Imperial Reckoning

by Caroline Elkins

  The government insisted that these instances of brutality had to be understood in the context of Mau Mau. It was a brutal war in Kenya, so the government’s logic went, and the local British forces were doing their best considering the bloodthirsty savagery of the enemy. Lennox-Boyd offered this reasoning when faced with a similar assault on the floor of the Commons less than a week later. Labour MPs were demanding explanations along with the publication of Young’s resignation letter in full. But, as Castle later recalled, “[Lennox-Boyd] brushed us aside. There had been some abuses, he admitted, but the Governor of Kenya was correcting them. We must not forget the horrors of Mau Mau and so on. There was no need for him to publish Colonel Young’s report.” 20

  Hardly satisfied, Castle began her own independent investigation into Kenyan atrocities and discovered a small article in the British press about the flogging to death of a Mau Mau suspect named Kamau Kichina. She continued to dig and soon discovered that “the legal records revealed a picture of behaviour so horrifying that one could not imagine it happening in a British colony.” 21 Kamau had been employed at a police station, and when the two British officers in charge, Fuller and Waters, discovered some money had disappeared, they suspected Kamau of stealing it to fund Mau Mau. After several days of torture Kamau allegedly confessed to the crime, and on the fifth day he died. Remarkably, the case was prosecuted and brought to trial. During the preliminary hearing, the resident magistrate, Mr. Harrison, offered the following evidence.

  Throughout Kamau’s captivity no effort was spared to force him to admit his guilt. He was flogged, kicked, handcuffed with his arms between his legs and fastened behind his neck, made to eat earth, pushed into a river, denied food for a period and left out for at least two nights, tied to a pole in a shed not surrounded by walls with only a roof overhead and wearing merely a blanket to keep out the cold…. He was never brought before a magistrate in the proper manner and he received no trial whatever, the right of all British subjects. 22

  Castle was stunned to learn that Harrison, rather than fully prosecuting Fuller and Waters, actually reduced their murder charge to one of “causing grievous bodily harm.” Ultimately, the magistrate did convict the two British officers, sentencing them each to eighteen months in prison, a sentence so light that the Supreme Court intervened and increased their sentences to three and a half years.

  It was the case of Kamau Kichina, coming so soon after the Young affair, that prompted Castle and the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee to declare war on the Conservative government because of its dereliction of rule in Kenya. Lennox-Boyd was furious, and in another round of debate in the House of Commons he again deflected charges that there was a massive cover-up ongoing in Kenya. According to Castle, the colonial secretary insisted, “I was wrong in suggesting that Colonel Young’s resignation had anything to do with cases like this [i.e., Kamau Kichina’s] and, no he could not publish his resignation report. The charges against Fuller and Waters had been reduced ‘in consequence of the medical evidence,’ but he would not put that evidence in the [House] library.” 23 Lennox-Boyd knew that Young’s resignation and the Kamau Kichina case were but the tip of an iceberg, as did Castle and other members of the Labour Party. But the Opposition needed more hard evidence, which meant someone had to go to Kenya. Within weeks Castle had her bags packed, and on November 1, 1955, she boarded a plane to Nairobi.

  Not surprisingly, Castle’s informant in Kenya was Duncan McPherson, the assistant police commissioner who had served under Young. Like his former boss, McPherson was “another prototype of the British policeman at his best—a sturdy Scot, frank, open and direct.” 24 But like the handful of others willing to challenge the colonial government, McPherson was cautious, taking Castle to the middle of Kenya’s National Park where the only audience for their first conversation were the herds of zebra and wildebeest. There he confirmed that evidence in the Kamau Kichina case had been covered up, and insisted there were plenty of others just like it that were still ongoing. In fact, on the eve of Young’s resignation, McPherson had drafted two lengthy memoranda outlining dozens of screening and detention camp abuses, cases where Mau Mau suspects were “battered to death” and “summarily shot,” and numerous instances where colonial officers either were directly involved with the torture and murder or had actively participated in the cover-ups, including exhuming corpses and dumping them into the forest. 25 At least one of these memoranda had been sent to Governor Baring. 26 He went on to tell Castle about the Pipeline, a situation that particularly disturbed him given his own internment during the Second World War. “The conditions in these camps were worse than he himself had ever experienced in the Japanese prisoner of war camps,” McPherson told her. “The diet was appalling, there was a lack of medical attention, there were illegal beatings, and above all else…many of these detainees were just rounded up by detention happy clerks without any real evidence of participation.” 27

