Thread by @gathara

Currently reading Caroline Elkins' "The British Gulag" and wondering how many of the British settlers who committed despicable crimes against Mau Mau suspects as part of the Kenya Police Reserve or Kenya Regiment still live in Kenya and why none have never been held to account.

In fact, why do we not have a comprehensive history of the colonial period? Why do we not name the people, both black and white, who dispossessed, massacred and tortured countless, equally nameless victims? Why do we not exhumed the many mass graves and tell their stories?

Who was the British settler nicknamed Dr Bunny, aka the Joseph Mengele of Kenya, who was known for devising techniques like "burning the skin off live Mau Mau suspects and forcing them to eat their own testicles"? What was his real name? Is he still alive? What became of him?

It reminded me of this account I came across over a decade ago while researching an article on the Mau Mau. Who is Bill? Does he still live in Kenya? Who're the other British settlers who were murdering Kenyans for sport during (and before) the Emergency?
books.google.co.ke/books?id=bZuNB…

The kids of these murderers are still with us and while I don't blame them for their parents' deeds, it is nonetheless clear that like the Mois and Kenyattas, they have benefitted massively from Kenyans' pain, dispossession and murder. They should come clean about what they know.

An internal GoK inquiry into the beating to death of Elijah Njeru by Jack Reuben and Richard Keates recommended not prosecuting Britishers during the Emergency. In any case, it said, the two had "quite obviously suffered considerable punishment in the form of worry and remorse".

They were eventually tried for manslaughter (not murder) but convicted of the much lesser offence of assault causing actual bodily harm and fined £50 and £100 respectively. The jury and judge expressed sympathy about the burdens Emergency had placed on murderous settlers (!!).

I was taught none of this history in school. My kids aren't taught it. The conspiracy of silence and silencing between the British colonials and the thieves and loyalists they handed Kenya to, continues to obscure the truth of what happened to us to this day.

And what is most jarring to me is not even the atrocities, as horrible as they are. It is how familiar the brutal state Elkins describes seems. The attitudes of the wakoloni regarding the "natives" is a mirror image of what politicians and the punditry think about Kenyans today.

kenyaregiment.org/rolltable.cgi?…
Here's a roll of members of the Kenya Regiment, which was made up of settler, some of whom were accused of the worst abuses during the Mau Mau Emergency. Take Tom Louvain Dunman of Athi River, or as the locals used to call him, Luvai.

Here's a excerpt from the witness statement of another settler, John Cato Nottingham, regarding the activities of Luvai, who died in 1981. Married to a Kamba, he delighted in castrating Mau Mau suspects. leighday.co.uk/LeighDay/media…

theglobeandmail.com/news/world/lon…
One of Luvai's victims testified to his abuses during the Mau Mau case in London's High Court in 2012.

google.com/amp/s/obituary…
His wife, Naomi, died on New Year's Day. Another potential witness removed. Perhaps, as Nottingham suggested nearly a decade ago, the rest of Luvai's family could help piece together a more complete portrait of the abuses.

How many of the men in the roll of the Kenya Regiment are alive today? How many have been accused or suspected of committing atrocities? If still in Kenya, how many can still be brought to book? I think folks like @Owaahh could help unearth them.
kenyaregiment.org/rolltable.cgi?…

Sorry. Here's the Kenya Regiment long roll from 1937, when it was formed, to 1963 when it was disbanded. kenyaregiment.org/longroll.html