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In Pictures: Britain’s iron rule in Kenya

Horrific abuses by British colonial authorities catch up in court with the empire after more than five decades.

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Naomi Kimweli stands in her kitchen outside the town of Katangi, Kenya. Naomi lost her unborn baby and three young children when her bus was stopped by colonial officers in 1957.
By Roopa Gogineni
Published On 10 Oct 2012

Torture was part of a systematic campaign conducted by the British government to suppress the “Mau Mau” uprising in the 1950s and early ’60’s in Kenya.

The anti-British group had launched a guerrilla war against British settlers and Kenyan loyalists from the forests of central Kenya.

British authorities panicked and the colonial administration detained more than one million people, many of whom had nothing to do with the Mau Mau. Some remained incarcerated for as long as 10 years.

According to the Kenya Human Right Commission, about 90,000 people were executed, tortured, or maimed during the rebellion. Castration and rape were common forms of punishment.

Kenyan citizens never believed that those who executed these crimes would be brought to justice. But 55-years later, Justice Richard McCombe ruled in London that the British Government’s Foreign and Common Wealth Office must answer for crimes committed more than half a century ago in Kenya.

Mbithuka and Naomi Kimweli at their home outside the town of Katangi, Kenya. Mbithuka(***)s legs are still scarred from the the clamps colonial officers used to torture him fifty-five years ago.
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Mbithuka, formerly an officer in Kenya(***)s Ministry of Public Works, was beaten in the face by colonial officers after denying involvement in the Mau Mau uprising.
Castration rock, where colonial officers castrated an unknown number of those suspected of participating in Kenya(***)s Mau Mau uprising, is today a quarry.
A portrait of Mbithuka and Naomi Kimweli at their home outside of Katangi, Kenya.
Jane Muthoni Mara was suspected of being a Mau Mau scout. She spent several years in detention camps around Kenya where she was regularly beaten.
Mau Mau veterans form a prayer circle to send off the claimants traveling to London for the hearing at the High Court in July, 2012.
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Naomi Kimweli at the South Bank in London, following a long day in court.
The claimants finish dinner at a restaurant on the Strand. They spent over three weeks in central London to prepare for and attend the hearing.
Paulo Nzili, a former Mau Mau fighter, was detained and castrated at the Athi River Detention Camp in 1957. He is one of the claimants currently suing the FCO.
The claimants meet with H E Ephraim Waweru Ngare at the Kenya High Commission in London.