  Castle then made her rounds through Kenya, where the rest of Lennox-Boyd’s underlings were just as she expected, tight-lipped and evasive. Many of them despised the Labour MP, who in their eyes was a liberal busybody, an outsider who did not understand how Kenya had to be ruled, and, worst of all, a woman. The new attorney general, Eric Griffith-Jones, took the liberty of bestowing upon her the nickname That Castellated Bitch. 28 But not everyone in Kenya disliked her. There were several Asian attorneys who greatly facilitated Castle’s investigation, as did her translator, Jean Wanjiru, who traveled with the MP throughout the colony. “She was the most remarkable woman I have ever met,” Jean later recalled. “I can still see her with her bright red hair telling Mr. [Monkey] Johnston that she would not stand for me, her Kikuyu translator, being fed and housed in different quarters. She hated the color bar, and Mr. Johnston was less than pleased when I sat at the dinner table with him. You must understand that the British officers did their best to intimidate her just like they did the Africans. Mrs. Castle never backed down, though. She wanted to know the truth, and they did their best to hide it from her. But you see, my dear, at that time in Kenya the government couldn’t hide everything, and despite their best efforts someone like Mrs. Castle was going to find out.” 29 Indeed, by the time she returned to Britain Castle had in fact amassed enough evidence to prove that the Kamau Kichina case was not an isolated one, and that the situation was worse than even Young and McPherson had described. 30

  The Labour MP also had the power of the press behind her. After her trip she contributed articles to the Daily Mirror and the New Statesman and Nation with headlines like “The Truth About the Secret Police” and “Justice in Kenya.” 31 In fact, the Daily Mirror had sponsored Castle’s tour, ensuring that her findings would make their way not just to a narrow group of concerned anticolonial critics but to a mass, largely working-class readership. Lennox-Boyd was less than pleased, snapping at Castle in the first round of House of Commons questioning after her return, “Ministers have not the privilege of being able to write regular articles for the Mirror,” and accusing her of “monstrous slanders.” 32 But then the colonial secretary went too far, attacking Castle personally and sparking a great partisan row that ended with Irene Ward, a Tory backbencher, declaring, “Is my Rt Hon. Friend [Lennox-Boyd] aware with what contempt responsible public opinion in Kenya will regard the conduct of the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn [Mrs. Castle]?” 33 As Castle’s biographer later pointed out, “Defending the rights of the untried against the Fleet Street lynch mob who were determined that all black Kenyans were implicated in the indiscriminate brutality of the Mau Mau, was of course guaranteeing [the Labour MP] fame and abuse in almost equal measure.” 34 Lennox-Boyd eventually did put the full report of Kamau Kichina’s case in the House of Commons library and promised that he would “look into” the other cases that Castle had brought to light. In the end, though, little was done. Castle later wrote, “[Lennox-Boyd] gave no sign whatsoever of a fundamental change of attitude. It was clear to me that the old complacent cove
r-ups were still going on.” 35

  In Kenya Governor Baring and his men on the spot were engaged in an effort to stem the flow of damaging information out of the colony. Despite the Official Secrets Act and shared loyalty to empire, there was a concern on the part of the colonial government that some of its officers in the field would leak details to the press or members of the Labour Party. These concerns had a basis as news did make its way out of Kenya, passed on deliberately or unwittingly by some of Britain’s local officers. In early 1953 Tony Cross had sent his account of police operations to the boys back home in London, prompting the Daily Worker to publish one of its many articles denouncing the government’s brutal behavior, this one titled “Gestapo Way in Kenya.” 36 In response, Kenya’s chief secretary, Henry Potter, reminded the local colonial servants of their expected code of conduct, issuing the first of several “Security of Information” memos in April of 1953. In it he rebuked his men, writing, “Leakages of information have already occurred, some of them being of a nature which might well have caused considerable embarrassment to Government.” 37

  Apparently, this directive was not enough. In late 1954 Taxi Lewis’s office sent out another memorandum, “Security of Information,” this time to all camp commandants in the Pipeline. The memo began by stating, “It is reported that some officers on leave in Nairobi and Mombasa are apt to air opinions and make statements in public places about the health, management and conditions of detainees at Manyani and Mackinnon Road camps which, being overheard by or repeated to reporters, are subsequently printed in the United Kingdom press and elsewhere.” Lewis then went on to remind his men of the consequences of such reckless behavior.

