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Kericho County: Tea, Foods and Shifting Weather Patterns

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Kericho County has experienced a gradual change in climatic conditions over the past three decades, with rainfall becoming irregular and unpredictable and drought more frequent. As a result, the region’s agricultural output is deteriorating.

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Kericho County: Tea, Foods and Shifting Weather Patterns
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Climate change has become a central topic in recent conversations. And however much we may wish to bury our heads in the sand and act like the implications aren’t dire, we must acknowledge that the impact is profound. From the inconsistencies in the weather patterns and the rise in temperatures among many other indicators, we are now seeing the effects of neglecting our environment.

Kericho County lies within the bread basket zone that is Kenya’s Rift Valley, enjoying adequate rainfall, a cool climate, and fertile soils that have made it a food hub and a cog in the wheel of Kenya’s urban food supplies. According to the 2014 Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme (ASDSP), agriculture was the primary occupation and a direct and indirect source of livelihood for over 50 per cent of Kericho’s the residents.

However, a worrying trend highlighted by climate experts points to a gradual change in the region’s climatic conditions over the past three decades. With rainfall becoming irregular and unpredictable and drought more frequent, the region’s agricultural output is deteriorating.

A June 2020 report by the Kenya Meteorological Department, and a March 2020 report by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), show growing disparities in how the climatic shifts affect different regions. Kericho’s daytime temperatures have gone up by 11 per cent while night-time temperatures have increased by 24 per cent. The changes have brought with them their fair share of problems and challenges to the region. For instance, the county is now witnessing crop diseases that were previously unheard of. Moreover, failures and reduced yields are forcing farmers to look for alternatives to crops like tea and coffee that used to do well in the county.

An estimated 79 per cent of the land in Kericho is arable and a majority of residents live in the county’s outlying rural areas such as Cheborge, Soin, Londiani, Chepseon and Buret where farming thrives. The county has four agro-ecological zones: Upper Highlands, Lower Highlands, Upper Midlands, and Lower Midlands. The main crops farmed in the county include tea, coffee, maize, and beans. Potatoes, wheat, flowers, and pineapples are also grown in parts of the county while dairy farming also does well in the region. Data from Kericho’s Second Generation County Integrated Development Plan 2018- 2022 indicates that on-farm employment accounts for over 50 per cent of all the jobs in the county, while the Tea Agricultural Authority affirms that tea farming supports over 5 million people directly and indirectly nationally. Kericho, Bomet and Nandi counties produce 46 per cent of all the tea grown in Kenya, an indication of the significance of tea to Kericho’s economy.

Tea farming in Kericho involves both smallholder farmers and large-scale multinational companies such as Finlays, Kaisugu, and Unilever.  However, available reports show that incomes from the cash crop have been dwindling over the years, mainly due to the changing weather patterns that have contributed to low yields, while the crop is fetching less in the international markets. Some tea farmers in the region are now uprooting their tea plantations that have been adversely affected by prolonged dry spells, hailstorms, frost, and crop diseases, opting instead to venture into real estate, dairy farming, and farming of crops that can withstand the changing climate. While the shift is important in ensuring food security and sustainability of livelihoods, it also to a significant degree puts a dent in the county’s revenues owing to reduced tea exports.

Besides providing food to the country, agriculture also contributes to improved livelihoods. Managed well, it spurs economic growth, drives national short and long-term goals, and contributes to sustainable natural resource use and ecological balance within the farming communities. Agriculture also contributes significantly to household nutrition, savings, and county revenue, and is therefore a crucial sector in terms of investment and innovation. 

However, climate change is making it impossible to sustain high agricultural production in a county where residents rely on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods, with poor yields translating to loss of income for those who rely on agriculture both directly and indirectly.

Crop failure means reduced incomes for farmers and other key players in the production value-chain, leading to a lower purchasing power and lower yields for other businesses that rely on farming. Low purchasing power means that the farmer cannot purchase farm inputs, which leads to poor yields in subsequent seasons. Moreover, low purchasing power affects education in the county, as farmers become unable to keep their children in school, thereby increasing the number of dropouts in the region.

Climate change is making it impossible to sustain high agricultural production in a county where  residents rely on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods.

