Imperial Reckoning
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28. Mbiyu Koinange and Joseph Murumbi, along with several other Kenyan exiles in Britain, formed the Kenya Committee in 1952, shortly before the State of Emergency. In 1953 the committee issued a statement of its aims, which included: “Because we believe that the causes of the present unrest in Kenya lie in the intolerable poverty and land hunger of the vast majority of the African people, and their complete denial of any democratic rights, we aim—1. To put before the British people the true facts concerning the present situation in Kenya…. 2. To arouse the British people to their direct responsibility for the conduct of the affairs in Kenya, and to enlist their sympathy and support to ensure that justice is done in Kenya. 3. To win the support of the British people for the just demands of the Africans in Kenya for elementary democratic rights, the right to have their own trade union and political organisations, and against all forms of racial discrimination.” See KNA, MAC/KEN 34/1, Kenya Committee, Kenya Report, 1953.
29. RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 365, Fabian Colonial Bureau, papers, box 117, file 4, item 13, National Council for Civil Liberties, “Civil Liberties in Kenya,” 1953.
30. PRO, CO 822/479/3, Hugh Fraser, MP, “Report of Visit to Kenya,” 6 October 1953.
31. For details on the formation of the United Kenya Club as an institution “to change people’s attitudes on racial matters,” see RH, Mss. Afr. s. 1770, Thomas Askwith, papers, T. G. Askwith, Memoirs of Kenya, 1936–61, 1: 25.
32. T. G. Askwith, interview, Cirencester, England, 9 June 1998.
33. T. G. Askwith, interview, Cirencester, England, 8 June 1998.
34. Petal Erskine Allen, interview, Nairobi, Kenya, 12 January 1999. Petal Erskine Allen occupied an interesting position within Kenya’s settler community. Her father, Derek Erskine, was one of the more liberal-minded settlers in the colony, having founded the United Kenya Club with Thomas Askwith and others. Her uncle was General George Erskine, the commander in chief of the British security forces in the colony, and her brother was the notorious Francis Erskine, a member of the Kenya Regiment and participant in the pseudogang operations in the forests.
35. Note that throughout Askwith’s writings he stresses that he was particularly drawn to Templer’s “repeated insistence that in order to overcome the uprising it [was] necessary to win over the hearts and minds of the people.” See RH, Mss. Afr. s. 1770, Thomas Askwith, papers, T. G. Askwith, Memoirs of Kenya, 1936–61, 1: 49.
36. KNA, MAA 8/154/2 and KNA, AB 4/133/11, Detention and Rehabilitation, a report submitted by T. G. Askwith to Henry Potter, chief secretary, 27 August 1953, 2–3. See also KNA, CS 2/8/211, memorandum from T. G. Askwith to Potter, 28 August 1953.
37. KNA, MAA 8/154/2 and KNA, AB 4/133/11, Detention and Rehabilitation, a report submitted by T. G. Askwith to Henry Potter, chief secretary, 27 August 1953, 3.
38. Ibid.
39. PRO, CO 822/479/3, Hugh Fraser, MP, “Report of Visit to Kenya,” 6 October 1953.
40. Note that Askwith was also the permanent secretary to the minister of community development, who was Beniah Ohanga. In most of the documentation, however, Askwith is referred to by his title of commissioner.
41. PRO, CO 822/703/14, record of a meeting held on Friday, 2 October 1953, at Government House, 5 October 1953.
42. T. G. Askwith, “Address Given to the African Affairs Sub-Committee of the Electors Union on November 16th, 1953,” 1 (seen courtesy of Askwith). The text of this address is also reprinted in Askwith’s From Mau Mau to Harambee (Cambridge: African Studies Centre, 1995), 100–09.
43. The repatriation of Chinese nationals was policy throughout the Malayan Emergency, and one that facilitated the rehabilitation process. In October 1949, however, Chinese communist armies refused to receive the repatriates. As a result, special detention camps—like those eventually instituted in Kenya—were created for the internment of the hard core. By September 1950, the Chinese government reopened deportation channels and welcomed them. With deportation reinstated, the numbers of special detention camps instituted in Malaya were minimal compared to the numbers eventually established in Kenya. See PRO, CO 1022/132/33, White Paper No. 24 of 1953, Federation of Malaya, “Detention and Deportation during the Emergency in the Federation of Malaya,” 14 March 1953; and “Rehabilitation in Singapore,” Times, 3 March 1953.