  The attention of all officers is drawn to the Code of Regulations, Paragraphs 270 (1) and (2) and 271 (1) which state most clearly that an officer may not contribute to the publishing of anything which may properly be regarded as of a political or administrative nature and should not allow himself to be interviewed on questions of public policy. The Commissioner directs that this instruction shall be brought to the notice of all officers and shall be strictly adhered to. It will be necessary to take disciplinary action against any officer contravening this order. 38

  But the leaks continued and would have been even more difficult to deflect had photographic evidence accompanied them. Rumors circulated in the corridors of the Governor’s House in Nairobi that some colonial officers were compiling personal photo albums of the camps, with images of deprivation and torture that, if put in the wrong hands, would be devastating. 39 Lewis again responded with a stern reminder: “Under no circumstances—except as provided by special exception, Section 22 of the Prisons Ordinance of 1948—will the photographs in or at any Prison building or installation or of any person or persons in the custody of the Prisons Department be allowed.” 40 This did not stop unauthorized information from finding its way into the press, both in Kenya and in Britain. Locally the East African Standard covered the camps, along with the wider war, on a daily basis. Back home the Manchester Guardian, the Observer, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Worker, and the New Statesman and Nation printed stories of colonial brutality and government evasiveness, while the more conservative papers like the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail hewed to the government line, evoking images of Mau Mau savagery and a benevolent if battered settler community that was entitled to the protection of Her Majesty’s forces.

  The colonial government was fighting the battle of information on two fronts. First, it sought to cut accusations of wrongdoing off at the source; without detailed reports or photographs Labour critics had only suggestive hearsay on which to base their accusations. Generally, Baring and his ministers were effective at controlling news leakages from their men on the spot. Of course, in many instances these were the same men who were perpetrating crimes against the Kikuyu population or who tacitly condoned the behavior of their public school and Oxbridge-trained colleagues. But a few officials did break ranks, anonymously or even publicly. Some were no doubt provoked by their own moral sense, others by the ostracism and retribution they suffered after lobbying internally to stop the ongoing brutality. Regardless, they sent uncensored information on to the Colonial Office, Labour MPs, and the British press, providing specific details on brutality and wrongdoing that continued to fuel bitter public debate over Kenya. With the publication of these reports Lennox-Boyd had to turn his attention to the other front in information management. That is, he had to control the damage.

  Still under pressure from the Young affair, the colonial secretary was assaulted by more accusations in May of 1956, this time from a former rehabilitation officer by the name of Eileen Fletcher. The charges she leveled concerning brutalities and breaches of law in the camps were more specific and extensive than those in previous reports. What made the situation particularly problematic for the colonial government was Fletcher’s credibility. A devout Quaker from Middlesex, England, Fletcher had been hired personally by Askwith because of her unusual credentials. “So many of my recruits were really the bottom of the barrel,” Askwith later recalled, “which made Ms. Fletcher and her abilities all the more impressive.” 41 Fletcher had twenty years of social welfare experience, including work in Europe’s postwar reeducation efforts. Convinced that she had a significant role to play in Kenya, Fletcher signed a four-year contract in 1954 to design and oversee the rehabilitation program for women and girls at Kamiti. Less than a year later she resigned from her post in protest against “the redefinition and distribution of functions of herself and the officers at Kamiti.” 42 Instead of spearheading reform work in the camp, she found herself taking orders from Katherine Warren-Gash, who had much different ideas about the nature of rehabilitation in the Pipeline. Fletcher had come to Kenya believing in Askwith’s vision of the camps and the role of reform in winning the war against Mau Mau, only to leave completely disillusioned.

