Mau Mau-veteraner får gang i en sag, der kan blive meget betændt og ømtålelig for briterne. En samling følsomme dokumenter fra Storbritanniens koloniale fortid bliver snart offentliggjort via de nationale arkiver, lød det fra BBC fredag.
The files were sent to the UK from various former territories, mostly at the time they achieved independence.
The documents emerged when four Mau Mau veterans sued the UK, saying they were tortured by Kenyan colonial government in the 1950s. The British government says it cannot be held responsible. It wants the claim thrown out by the High Court.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said the job of making the papers public would be done “rapidly”, but that it might take some time to complete because of the size of the archive.
David Anderson, professor of African politics at Oxford University, told the BBC the files were of “enormous significance”. – These are a set of selected documents withheld for their sensitivity. We will learn things the British government of the time did not want us to know he said.
– They are likely to change our view of some key places. It will clarify the last days of Empire in ways that will be shocking for some people in Britain, noted he.
The four Kenyans suing the UK say they were assaulted between 1952 and 1961 by British colonial officers in detention camps during the Mau Mau rebellion.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said 90.000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown on the Mau Mau rebellion, and 160.000 were detained in appalling conditions.
