Are they taking advantage of our tolerant attitude?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph....ent-over-torture.html

How come that we allow foreign nationals to enter this country so that they can then apply for legal aid to enable them to go before our High Court?

Then our own Judges give them the right to sue our government for alleged torture, which was most likely carried out by Kenyan soldiers.

[Ankou]

its not a matter of legal niceties. it is about morality, about magnanimity and humaneness, about compassion.

[emmie]

Don't suppose those families of people murdered by the Mau Mau would have seen it that way.

[daisya]

Seems we've got money and magnanimity for everyone apart from the indigenous folk here, or that's how I see it. Still, it's only money isn't it, we've got plenty of that in this country so nothing wrong in giving it away apparently.

[Ankou]

money ? where in the article does it mention money ?

the judges have just decided that the claims of these old men that they were clubbed, castrated and sexually assaulted merit a hearing under uk law.

thats all.

[jake-the-peg]

You know that statue of "justice" over the Old Bailley AOG?

The one with the scales and sword?

Take a really wild guess about why she's blindfolded

[THECORBYLOON]

"At the earlier hearing the judge was told that Mr Mutua and Mr Nzili had been castrated, Mr Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men were clubbed to death, and Mrs Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual abuse.

But the FCO argued that legal responsibility was transferred to the Kenyan Republic upon independence in 1963. "

"Then our own Judges give them the right to sue our government for alleged torture, which was most likely carried out by Kenyan soldiers."

Even if the alleged torture had been carried out by Kenyan soldiers, were they not under British rule at the time?

[anotheoldgit]

Ankou

/// money ? where in the article does it mention money ?///

"Four Kenyans allowed to sue British government over torture"

Er, don't persons usually 'SUE' for 'MONEY'?

[Gladeian]

Yet another example of the inmates running the asylum I fear - these courts and thier quixotic judges strike again! Its pure Gilbert & Sullivan.

[Ankou]

and you have already asumed they are entitled to that money aog ?

[jno]

"torture, which was most likely carried out by Kenyan soldiers"

Care to explain where you got that from, aog?

[Old_Geezer]

Whilst feeling it is all a bit off really, maybe the best place to settle the issue is in a court of law. Not that law and justice always come to the same conclusion.

[daisya]

The money I was referring to which I omitted to say was the money it takes to pay for legal aid and which we the tax payer will be giving and as for the outcome of the case, yes if they sue then maybe there will be money paid out there too.

[Whickerman]

they were maimed, castrated and raped by crown forces. Claiming that it's irrelevant just because of where the crown forces originated is like saying that only German nazis should have faced trial after WW2.

[flip_flop]

The remedy in a civil action is (by and large) money.

Should they win against the government the money will come from you and me.

So, whether they are suing for money or not is neither here nor there as ultimately, win or lose, its going to cost the taxpayer money.

[starone]

It all boils down to money, doesn't it. We haven't got any and yet can still find some for wars and the results of wars. I have reached the conclusion that it is not love which makes the world go around but money and without it we are in a very difficult position.

[Ankou]

there's no mention of legal aid in the article.

and if they are found under law to be entitled to financial compensation due to the atrocities carried out by the british (assuming the judges make this determination) then, are you saying we shouldn't give it ?

[LazyGun]

Allegations of torture, castration, sexual abuse, and worse against British Servicemen during the Mau Mau uprising. Evidence and testimony has been submitted, and it has been determined that there is a case to be answered. Of course they should be entitled to present their case here.

[anotheoldgit]

/// Contrary to African customs and values,Mau Mau members assaulted old people, women and children. The horrors they practised included the following: decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant women.///

/// No war can justify such gruesome actions. In man’s inhumanity to man there is no race distinction. The Africans were practising it on themselves.///

/// Settler groups, displeased with the government's response to the increasing Mau Mau threat created their own units to combat the Mau Mau.///

/// After the discovery of the Lari massacre (between 10 pm and dawn that night), colonial security services retaliated on Kikyu suspected of being Mau Mau.These were shot, and later denied burial.///

/// Thirty-two British civilians were murdered by Mau Mau militants. The most well known Mau Mau victim was Michael Ruck, aged six, who was murdered along with his parents. Newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details, including images of young Michael with bloodied teddy bears and trains strewn on his bedroom floor. ///

And these are some of the people who are trying to claim compensation?

In 1952 the poisonous latex of the African milk bush was used by members of Mau Mau to kill herds of cattle in an incident of biological warfare.

[LazyGun]

We were an occupying force.A colonial power, taking what it liked, particularly land. The locals were treated as a poorly paid agrarian work force, and were, by and large, treated pretty poorly, forced by the occupying power into giving up their preexisting lifestyle using technques such as villigisation.

Britons hold ourselves to a high standard of behaviour, often stating we hold supeior cultural values to other societies, but our response to the desire of the local indigenous peoples within our colonial territories to majority representation has been pretty brutal all around, the worst excesses of which were seen in Kenya.

Were you, by typing all that, trying to justify torture and mistreatment AoG?

"T]he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants."
Police Commisioner Arthur Young to Governor Evelyn Baring 22 November 1954. Later went on to resign in disgust at the brutality of the colonial regime.

Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment and flogging—all in violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“”—One colonial officer's description of British works camps

In the 6 years between 1952 and 1958. the british colonial powers hanged nearly 1,100 Africans for alleged terrorist crimes.
Detention and work camps were the solution - effectively, Britains answer to the Russian style Gulag camps - At least 80,000, possible more, in conditions of extreme privation.

Hola Detention camp 1958/1959 - 11 detainees were clubbed to death by the British guards in an effort to force them to work.

Even Enoch Powell that well known left wing wishywashy liberal ( thats sarcasm, AoG) recognised the brutality and repression of the colonial regime in Kenya, and the stain it represented on Britains character.

"[E]lectric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire. Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening teams whipped, shot, burned and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather intelligence for military operations and as court evidence.

" Carole Elkins, Historian and Researcher.

What the Mau Mau did was disgusting yes, but our actions as a colonial power were the worst excesses of brutality and repression. Those elderly survivors of such brutality deserve to have their cases heard in court.