King Charles is right not to apologise for past crimes - UK scribe

King Charles III who is in the country on a state visit is under pressure to apologise for the atrocities committed in the country by the British during the colonial rule.

Thousands are said to have lost their lives during the Mau-Mau Emergency in the 1950s even as others were rendered homeless after they were evicted from the lands.

Several Mau Mau fighters and supporters were also held in mass detention.

At these detention camps, it is said, many were subjected to brutal treatment, torture and death at the hands of their colonial rulers.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission says that 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the rebellion and this is why the King is under obligation to say sorry during his tour.

But, according to David Elstein, an executive producer and a former Chair of Open Democracy, the King is right not to apologise.

While he has admitted that about 1,090 Kenyans were hanged during the State of Emergency that was declared by the Colonial Office in response to the threat from Mau Mau, Elstein argues that Mau Mau themselves killed tens of thousands of their tribe.

The figure of 90,000 Kenyans executed, tortured or maimed by the British has simply been conjured out of thin air, he says.

Elstein notes:

“Indeed, in the past, the Kenya Human Rights Commission has stated human rights violations during the colonial period were 'trivial' compared to what's happened since independence under a variety of governments”.

The writer, in his article on Mail Online, went on to claim that the white settlers were also killed during the uprising in the country and not only Kenyans.

He has cited an incident at Lari village where 100 civilians mostly women and children, died when a Mau Mau gang descended at night, sealed the people inside their homes, threw petrol on them and set them alight.

Those who didn't die in the fire but managed to claw their way out were cut down with 'pangas' or machetes, he claims.

“These brutal episodes are just a tiny sample of the hundreds of atrocities inflicted by Mau Mau - but the victims in each case were not Europeans, although 32 white settlers were killed during the uprising,” he said.

Much of the killing, he states, took place during those mass oathing ceremonies in the villages but the children who were old enough to run away from the Mau Mau executioners could survive.

According to him, a huge number of Mau Mau had been involved in the murder.

With eyes now on King Charles III, Elstein reckons that if he determined to acknowledge the pain of any Kenyans then he should think of the families of the tens of thousands slaughtered by Mau Mau.

They have been airbrushed from history: no academic account of the period will tell you about them.

“But if we as a nation are determined to disinter our past, it is these forgotten people who deserve their moment of royal regret,” he adds.