44. PRO, CO 822/794, minute from Bruce, 25 November 1955.
45. See PRO, CO 968/510, “Deportation,” cabinet paper, 1954.
46. Askwith, “Address Given to the African Affairs Sub-Committee,” 1.
47. Note that the Carter Land Commission conducted its hearings from 1932 to 1934, during which time it granted the Kikuyu 30.5 additional square miles of territory for their losses and 350 square miles for future needs. With its ruling, the commission deemed the Kikuyu to have ample territory, a view upheld by the British colonial government throughout the Emergency. See Report of the Kenya Land Commission, Cmnd. 4556(1934), 71–77, 129–44.
48. Askwith, interview, 9 June 1998. For further details on Askwith’s view of the Mau Mau oath, see KNA, MAA 8/154/2 and KNA, AB 4/133/11, Detention and Rehabilitation, a report submitted by T. G. Askwith to Henry Potter, chief secretary, 27 August 1953, 3; KNA, MAA 8/154/1, Askwith to Potter, 28 August 1953; and KNA, AH 14/26/61, Askwith to Potter, 1 September 1953.
49. Ibid.
50. Michael Blundell, So Rough a Wind (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964), 171.
51. T. G. Askwith, The Story of Kenya’s Progress (Nairobi: Eagle Press, 1957), 77.
52. J. C. Carothers, The Psychology of Mau Mau (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954).
53. Askwith, interview, 8 June 1998; also see Leakey’s Defeating Mau Mau in which he describes the benefits of a “full and free confession followed either by a traditional cleansing ceremony, or by a genuine return to Christianity.” L. S. B. Leakey, Defeating Mau Mau (London: Methuen, 1954), 85–86.
54. RH, Mss. Afr. 1770, Thomas Askwith, papers, T. G. Askwith, Memoirs of Kenya, 1936–61, 1:55; and PRO, CO 822/794/1, “Rehabilitation,” 6 January 1954, 2.
55. Memorandum, “African Vagrancy,” 12 January 1950; memorandum, “Some Observations on the Growth of Unrest in Kenya,” 24 October 1952; and memorandum, “Remedies for Unrest,” 30 October 1952 (seen courtesy of Askwith).
56. PRO, CO 822/576, W. H. Chinn, “Tour of Kenya,” 1951, 7.
57. KNA, AB 4/112/5 and PRO, CO 822/655/8, memorandum from T. G. Askwith, “Purpose of the Community Development Organization,” 26 February 1953, 19.
58. Askwith, interview, 8 June 1998.
59. PRO, CO 822/794/1, “Rehabilitation,” 6 January 1954.
60. T. G. Askwith, personal correspondence with author, 12 August 1998. Note that Askwith expressed the same concept throughout his writings, both in memoranda and correspondence during the late colonial period and in subsequent memoirs.
61. PRO, CO 822/794/1, “Rehabilitation,” 6 January 1954, 3.
62. Askwith, interview, 9 June 1998.
63. For example, in his speech to the Legislative Council on the first anniversary of the declaration of the State of Emergency, Baring stressed the government’s commitment to the principles of rehabilitation and its importance to reconstructing the socioeconomic landscape of the Kikuyu, and of the colony more generally. Moreover, the colonial government’s adoption of Askwith’s rehabilitation plan—together with its public statements—were certainly indicators of Britain’s endorsement of liberal reform as a cornerstone of the counterinsurgency measures. See Kenya Legislative Council Debates, vol. 58, 20 October 1953, 2–17.
64. For example, Wunyabari O. Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), chapter 7.
65. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 746, Sir Michael Blundell, papers, box 12, file 3, letter from Blundell to Hugh Fraser, MP, 2 May 1953.
66. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 596, EU and EEMO, papers, box 38(A), East African Women’s League newsletter no. 2, February 1953. Note that the EU and EEMO commented extensively on this poi
nt, stating, for example, that there was “considerable difference of opinion as to the speed of progress and the lines along which it is most desirable.” RH, Mss. Afr. s. 596, EU and EEMO, papers, box 41, file 1, Joint EEMO/Electors’ Union African Affairs Committee, 5 January 1954.
67. Kenya Legislative Council Debates, vol. 57, 8 October 1953, 112–13.
68. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 2154, Elspeth Huxley, papers, box 26, file 3, “The Kenya Scene—I,” Time and Tide, 28 November 1953, 1539–40.
69. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 6, file 6, 1–4, Ronald Sherbrooke-Walker, “Visitor to Mau Mau Kenya,” March 1953.