Forty-six-year-old Pauline Kimengich, a teacher in Kericho County, observed that there were cases of students in the region opting for early marriage after their parents were unable to raise money for their high school education, a trend which threatens the literacy levels of the county. Her sentiments are echoed by Enoch Tanui, 52, a small-scale farmer who admits to having his children help him out on the family farm because of lack of school fees.

According to the Agricultural Sector Development Support Programme (ASDSP), most of those involved in the various agricultural activities in the region are the youth and women, although the men do participate in information-sharing and decision-making. For instance, most of the workers in the tea farms are women and youth who work primarily as tea pickers. Given the role a woman plays in the community, loss of income due to dwindling fortunes in the agricultural sector adversely affects the running of households in the region.

Moreover, loss of income forces a change in the eating habits of families. Changes in eating habits pose nutritional challenges to the family which affect, most notably, children’s health, and lead to early marriages and increased levels of crime. According to the National Crime Research Centre’s 2018 report, Kericho’s recorded rate of theft stood at 42 per cent against a national rate of 40.4 per cent. This can be attributed to the loss of income as a result of changes in climatic conditions, as a majority of the county dwellers depend on agriculture. Moreover, the county also recorded high rates of cattle rustling (34.3 per cent), burglary and break-ins (21 per cent) and theft of farm produce (15.5 per cent) which can also be linked to the dwindling fortunes in agriculture.

The changes in farming techniques and the resulting challenges and strain on the food system are a wake-up call for all interested parties to act. When a county such as Kericho, which feeds our national forex basket through exports, feels the impact of climatic changes to such a great extent, one can assume that other cash-crop farming counties have not been spared either.

Climatic changes that lead to prolonged droughts and low agricultural yields mean that the government must invest heavily in relief programmes and other measures to mitigate their effects. This may imply the government diverting resources meant for development towards curbing the effects of climate change. Through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries (MoALF) and with funding from the World Bank’s International Development Agency, the Kenyan government is implementing the Kenya Climate-Smart Agriculture Project (KCSAP) to build resilience against climate change and increase agricultural productivity.

By establishing Climate Risk Profiles, county governments are made aware of the climate change risks and opportunities in their counties and how to best incorporate these perspectives in their planning and county development projects. The National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS), developed in 2010, recognizes the impact of climate change on a nation’s development. The formation of NCCRS birthed the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) in 2012, whose core mandate is to provide an implementation strategy for the proposals of the NCCRS. These two bodies have been fundamental to how Kenya responds to climate change and the steps to be taken towards achieving meaningful change.

Climatic changes that lead to prolonged droughts and low agricultural yields mean that the government must invest heavily in relief programmes and other measures to combat the effects.

The creation of county chapters of NCCAP that can work closely with the agriculture dockets in the counties to identify the challenges on the ground would be ideal in combating the effects of climate change as opposed to having an umbrella view of the situation. Farmers at the grassroots need to feel the impact of these programmes and benefit from the extension services if the country is to witness a meaningful impact.

The risks have led both national and international agencies to take action to fix the problem. With the world warming faster than at any time in recorded history, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) 2020 Emissions Gap Report proposed a solution across six sectors—energy, industry, agriculture, ecological, transport and cities—that member states can adopt. In agriculture, it proposes reducing wastage, adopting more sustainable diets, safe agricultural practices, and cutting back on emissions.

In the case of Kericho County, while the government is encouraging diversification, crops that can do well in the region but are only grown on a small scale need to be considered. For instance, local vegetables, chicken-rearing, and other agricultural produce should be produced on a large scale to reduce the over-reliance on one crop. This will ensure that people in the county have a source of livelihood even when one crop fails. Further, agricultural extension services, especially in the rural areas, need to be given a shot in the arm to ensure that farmers employ safer farming methods and are enlightened on the best ways to maximize yields while being mindful of their environment.

Rivers in Kericho such as Sambula, Chebilat and Tuyiobei have been drying up, reducing the water available for livestock and farming. Encouraging agroforestry, reforestation and afforestation will not only increase the diminishing forest cover but will also ensure water catchment areas are replenished.

Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights recognize access to food as a legal right, as does Article 43 of the Constitution of Kenya. The right to food gives rise to three obligations by governments: the obligation to respect this right by not taking measures that deprive people the right to food; the obligation to protect this right by enforcing laws that prevent third parties from infringing on others’ right to food; and the obligation to fulfil this right by facilitating and providing for the empowerment of people to feed themselves.

The reduction in the yields of different crops imperils the right of all Kenyans to live a dignified life, free from hunger and malnourishment. Poor crop yields further reduce the purchasing power of farmers, which has a ripple effect on other sectors that are dependent on agriculture. The effects of climate change and poor agricultural yields also mean that food suppliers have to import or seek alternatives to meet demand in the market. This leads to an increase in rural-urban migration, which creates congestion in the urban centres and puts a strain on the available resources and opportunities in the urban settings. The failure of the tea crop, specifically, means that the nation loses export revenues, shifting the equilibrium in the balance of trade.

The reduction in the yields of different crops imperils the right of all Kenyans to live a dignified life, free from hunger and malnourishment.

Changes in climate also mean that those farmers who previously relied on tea will be forced to look for alternative means of livelihood. In an economy where creation of employment is low, job losses in the agricultural sector aggravate the dire situation in the already flooded job market. Lack of employment leads to crime as those formerly employed in the agricultural sector strive to fend for their families.

These changes underline the importance of environment conservation and working towards combating climate change. Good weather leads to flourishing agriculture. Investing in agriculture opens up employment opportunities in the farms and other industries that depend on agriculture, which reduces unemployment and brings down crime rates. Employment opportunities improve the purchasing power of citizens, enabling them to make informed and better choices in nutrition, education and other areas which translates to improved livelihoods and a more prosperous nation.

This article is part of The Elephant Food Edition Series done in collaboration with Route to Food Initiative (RTFI). Views expressed in the article are not necessarily those of the RTFI.

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Kezia Biwott is an organic farmer, and researcher. based in Nakuru.

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Changes in Suicide Reporting Welcome, but Slow

Without a deeper understanding of the harm insensitive reporting on suicide causes, attempts to change may be wrongly deemed as political correctness.

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Earlier this year, the Baraza Media Lab and the Centre on Suicide Research and Intervention published a report that looked at how broadcasting stations report on suicide on social media. Its contents were sobering. Many leading media houses were found to report suicide as a criminal act. Reports also contained harmful elements such as descriptions of suicide methods and imagery of suicide and did not provide helpful information for readers who may be thinking of suicide.

So how have journalists been reporting on suicide since the data was collected? A very cursory survey of news outlets on social media shows reasons for both optimism and worry. Over the course of 2023, media outlets have published more stories about mental health, indicating an increasing awareness of it. This year has also seen an increased number of responsibly written social media posts that take into account the need for sensitivity on suicide.

Now, the negatives. Knowledge on responsible reporting of suicide, while improved, remains inconsistent across news operations. Real progress will require further integrating social media into editorial processes, subjecting its copy to as much rigour as the stories themselves to ensure errors are not introduced once stories are completed. Also, many insensitive references to suicide on social media were accurately reproduced from news stories.

The term “committed suicide” continues to appear on news websites, even in stories where responsible reporting would be expected, such as those that explore the risk factors of suicide. Stories use the insensitive word “suicidal” in phrases like “treating suicidal people as criminals” and “people who are suicidal”. The same insensitivity is also observed in the phrase “mentally ill” – ironically in stories that call for acts of suicide to be decriminalised.

It’s not clear that all journalists understand why respectful reporting on suicide is necessary. It was interesting – and revealing – to see a media outlet’s official X account, formerly known as Twitter, include both the terms “died by suicide” and “committed suicide” in the same tweet.

News websites continue to narrate morbid details about the manner of death by suicide. You are still likely to find phrases like “the body was found hanging in his room”, a man “who set himself ablaze” and “doused himself in a flammable substance before setting himself ablaze while carrying the Kenyan flag”. The imagery of suicide, with the noose particularly prominent, continues to be used in stories, inadvertently advertising hanging as a suitable method.

It’s not clear that all journalists understand why respectful reporting on suicide is necessary.