  When Fletcher’s three-part series, titled “Kenya’s Concentration Camps—An Eyewitness Account,” was published in the Quaker periodical Peace News, the revelations electrified all sides of the political divide. 43 As part of her rehabilitation post, Fletcher had traveled throughout the colony from the transit camp at Gilgil, the holding camps at Langata and Manyani, to Narok and Athi River camps, as well as to the Mau Mau prison at Embakasi and to various screening centers and Emergency villages. It was from these experiences, together with her day-to-day observations at Kamiti, that Fletcher leveled her extensive list of allegations. At Langata she “found that all the males in the camp (many hundreds) including small boys, were wearing nothing but a blanket,” and orphaned children, as young as four years old, were malnourished and had little chance of leaving the camp since no one was stepping forward to claim them. 44 One prison officer told her that some women were banished to “single corrugated iron cells” for as long as a year, at which point, he boasted, “even the blackest will give in.” 45 Fletcher’s account emphasized the capricious justice of the screening camps, the relentless labor routines in the works camps, the sexual abuse of female detainees, the unsanitary conditions of most of the camps, and the undernourishment and general poor health of many of the detainees.

  Her allegations describing the treatment of juveniles were some of the most disturbing, at least for the Opposition. Fletcher reported that numerous girls under the age of fourteen, some as young as eleven, were incarcerated in Kamiti Prison for Mau Mau crimes. Several of these girls were reportedly lifers. In effect, they had been convicted of capital crimes, like consorting with terrorists, but because they were under the age of eighteen they were sentenced to life imprisonment, rather than to death. 46 This was a violation of Section 12(1) of Kenya’s Juveniles Ordinance, which declared it illegal to imprison any child under the age of fourteen. In theory the courts were supposed to remand such juveniles to an approved school, but no such institutions for girls even existed prior to Mau Mau. With nowhere to incarcerate young convicts, the judges sent them to the Pipeline, where they were detained with the adult popu
lation. According to Fletcher, many boys under the age of fourteen were similarly imprisoned. In fact, she recounted how Askwith himself would comment upon those held at Embakasi. “It will break your heart,” he said, “to see them shackled, nothing to do, in a very small dormitory and with a very small space for exercise. They have been there for a year and are just rotting.” 47

  Today, what remains of the evidence on juvenile detention strongly supports Fletcher’s allegations. Prior to the Emergency, the colonial government did very little in response to its own internally generated recommendations regarding the need for juvenile delinquency facilities throughout the colony. 48 With the notable exception of the approved schools for boys at Kabete and Dagoretti, nothing was being done to address the mounting problem of juvenile crime. With the outbreak of Mau Mau, there was simply nowhere to put juveniles either convicted or detained without trial for Emergency-related offenses. By the time Fletcher arrived, there were officially some sixteen hundred juveniles in Manyani Camp and at least two thousand being held throughout the Pipeline. 49 In theory, three departments had a degree of responsibility for these youths—the Prisons Department, the Community Development and Rehabilitation Department, and the Probation Department—but as with the adult population, it was the Prisons Department that had the decisive say over their treatment in the detention camps and prisons.

  There was, however, one promising development. In July 1955 Wamumu Approved School and Youth Camp was opened for male juveniles convicted and detained for Mau Mau offenses. This camp was arguably the only rehabilitation success story in Kenya, largely because it was under the sole control of Askwith and the liberal Probation Department. This made it the only facility in the Pipeline, aside from Perkerra Open Camp, that was wholly devoid of Prisons Department personnel and influence. 50 A comprehensive hearts-and-minds program—including physical recreation, Kiswahili and English classes, literacy courses, skill training, civics instruction, Boy Scout troops, and Empire Day parades—was implemented in Wamumu to great success. There were, nevertheless, some juveniles who did not cooperate, and like the adults they were slated for permanent exile. But in comparison to the rest of the camps in the Pipeline, Wamumu, with its proclaimed ethos of “Truth and Loyalty,” was a paradise for young Mau Mau suspects. Many of them went on after release to be employed in the Community Development and Rehabilitation Department or with settlers who were impressed with the success of the camp and the skills and discipline it imparted. 51