King Charles, visiting Kenya, faces calls to respond to colonial abuses

At the age of 86, gripping a walking stick in his gnarled hands as he strolled through his small patch of land overlooking Mount Kenya, Joseph Macharia Mwangi bitterly recalled the years he had spent fighting the British colonial government in Kenya .

Seventy years ago he had camped with Mau Mau rebels on that mountain and in the forests, braving freezing rain, lions and elephants. He was shot twice by British troops, he said, and almost died. And when colonial forces finally captured him, he said he was tortured and sentenced to two years of hard labor.

“The British forces were very harsh on us. They were terrible,” said Mr Mwangi, who served directly under the insurgency’s legendary leader, Dedan Kimathi. “Now we want an apology and money for what they did.”

Kenya’s bleak colonial past loomed large King Charles III officially began a four-day tour of the East African nation on Tuesday. It is his first state visit to a member of the Commonwealth group of countries since he became king last year, and the first to an African country.

Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Kenya where many communities are still struggling with the pain and loss they or their families suffered during decades of British colonial rule, which lasted from 1895 to 1963. The king is under pressure from human rights groups, elders and activists righting historical injusticesapologize and pay reparations to those who were tortured and removed from their ancestral lands.

In a speech at a state dinner on Tuesday evening, King Charles offered no direct apology or reparations, but said: “The misdeeds of the past are a cause of the deepest sorrow and regret. Abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence took place against Kenyans as they fought for independence.

“And there can be no excuse for that,” he added. “When I return to Kenya, it is very important for me to deepen my own understanding of these abuses, to meet some of the people whose lives and communities have been so deeply affected.”

The king’s family has close ties with Kenya. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, visited the Treetops game lodge in 1952 when she learned that her father had died and that she would succeed him as monarch. That year Britain was launched a bloody eight-year campaign to crush the Kenyan independence movement led by the Mau Mau rebels.

Kenya’s President William Ruto beamed as he accompanied Charles and Camilla to the official residence for dinner, praising Charles in his speech for his “exemplary courage and willingness to shed light on uncomfortable truths lurking in the dark regions of our shared world. experience.”

Mr Ruto called this an “encouraging first step” but added: “While efforts have been made to atone for the death, injury and suffering inflicted on Kenyan Africans by the colonial government, there is still many are being done to secure full reparations. .”

The king faces a younger generation Among Kenyans, some apathetic and others hospitable, but many who despise the monarchy after hearing about it his grim and cruel legacy. Many Kenyans have looked with interest at other former British colonies Barbadoshave severed ties with the monarchy or are considering doing so Jamaica.

Kenya is a republic and Charles has no official government role, but the country is part of the Commonwealth, led by Charles. The Commonwealth, which includes 56 countries across five continents, was created from the embers of the British Empire.

Britain has never directly apologized for the abuses in Kenya, but has expressed regret for them. After a lawsuit was filed, Britain paid about 20 million pounds ($24.3 million) a decade ago to more than 5,000 people who suffered abuse during the Mau Mau uprising. Mr Mwangi was not there.

“There is a lot of pain and evil that is not acknowledged and that they don’t want to take into account,” said Aleya Kassam, a Kenyan writer and co-founder of the LAM Sisterhood, which produces plays, podcasts and musicals with social commentary. “I don’t think he should feel at all comfortable coming here.”

But for Charles, the trip is an opportunity to strengthen Britain’s relationship with Kenya, a key economic and military ally in a turbulent region.

A lifelong environmental champion, Charles will visit Nairobi National Park and attend an event celebrating the life of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai in Karura Forest, which she helped save from developers before she died in 2011.

Wanjira Mathai, Mrs Maathai’s daughter and an environmental activist who will meet the King during this visit, said: “I have admired the way he has used his influence and support for decades in the areas of sustainability and the environment , and that has to be recognized.”

Ms Mathai said Charles and her mother had been close friends who would talk for hours about environmental sustainability and climate change at conferences or over tea in his office.

On Tuesday, Charles and Camilla visited a new history museum at the site where the country declared independence in 1963. He nodded occasionally, hands behind his back, as he viewed exhibits documenting Britain’s colonial legacy, including the period of Emergency when the British government tried to arrest anyone suspected of membership or aid to the Mau Mau .

Millions of people, mainly from the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest ethnic group, were rounded up during this period, forcibly displaced and placed in detention camps or villages surrounded by barbed wire fences and trenches lined with sharp sticks. Many of them were tortured, raped, forced to work and left to die of disease and hunger.

The crackdown divided the Kikuyu. Those who cooperated with the colonial authorities gained access to large tracts of land from which they and their heirs continue to benefit today.

“There was a lot of pain in those villages,” said Jane Wangechi, 96, who acted as a spy and cook for the Mau Mau. Ms Wangechi said her family was taken to the detention villages for three years, during which she said she lost two uncles and a cousin.

The king also faces calls for accountability for other abuses and injustices, old and new.

In Kenya’s Rift Valley, elders of the Nandi ethnic group are calling on the British government to return the head of Koitalel arap Samoei, a spiritual leader and anti-colonial fighter. The elders of Nandi say that his head was cut by a British officer at the end of the 19th century and shipped to England as a war trophy. The Nandi are part of the Kalenjin tribe to which Mr Ruto belongs.

Leaders of the Kipsigis ethnic group also say they want compensation for the forced removal of their fertile lands, which paved the way for the arrival of white settlers and the establishment of profitable tea and pineapple farms. A BBC report will be published this year sexual abuse on the tea farms ownership of British companies led to resentment and tension over land in Kenya.

Charles’ visit also resurfaces grievances about the behavior of British soldiers still stationed in Kenya. Some members of the unit, made up of around 400 British soldiers stationed there for training, have been accused of this sexual abuse of womencausing a devastating fire and use of harmful chemicals.

In addition, a British soldier was suspected of murdering Agnes Wanjiru, a sex worker, in 2012 but was never arrested or charged. An agreement between the two countries exempts British soldiers from prosecution. Some lawmakers want to change that. In August, the Kenyan parliament launched a investigation into the activities of British soldiers.

“Agnes never rested in peace,” Esther Muchiri, Ms. Wanjiru’s niece, said in an interview. “We are not asking for special treatment from the king. We just want him to bring justice.”