70. John Nottingham, interview, Nairobi, Kenya, 21 January 1999.
71. KNA, VQ 1/32/29, memorandum from F. D. Homan, 31 October 1953, 2.
72. See, for example, KNA, AB 1/91/21, memorandum from A. F. Holford-Walker to T. G. Askwith, 30 December, 1953.
73. In the mid-1950s colonial officials in Kenya and Whitehall spoke of at least another generation, if not more, before any type of self-government would be considered. See, for example, Viscount Boyd, “Opening Address,” in The Transfer of Power: The Colonial Administrator in the Age of Decolonisation, ed. Anthony Kirk-Greene (Oxford: Committee for African Studies, 1979), 8; and Blundell, So Rough a Wind, 261–62.
74. For the most comprehensive analysis of the colonial state’s ongoing struggle to maintain its authoritarian position in Kenya, see Bruce Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination (London: James Currey, 1990).
75. See Kenya Official Gazette, Supplement No. 33, 5 May 1953, Government Notice No. 727, 399–404; and Kenya Official Gazette, Supplement No. 36, 19 May 1953, Government Notice No. 796, 443–44.
76. PRO, CO 822/1273/E/5, Report of the Committee on Emergency Detention Camps (Fairn Report), July 1959, 7.
77. Kenya Official Gazette, Supplement No. 36, 19 May 1953, Government Notice No. 796, 443–44.
78. For example, Muringo Njooro, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999; Marion Wambui Mwai, interview, Ruguru, Mathira, Nyeri District, 21 March 1999; and Josephine Nduta Kariuki, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 28 March 1999.
79. Mwai, interviews, 20 and 21 March 1999.
80. RH, Mss. Brit Emp. s. 365, Fabian Colonial Bureau, papers, box 117, file 4, item 10, Fenner Brockway, Why Mau Mau?—An Analysis and a Remedy, March 1953, 10.
81. KNA, OP/EST 1/985/25, minute to file, 26 October 1953.
82. PRO, CO 822/498/2, petition signed by Chief Muhoya Kagumba, Chief William Mathangani et al., c. May 1953. For details on demands for the confiscation of Mau Mau land and property, see PRO, CO 822/498/2, petition signed by Senior Chief Njiiri Karanja, Harry Thuku, Meshak M. Kamwaro, Chief Eliud Mugo, Chief Ignatio M. Kariuki et al., c. May 1953.
83. PRO, CO 822/794, minute from Bruce, 25 November 1955.
84. There is extensive archival documentation on the Kenya government’s preoccupation with and drafting of post-Emergency legislation. As with its plans for permanent exile, Nairobi was focused on the issue of continuation of arbitrary powers from the very start of the insurgency. The attorney general’s office recognized that any ability to derogate international conventions would be lost once the government lifted the Emergency. Kenya’s legal counsel—as well as the governor—therefore spent several years negotiating with Whitehall over the nature of the post-Emergency regulations and their scope of control. For details on early negotiation of post-Emergency legislation, see PRO, CO 968/296/6, memorandum from Oliver Lyttelton, “Emergency Powers Order-in-Council, 1939,” 2 January 1953; and PRO, CO 968/296/21, letter from J. Whyatt, attorney general, to Roberts-Wray, 11 May 1953. For reference on the negotiations that took place between the Kenya government and the Colonial Office and the Home Office legal counsel, see, for example, PRO, CO 822/1334, “Maintenance of Law and Order in Kenya” PRO, CO 822/1337, “Maintenance of Law and Order in Kenya, Detained and Restricted Persons (Special Provisions) Legislation” PRO, CO 822/1420, “The Detention Legislation, Kenya” and PRO, CO 822/2095, “The Preservation of Public Security 1960 Legislation in Kenya.” For the colonial government’s justification of the continuation of sweeping, arbitrary powers, see PRO, CO 822/1230/8, telegram from Commonwealth Relations Office to various high commissioners, 6 November 1959; PRO, CO 822/1230/13, statement made by the secretary of state for the colonies, Iain Macleod, to the House of Commons, “Revocation of the Emergency Regulations in Kenya,” 10 November 1959; and PRO, CO 822/1230/14, statement made by Patrick Renison to the Kenya Legislative Council, “Revocation of the Emergency Regulations in Kenya,” 10 November 1959.
85. RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 365, Fabian Colonial Bureau, papers, box 117, file 4, item 10, Fenner Brockway, Why Mau Mau?—An Analysis and a Remedy, March 1953, 14.
Five: The Birth of Britain’s Gulag
1. PRO, WO 236/18, General Sir George Erskine, “The Kenya Emergency,” 25 April 1955, 18. For the size and composition of the security forces, see Fred Majdalany, State of Emergency: The Full Story of the Mau Mau (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1963), 203.
