of Genocide in Rwanda under the French supervision and United Nations of Kofi Anan then should be given a decent reparation.

In 2003, Libya paid $10m to each of the families of the Lock Bie plane bombing and more recently Britain paid a Libyan dissident $3.3m for rendition and torture. As a historian, if Britain had known how cheap it was to sort out its imperialist histories, they probably would have organised a whole bunch pay-offs decades ago? But since they are still colonising may be they are working on it?

The Mau-Mau case also opens a Pandora box for all colonisers to deal with other claims for compensation, for example, the Chimulega victims, the Bunyoro victims and many others at large on the continent.

Two weeks ago, the UN committee against torture reprimanded Britain for its failure to investigate historical torture in Northern Ireland and for its counter terrorism methods of today.

After the war in Iraq, UN set up a committee to investigate weapons of mass destruction, the report did not find anything? USA, Britain and its coalition members had already destroyed Iraq, killed a number of people -- it is only sad if you check the documented evidence now available in Britain’s Foreign office archives, we still have people albeit pro-colonialists who consider our glorious struggle for freedom a mere rebellion that deserved to be brutally crushed.

The Mau-Mau case is a drop in an ocean and the whole of entire Europe participated in colonialism with theirs leading looters as Britain, France, German, Belgium, Portugal, and others, their continued threat on the donation and Aid to Africa is just a mere threat, like scarecrow in the garden, they need Africa more than ever before we have oil, fresh water, forests and beaches where they come for sun bathing.

If they are serious, let me see them close their embassies and go home, when president Kagame closed French embassy in Rwanda, the then French president Sackozy came and apologised to Rwandese for arresting Rose Kabuye wrongly in France on pretence of crimes against humanity and lost elections eventually as Sekou Toure said “we rather die poor in freedom than rich in slavery”.

We must all collectively resist this colonial conspiracy in the 21st Century of refunding peanuts  compared to labour of slaves, fertile land occupied by colonialists in Kenya highlands and displaced people up to now that is why Robert Mugabe remains a celebrated president in Africa ever.

Yes we shall continue talking about partners but it is hard for a rat to partner with a cat, therefore, the recent refund by former Great Britain to Mau-Mau is a big mockery to this generation and relatives of all those victims.

The writer is a Pan Africanist