Media outlets aired insensitive footage. One camera focused on a woman overcome with emotion, who understood she was being filmed. One story goes as far as to narrate that instead of dissuading the deceased from taking his own life, a bystander handed him a lighted match and taunted him over unsuccessful attempts to light himself on fire, displaying the contempt people have for people thinking of suicide and inviting viewers to agree with those ideas.

The approach to reporting suicide varies depending on whether the person who died by suicide had committed a violent crime just prior, usually another killing. Reports are more likely to use “died by suicide” where the only death reported is by suicide. On the other hand, when person who died by suicide had killed another person, the phrase “committed suicide” is used freely.

The approach to reporting suicide varies depending on whether the person who died by suicide had committed a violent crime just prior, usually another killing.

Yet the same responsibility to reduce the prominence of suicide applies even in the context of crime reporting, and steps that broadcasters take to make footage of murders acceptable, such as using trigger warnings and black and white for bloodstains, may still be unacceptable in the context of suicide prevention. According to a 2021 brief by the University College Cork, Ireland, no graphic footage should be used in reporting murder-suicides, and care should be taken to discourage copycats, or position murder-suicide as a solution to anything.

Without a deeper understanding of the harm insensitive reporting on suicide causes, attempts to change may be wrongly deemed as political correctness, resulting in disrespectful coverage that tries to “say it as it is” and neglects to include sources of help for people who may be thinking of suicide.

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Why President Kagame Should Not Run for a Fourth Term

The 2024 elections in Rwanda are an opportunity for the country to move away from strongman leadership to enable the emergence of strong institutions and a governance that is more tolerant of critics.

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Why President Kagame Should Not Run for a Fourth Term
Photo: Вени Марковски | Veni Markovski, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
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The constitution of Rwanda was amended in 2015 to allow President Paul Kagame to stand for a third term of seven years. Kagame was re-elected in 2017 and his term ends in 2024. The change in the constitution also allows him to stand for a fourth and a fifth five-year term. In my view, President Kagame should not run for a fourth presidential term in the 2024 elections.

President Paul Kagame was appointed Vice President and Minister for Defence on 19 July 1994, immediately after the end of the war and the Rwanda genocide. When President Pasteur Bizimungu resigned in 2000, Kagame was elected by the Transitional National Assembly to replace him. Three years later, in 2003, Kagame was elected president and has been president of Rwanda for over two decades. He has, therefore, risen to higher levels of decision-making over three decades, a sufficient period of time during which to oversee the implementation of policies he thought would advance the betterment of Rwandans. Kagame should, therefore, consider letting another willing and capable Rwandan build upon his achievements and continue to advance Rwanda’s interests. Indeed, under Kagame’s leadership, Rwanda has made some achievements but there are also shortcomings.

First, from a war-torn country, Rwanda has emerged to become a state with well-defined and functioning structures and institutions supported by fairly clear legislations. In my opinion, this has been achieved thanks to Kagame’s administration’s commitment to bring about change in Rwanda manifested immediately after the end of the war and the genocide against the Tutsi.

Second, Rwanda has also made some economic gains even though these can be challenged in many aspects. In 2000, Kagame made a pledge to transform Rwanda from a low- to a middle-income country driven by a knowledge economy by 2020. Since then, the Rwandan economy has grown significantly and its GDP per capita has increased from USD304 in 1995 to USD940 in 2022. The country’s human development index has soared and Rwanda has been recognised by the World Health Organization as one of the countries that are performing well on the goal of achieving universal health coverage. The country’s life expectancy has increased significantly, from 47 years in 2000 to 67 years in 2020. Moreover, according to UNICEF, the government has made some improvements in expanding education for all across Rwanda.

 Lastly, through a meticulously executed campaign of communication, compelling narratives have been disseminated across the world that speak well of Rwanda. This along with the country’s commitment to deploy its soldiers to multinational peacekeeping missions across the world (Rwanda ranks fourth on the list of countries that contribute in peacekeeping in the world) has enabled Rwanda to strengthen its foreign relations with other countries and project its image as a development success story.

There are certainly more achievements that President Kagame has made during his 30 years in leadership that his replacement can learn from and retain to move Rwanda forward. However there are shortcomings. Kagame managed to put the country back on the world map but failed to create an environment for the country’s citizens to exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms.

