Heroes let down badly by Kenya

Undoubtedly Mau Mau freedoms fighters were the real heroes of Kenya, who shed their blood to see their country liberated from British rule. Many were brutally tortured, raped, some died and others lost limbs. This freedom movement was based on injustices over land.

Today, who is enjoying the fruits of liberation? It is certainly not those freedom fighters who paid such a high price . Independence has meant nothing for them. Kenyan politicians, many of them related to British loyalists, have been grabbing land for the last half-century. According to media reports, the Kenyatta family itself has illegitimately acquired land on a massive scale - equal to almost the whole of Nyanza. According to Forbes Magazine, ten Kenyan billionaires have assets worth over 100 billion Shillings each. Their companies are named by the magazine.

On the other side of the coin, freedom fighters like J.M Kariuki were assassinated for demanding a more equitable share of the fruits of Independence. Pio Pinto and Tom Mboya were gunned down in broad daylight. Most of the freedom fighters were denied access to any reward for their sacrifice.
Today is a historic day for the Mau Mau victims, who received an apology, admission and an expression of sincere regret for all the tortures carried out by the British authorities. The British government is making a token payment to authenticated torture victims and even building a monument in their honour in Nairobi. These freedom fighters owe their belated recognition to the Campaign for Moral Rearmament, human rights bodies, other organisations and private individuals who supported their fight for justice. At independence, the British government paid hundreds of millions of pounds to buy out white farmers in Kenya,who subsequently acquired the former colonial land which sowed the seeds of resentment that is manifest today in ethnic clashes and electoral violence.

In contrast to the British government, what has the government in Kenya done to settle Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are still living in miserable conditions? Pan African bodies like the African Union are actively campaigning against justice for genocide victims by interfering with the ICC in the Hague.
I pray and hope that present government of President Uhuru Kenyatta takes up the challenge and political will to balance the imbalance. Otherwise the road ahead will be fraught with danger.

*Mohinder Dhillon

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