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05.04.2011 18:35:56
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Локальные конфликты;
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ВНЕЗАПНО нашли в подземельях МИДа ящики с документами о подавлении мятежа мау-ма
краткая аннотация - сабж (МИД ессно британский, т е Форин Офис)
поскольку Таймс нонче платные, выкладываю текст
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2972562.ece
Government efforts to cover up one of the worst episodes in British colonial history have been revealed by the discovery of a vast cache of documents relating to the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.
The papers, documenting efforts to put down insurgency, were spirited out of Africa on the eve of Kenya’s independence and have been held in secret government archives for half a century.
The files were unearthed only this year after four elderly Kenyans sued the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, claiming that they were tortured during the rebellion against British rule in Kenya between 1952 and 1960.
The claimants allege that they suffered “unspeakable acts of brutality, including castrations and severe sexual assaults”, under a system of torture carried out against the Mau Mau rebels by the British colonial authorities.
The case, which opens in the High Court on Thursday, has led to the discovery of 300 boxes of documents filling 110ft of shelving. The files were removed from Kenya in 1963, and secretly brought to Britain days before Kenya’s declaration of independence.
Officials deliberately removed evidence that “might embarrass Her Majesty’s Government”. The missing material was thought to have been destroyed or lost, but after the High Court judge ordered the Government to produce all relevant evidence, the documents were found in the Foreign Office archives: about 1,500 files.
The “vast majority” of the files relate to the Mau Mau, including the detention and punishment of suspected rebels, according to material released to the National Archives.
The documents appear to have been removed from Kenya as part of a policy of extracting sensitive or incriminating files from former colonies. Historians believe that similar files relating to Cyprus, Nigeria, Malaya, Palestine and other former dependent territories may also be held in secret.
“These documents were hidden away to protect the guilty,” David Anderson, Professor of African History at the University of Oxford, said yesterday. “And it’s not just Kenya. What other colonial skeletons are rattling in the FCO basement? Are there secret files from Cy-prus and Malaya, or from Nigeria and Rhodesia? It’s time to know the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.”
For many years, former Mau Mau detainees and their families who sought the official and legal records were told that these had been lost or destroyed, while historians have never been granted access to them.
The Kenyan claimants want a statement of regret from the Government and a welfare fund for the victims. There are at least 1,400 other former Mau Mau detainees alive, and if former colonial subjects from other countries follow suit, the Government could face claims for millions of pounds. Some of those allegedly implicated are living in Britain, raising the further possibility of criminal prosecutions.
At least 12,000 rebels were killed, but atrocities were committed on both sides, and an estimated 70,000 Kenyans were held in prison camps as the British tried to quell the uprising.
The four claimants, who arrived in Britain yesterday, are seeking
“damages for personal injuries caused by repeated assaults perpetrated by employees and agents of the British Colonial Administration in Kenya when they were detained”.
Their lawyers are expected to claim that the lost files show that the alleged assaults were “part of a system of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment applied by police, Home Guards and other members of the security services with the knowledge of the Colonial Administration”.
The Foreign Office says that it is not legally liable.
'Бій відлунав. Жовто-сині знамена затріпотіли на станції знов'