Upon taking power following a military victory, his political party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), pledged a consensual democracy to Rwandans. But over time this democracy has transformed into a political system that suppresses political dissent, restricts pluralism and curtails liberty in Rwanda. Most affected are those who dare or are perceived to challenge his government’s narrative in Rwanda and abroad. In many instances, Kagame’s government has abused its power, colluding with the judicial system to criminalise his critics. As a result, Rwanda has repeatedly been categorised as not a free country by Freedom House.

This has led to independent and inter-governmental human rights organisations and representatives of developed countries that financially support Rwanda to publicly criticise his leadership for lack of political inclusion, human rights violations and the overall democracy deficit in Rwanda. This situation continues to tarnish Rwanda’s reputation that Kagame’s leadership has been working hard to restore.

Furthermore, independent reports on the development of democracy and governance throughout the world – and in Africa in particular – all point out that citizen participation in Rwanda remains limited, as do local NGOs.

Political participation in Rwanda is limited only to those who adhere or are willing to be affiliated to his political party, the RPF. This has prevented the emergence of a genuine opposition that could have provided checks and balances across institutions in Rwanda. The repercussions are that lack of accountability within public institutions is rampant and Kagame has many times publicly criticised officials in his administration for not delivering as they should. In fact, the pledge he made in 2000 to transform Rwanda into a middle-income country driven by a knowledge economy has not materialised and Rwanda remains a low-income country to date.

Failure to effectively engage citizens in decision-making has also resulted in the implementation of development policies that do not meet the immediate needs of the population. Hence, the economic gains made by Kagame’s administration can be challenged in many aspects as previously pointed out. For instance, substantial public funds have been invested in the development of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE) sector while less has been allocated to education, agriculture, and rural infrastructure development. Thus, despite remarkable economic growth and a significant improvement in the human development index registered by Rwanda since 1994, these achievements are tarnished by high inequalities in income, health and education. Furthermore, they are characterised by economic injustices such as unfair land expropriation and the uprooting of farmers’ crops. Rwanda’s human capital development remains below the average for African countries due to a lack of quality education and high levels of malnutrition among children below five years. Only 41 per cent of households in Rwanda are considered to be substantially food secure. The private sector’s contribution to growth has remained small and growth is predominantly led by state-owned enterprises and those belonging to the ruling party. Overall, Rwandans have been consecutively ranked among the bottom five least happy populations on the global happiness index.

Failure to effectively engage citizens in decision-making has also resulted in the implementation of development policies that do not meet the immediate needs of the population.

Over the past three decades, curtailed civil liberties and mounting social inequalities have seen Rwandans seek refuge abroad and prevented from returning to their homeland those who had fled Rwanda after the RPF took power in 1994. This situation has exacerbated the issue of Rwandan refugees that has persisted since Rwanda’s independence.

In particular, under President Kagame, the unresolved issue of Rwandan refugees settled in Rwanda’s neighbouring countries has been a source of political tensions between Rwanda and its neighbours. The Rwandan government has maintained that there are negative forces resident in eastern DRC that are out to destabilise Rwanda, a reference to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The FDLR is an armed group formed by Rwandan refugees in DRC who, following their forcible eviction from Rwanda during the genocide, resorted to armed struggle as a means of retaking power in Rwanda. Despite Rwanda’s armed forces launching military operations against the FDLR on numerous occasions on Congolese soil in collaboration with the Congolese army, the Rwandan government continues to insist that the FDLR is a threat to Rwanda’s security.

The United Nations has twice – in 2012 and 2022 – accused Rwanda of supporting the M23, an armed group that is fighting in the eastern DRC. This conflict has displaced populations and led to the death of millions of African civilian lives. In 2016, the UN Security Council accused Rwanda of recruiting and training Burundian refugees with the aim of ousting the then Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza. Western countries have suspended or withheld aid to Rwanda over allegations that it supported the M23 in 2012 and some of Rwanda’s donors have recently publicly called on the Rwandan government to stop supporting the M23 and remove its troops from eastern DRC. The European Union and United States of America have sanctioned Rwandan military officials for backing the M23. The US has placed Rwanda on the Child Soldiers Prevention Act List and suspended its military aid to the country due to Rwanda’s support of the M23, which the US says recruits and uses child soldiers. Not only do these allegations of Rwanda’s involvement in the regional conflict further tarnish the country’s image that Kagame’s administration has worked hard to restore, but the tensions with neighbouring states have also prevented Rwanda from maximising the benefits of regional integration and trade for its development.