2. T. G. Askwith, interview, Cirencester, England, 9 June 1998; and Peter Evans, Law and Disorder or Scenes in Life of Kenya (London: Secker and Warburg, 1956), 270.
3. For a more detailed discussion of Operation Anvil, see Randall Heather, “Intelligence and Counter-insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56” (Ph.D. diss, Cambridge University, 1993); and Anthony Clayton, Counter-insurgency in Kenya: A Study of Military Operations against Mau Mau (Nairobi: Transafrica Publishers, 1976), 25–26.
4. Nelson Macharia Gathigi, interview, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 20 February 1999.
5. Ibid.
6. Karue Kibicho, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 8 February 1999.
7. Ibid.
8. Examples were provided in interviews with Shadrack Ndibui Kang’ee, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 17 January 1999; Kahuthu Kamiri, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 2 February 1999; Gachomo Gikuya, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 20 February 1999; Mwangi Maithori, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999; Nderi Kagombe, Ruguru, Mathira, Nyeri District, 24 February 1999; and Kaharika Gachugi, Ngorano, Mathira, Nyeri District, 21 March 1999.
9. Kariuki Karanja, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 27 March 1999.
10. PRO, WO 236/18, General Sir George Erskine, “The Kenya Emergency,” 25 April 1955.
11. PRO, CO 822/796 and PRO, WO 276/214, “Outline Plan for Operation ANVIL,” 22 February 1954, 6.
12. Ibid., 4.
13. Ibid., 3–4.
14. PRO, CO 822/796/32, telegram from acting governor to secretary of state for the colonies, 9 May 1954.
15. Note that the Kenya Land Commission’s recommendations from the 1930s would not be overturned during the course of the Emergency.
16. KNA, VQ 1/32/18, memorandum from R. J. M. Swynnerton, “Agricultural Development: Central Province,” c. October 1953. For further details on Swynnerton’s project, see R. J. M. Swynnerton, A Plan to Intensify the Development of African Agriculture in Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954).
17. Swynnerton, A Plan to Intensify the Development of African Agriculture, 10.
18. Bruce Berman provides an excellent assessment of the Swynnerton Plan in Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination (London: James Currey, 1990), 369–71. M. P. K. Sorrenson also assesses fully the Swynnerton Plan in his book Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country: A Study in Government Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). See Sorrenson, page 118, for an example of the creation of landed and landless classes of Kikuyu.
19. Based upon the assumption that the repatriates would have some access to subsistence farming, Johnston projected that twenty-seven months of relief employment would cost a total of £1.2 million, or £15 per head. This did not include estimates for another thirty thousand Kikuyu whom the civilian authorities did not want returned to the reserves. See KNA, VQ 1/32/
1, memorandum from Carruthers Johnston, “Employment of Kikuyu Repatriates,” with enclosures, “Interim Measures for Employment of Kikuyu,” 28 September 1953.
20. KNA, VQ 1/32/23, memorandum from R. J. M. Swynnerton, “Reemployment Schemes for Kikuyu Repatriates,” 26 October 1953.
21. KNA, VQ 1/32/4, memorandum from Governor Baring, “Movement of Kikuyu,” 28 September 1953; and KNA, VQ 1/32/23, memorandum from R. J. M. Swynnerton, “Reemployment Schemes for Kikuyu Repatriates,” 26 October 1953.
22. Such recollections reflected, in part, the Kenya government’s Emergency Regulation that provided for the special or punitive taxation of all Kikuyu, with the exception of the loyalists. It could be argued that Nairobi envisaged a type of self-financing relief system whereby it paid the destitute Kikuyu for their labor on local projects but then recouped these monies through ongoing taxation programs. The problem, of course, was that there was not enough initial start-up money to remunerate the laborers in the first place. Instead, they received little if any pay or rations but were still required, somehow, to pay the Emergency tax. Not surprisingly, a host of abuses arose out of this process, particularly with regard to the local loyalists demanding material and sexual favors from the oath-taking women, in return for relief from taxation requirements. Joshuah Murakaru, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999; and Mwaria Juma, interview, Kiamariga, Mathira, Nyeri District, 10 February 1999. For details on the Kenya government’s view of the Kikuyu special tax financing the Swynnerton schemes in the Emergency areas, see KNA, VQ 1/32/23, memorandum from Swynnerton, “Reemployment Schemes for Kikuyu Repatriates,” 26 October 1953.