Mary Ruck on the forced labour endured by Kenyans during the 1950s state of emergency, Dr Charmian Goldwyn on today’s inequalities, Fawzi Ibrahim on the downside to reparations and James Heartfield on Lord Palmerston’s acknowledgment of Britain’s debt to Africa. Plus letters from Norman Miller and John Pelling
Afua Hirsch (The case for British slavery reparations can no longer be brushed aside, 9 July) is right to challenge the shiftless response to the case for reparations. Her argument is fortified by the fact that within living memory Britain, as a colonial power, exploited the forced labour of those in captivity to gain economic advantage. I speak from my own experience as counsel for detainees in the Kenyan emergency group litigation, heard by the high court in London between 2016 and 2018.
During the state of emergency in the 1950s, the colonial power, with the tacit approval of London, implemented a policy of detention of British subjects in camps and “punitive villages”, where men, women and children were forced to work in pursuit of so-called “rehabilitation”. Former British subjects, now elderly Kenyans, gave evidence to the court in 2016, many of them bearing the marks of the harsh regime they were subjected to and having endured a lifetime of infirmity caused by forced labour.
Continue reading…Mary Ruck on the forced labour endured by Kenyans during the 1950s state of emergency, Dr Charmian Goldwyn on today’s inequalities, Fawzi Ibrahim on the downside to reparations and James Heartfield on Lord Palmerston’s acknowledgment of Britain’s debt to Africa. Plus letters from Norman Miller and John PellingAfua Hirsch (The case for British slavery reparations can no longer be brushed aside, 9 July) is right to challenge the shiftless response to the case for reparations. Her argument is fortified by the fact that within living memory Britain, as a colonial power, exploited the forced labour of those in captivity to gain economic advantage. I speak from my own experience as counsel for detainees in the Kenyan emergency group litigation, heard by the high court in London between 2016 and 2018.During the state of emergency in the 1950s, the colonial power, with the tacit approval of London, implemented a policy of detention of British subjects in camps and “punitive villages”, where men, women and children were forced to work in pursuit of so-called “rehabilitation”. Former British subjects, now elderly Kenyans, gave evidence to the court in 2016, many of them bearing the marks of the harsh regime they were subjected to and having endured a lifetime of infirmity caused by forced labour. Continue reading…