Kenya:ย Britainย has agreed on a Sh1.8 billion compensation settlement for thousands of Kenyanstortured by colonial forces during theย Mau Mauย uprising, a lawyer and expert witness said on Wednesday.
According to Londonรขยยs Guardian newspaper, the historic compensation payment will be officially announced today at an occasion in whichย Britainwill express its รขยยsincere regretรขยย for theย tortureinflicted upon thousands of people imprisoned during Kenyaรขยยsย Mau Mauย insurgency.
In a statement to MPs, WilliamHague, foreign secretary, is expected to announce payments of รยฃ2,600 (Sh340,000) each to more than 5,000 survivors of the vast network of prison camps that the British authorities established across its colony during the bloody 1950s conflict: a total of about รยฃ13.9m (Sh1.82 billion).
After weeks of negotiations with lawyers representing three elderly former prisoners who brought a series of test cases in the high court in London, the government has agreed also to fund the construction of a memorial in Nairobi to Kenyaรขยยs victims of colonial-eraย torture.
Negotiations began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly Kenyans, who suffered castration, rape and beatings while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies in the 1950s, could sueย Britain.
Theย tortureย took place during the so-called Kenyan รขยยEmergencyรขยย of 1952-60, when fighters from theMau Mauย movement attacked British targets, causing panic among white settlers and alarming the government in London.
รขยยWe have agreed on an out-of-court settlement,รขยย Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to theย Mau Mauย veterans seeking compensation, told Reuters.
รขยย(The negotiations) have included everybody with sufficient evidence ofย torture. And that number is about 5,200,รขยย he said.
Theย Mau Mauย nationalist movement originated in the 1950s among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. Its loyalists advocated violent resistance to British domination of the country.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed or maimed and 160,000 detained during the uprising. London tried for three years to block theย Mau Mauย veteransรขยย legal action in the courts, drawing condemnation from the elderlyย tortureย victims who accused Kenyaรขยยs former colonial master of using legal technicalities to fight the case.
Courts rejected
Caroline Elkins, a Harvard history professor who acted as an expert witness in the case launched in 2009, said the settlement would be the first of its kind for the former British Empire.
รขยย(It) should be seen as a triumph,รขยย Elkins told Reuters during a visit to Nairobi for the British announcement.
Elkins wrote the book รขยยImperial Reckoning: The Untold Story ofย Britainรขยยs Gulag in Kenyaรขยย which served as the basis for theย Mau Mauย case.
Britainย had first said that responsibility for events during theย Mau Mauย uprising passed to Kenya upon its independence in 1963, an argument which London courts rejected.
The government then said the claim was brought long after the legal time limit. But a judge in Octoberรขยยs ruling said there was ample documentary evidence to make a fair trial possible.-standardmedia.co.ke