President Kagame should not run for a fourth term as the governance of Rwanda needs to be reformed so that it becomes more tolerant of critics, democratic and inclusive. To successfully implement such reforms in governance requires a new leadership with fresh perspectives and approaches that will be able to build on Kagame’s achievements in order to address unresolved historical grievances of Rwandans and at the same time enable Rwanda to maximise its potential in the region and experience genuine development.

President Kagame should not run for a fourth term as the governance  of Rwanda needs to be reformed so that it becomes more tolerant of critics, democratic and inclusive.

Considering Rwanda’s history of long-serving strongmen who have taken power, retained it and lost it through violence, the 2024 presidential election is an opportunity for Rwandans to experience the transfer of power in a peaceful and transparent manner as has been the case in neighbouring countries including Burundi, DRC and Tanzania. It is an opportunity for Rwanda to move away from strongman leadership to enable the emergence of strong institutions to take the lead instead. This can be achieved by building on the legislations that have been reviewed and implemented under Kagame’s leadership. Therefore, while recognising with gratitude the achievements that he has made over the past three decades, Kagame’s greatest achievement yet would be to step away from power at the end of his term in 2024. In so doing, Kagame will have paved the way for better leadership in Rwanda and opened the door to future generations of Rwandans aspiring to become leaders in Rwanda.

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Why Kenyans Demanded an Apology from King Charles

The traumatic legacy of British colonialism lingers in Kenya to this day, and this is why Kenyans were demanding an apology from King Charles.

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God Tax the King
Photo: Simon Dawson for No. 10 Downing Street via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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Many British people are surprised that King Charles’s visit to Kenya was not welcomed by many Kenyans and human rights organisations. People whose families had suffered at the hands of British colonialists during his mother’s reign demanded an apology for crimes committed. Although the British monarch expressed “deepest regret” for the atrocities committed by the British in Kenya, he fell short of making a public apology.

However, many Brits believe that there is nothing the king needed to apologise for. One presenter on Sky News even wondered why Kenyans were calling for an apology from the king given that Britain had done much “good” in the country. After all, he said, without any hint of irony, the British Empire had brought democracy to Kenya (how he equated imperialism with democracy beats me) and given Kenyans “the gift of the English language”.

It was obvious that the presenter had been taught British imperial history that has whitewashed the atrocities that the British Empire committed in its colonies around the world. British children are to this day taught that British colonialism was a “civilising mission” that brought modern education and infrastructure, in addition to Christianity, to regions that were steeped in ignorance and backwardness. Apologists for the British Empire, such as the historian Niall Ferguson, author of Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, argue that Britain should be congratulated for conquering the world because British civilisation brought science and technology to people who held superstitious beliefs, and injected a “work ethic” in populations that were lazy and lacking in imagination. This is sort of like saying that slave owners did slaves a favour by shipping them to the Americas and forcing them to work for free because these slaves are now US citizens and enjoy all that America has to offer (even though it took them four centuries to gain rights as equal citizens).

A few months ago, the editor of a German magazine contacted me to ask whether I could submit an article on the atrocities the British had committed in Kenya during colonialism. He told me that while his magazine had documented human rights violations by German and Belgian colonialists in places like Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it had largely ignored the violations committed by Britain in places like Kenya because the majority of Germans believe that British colonialism was not as brutal as that of other European powers, and that its net impact on its colonies in Africa had been positive. It dawned on me that perhaps Europeans are not being told the true story about colonialism and its horrific impact on Africans. So, here’s primer.

Erasure of memory

Kenya officially became a British colony in 1920, but prior to that, from 1895, it was deemed a “protectorate” – a term suggesting that the colonisers who grabbed the land were there to protect the interests of the “natives” who would benefit from being colonised. A widely held belief is that because Britain spearheaded the abolition of slavery, the British were “benevolent” colonisers, unlike the French and the Belgians who plundered and looted their African colonies. (In addition to extracting raw materials and exporting items such as ivory and rubber, the French and the Belgians also stole invaluable artefacts from their colonies in West and Central Africa, which today are displayed in museums across Europe, including in Britain, despite efforts by African governments to have these artefacts returned to where they were stolen from.)

