• The indigenous victims were, in turn, deported to arid areas of Kenya and prevented from returning home.
• They want an apology and compensation from the Royal Family.
Image: HANDOUT
Image: COURTESY
Families that were evicted from their land in Kericho by British colonialists in early 1900 to pave way for tea plantations have petitioned the Royal Family for compensation and an apology.
The families are part of over half a million indigenous members of the Kipsigis and Talai communities whose ancestral land was forcefully taken from them at the beginning of the 20th century.
“Despite our immense suffering under British rule, the British government has refused to acknowledge this fact or meet any of us, let alone apologise," lawyer Joel Kimutai, acting on behalf of the victims, said in a letter addressed to Prince William.
The appeal letter was delivered to the Duke of Cambridge on Wednesday.
“Many men and women were raped, arbitrarily detained, and in some cases killed whilst trying to resist the evictions,” Kimutai said.
The letter comes amidst a wave of protests for Royal tours of the Caribbean to be scrapped unless the royal family uses them to address slavery.
The tours are the trips the monarchs obsessively took to the Crown Colonies of the Caribbean to show they were still alive and allowed them to display their magnificence and power.
Kenya was a British colony from early 1900 to 1963 when the country gained internal independence.
Kenya, which was part of the British East Africa Protectorate, was declared a British colony on July 23, 1920.
During that period, British colonialists seized highly fertile land and turned it into tea plantations, some of which are now owned by British beverage brands to date.
The indigenous victims were, in turn, deported to arid areas of Kenya and were prevented from returning home.
They were still living in squalid conditions on “native reserves” in 1952 when Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne while in Kenya on a royal tour.
After Kenya became independent in 1963, colonial families that remained in the country were favoured by Britain’s monarchy.
According to UK's Declassified, an investigative journalism website, the letter to Prince William wants him to take responsibility for the inhumane treatment suffered by the victims under his grandmother's rule.
The Prince is reminded that the victims have been ignored by his family and successive British Governments.
"We are urging you at this historic time to stand on the side of justice and to recognise the grave violations we have endured for decades,” the letter reads.
In the letter, lawyer Kimutai explains that the families have been living in pain and the situation has been worsened by the prevailing economic hardships.
"Where we inherited the pain, you inherited the profit,” Kimutai said.
UK authorities never responded to the Kericho case when six UN special rapporteurs wrote to the British government last year expressing concern for the lack of reparation to victims and their descendants as a result of the loss of property.
Instead, the authorities claimed that they had addressed colonial-era grievances through a settlement awarded to victims of the Mau Mau uprising which mostly occurred in Central Kenya.
The letter to Prince William makes note of this.
“The provision of reparations to one discrete group of victims plainly does not address our grievances as a separate and distinct group of victims... We are clearly different victims whose land was forcibly taken away,” the letter notes.
Prince William was asked to comment as the Royal Family focuses on marking the Queen’s 70th year on the throne.
“As you prepare to celebrate your grandmother’s Platinum Jubilee, our own elderly family members remember the pain of having their homes and land taken away from them at the same time,” the victims said.
Prince William is heavily involved in conservation efforts in Africa and has met President Uhuru Kenyatta on multiple occasions. The recent visit was in November.
He is patron of Fauna and Flora International, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire.
The victims told him they have nothing to celebrate.
“We are asking that you, therefore, do the right thing and support our quest for justice by making a public statement of recognition of what we suffered as well as an apology and an arrangement for appropriate reparations.”