What did Britain's own archives reveal about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya?

The files confirmed, in Britain's own records, the extent of the violence inflicted on suspected Mau Mau rebels in the colony's detention camps. As the empire ended, sensitive colonial files were marked for destruction or shipment to Britain; those that survived were later kept at Hanslope Park, a government communications site. The Foreign Office was forced to admit that these migrated archives existed only in 2011, during a case brought by Kenyan veterans who claimed compensation for ill-treatment and torture.

The Mau Mau uprising of 1952-1960 was an armed conflict in British Kenya between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army and the colonial authorities. Its roots lay in land. The government had seized approximately 7,000,000 acres of fertile land and created the White Highlands exclusively for European settlement. Wangari Maathai says the three issues for the Mau Mau were land, freedom and self-governance. The capture of Dedan Kimathi in October 1956 signalled the rebels' defeat.

Suppressing the uprising cost Britain 55 million pounds and caused at least 11,000 deaths among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher. The true toll is disputed: David Anderson estimates 25,000 deaths, while the demographer John Blacker puts it at 50,000. Violence came from both sides: Mau Mau fighters killed civilians, as at Lari in March 1953, and officially 1,819 Africans were killed by them, a figure Anderson believes is an undercount.

The case ended in 2013 in a settlement. The foreign secretary William Hague told parliament that it was worth 19.9 million pounds for 5,228 claimants. He said the government sincerely regretted that the abuses took place, while it continued to deny liability for the colonial administration's actions.