Yet, those who care to join the dots between the anti-slavery movement and the colonisation of Africa are acutely aware of the fact that the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 (dubbed the “Scramble for Africa”) that carved up Africa among European nations, including Britain, took place just a few years after slavery ended. Because slavery was no longer legal and was costly to maintain, the only other way Europeans could extract cheap labour and highly profitable resources from Africa was by colonising the continent.

In order to justify colonisation in settler colonies like Kenya and Zimbabwe (formerly known as Rhodesia), it was necessary to erase evidence of atrocities committed by the Europeans. Many of these atrocities remained unacknowledged and unreported for decades because archival documents were either destroyed or deliberately concealed. British historian David M. Anderson, author of Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya, discovered that thousands of documents belonging to the British colonial administration were flown to London in 1963 on the eve of Kenya’s independence and remained hidden from the public for decades, despite attempts by successive post-independence Kenyan governments to have these “stolen papers” returned to Kenya.

The magnitude of these atrocities was finally revealed in 2005 when the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins’ book, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, was published. The book documents the many crimes that British colonial officers committed in Kenya in their relentless pursuit of wealth, land and power for themselves and in the name of the British Empire. Mau Mau fighters and their supporters were subjected to extreme forms of torture, including castration, whipping, waterboarding and electric shocks.

The areas where these Mau Mau revolutionaries were arrested, detained, tortured or killed in the 1950s were in and around the Aberdares mountain range in Central Kenya where Queen Elizabeth, during an official visit to Kenya, ascended to the throne after the death of her father, King George VI, in February 1952. Eight months after she became Queen of England and head of the British Empire, a state of emergency was declared in Kenya that allowed the British Colonial Office to detain people without trial. Many freedom fighters languished in camps or jails where they were subjected to torture.

Mau Mau fighters and their supporters were subjected to extreme forms of torture, including castration, whipping, waterboarding and electric shocks.

The Mau Mau rebellion was a reaction to the expropriation of some 7 million acres of the most fertile land in Central Kenya and the Rift Valley – dubbed the White Highlands – in the early part of the 20th century after the building of the Uganda Railway, which opened up the interior of East Africa for British colonisation and settlement. The indigenous population was pushed into so-called reserves while others became squatters on land that was once theirs, working for white farmers for very little wages.

Elkins estimates that between 160,000 and 320,000 detainees, mostly from the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu ethnic groups, were tortured or maimed by the British at the height of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s, although official figures state that the number of detainees was no more than 80,000. It is estimated that more than 20,000 Mau Mau militants were killed. Further, more than a million people, mainly in central Kenya, were detained in camps or confined in villages known as “reserves” (which have been described as “concentration camps”) surrounded by barbed wire. Tens of thousands of people held in these dense and unsanitary guarded camps and villages died from hunger or disease.

To justify these atrocities, British officials painted the Mau Mau as savage “terrorists” because of the violent and brutal methods they used to hunt down and kill white settlers and local informers. Official figures show that Mau Mau fighters killed 32 British settlers and 1,819 indigenous people whom they believed to be spies for the British.

Today what the British Empire did in Kenya might be perceived as a form of ethnic cleansing, but because colonisation was not unfashionable then, the atrocities were not condemned, nor was anyone tried. It was only in 2011, during a landmark court case brought against the British by a group of Mau Mau veterans, that the British government, under legal pressure, admitted that the documents were in a high-security facility that also contained files from 36 other former British colonies. (In 2013, 5,228 Mau Mau veterans were awarded £20 million in compensation by a UK court, which amounts to roughly £3,000 per victim, a paltry sum given the suffering they endured.) One of these documents contained details of eight colonial officers stationed in Kenya “roasting detainees alive”. All of the accused officers were granted amnesty.

Official amnesia 

Official amnesia and disinformation were not just part of a deliberate campaign by the British Empire to whitewash the crimes it committed in its colonies in Africa and elsewhere, but also a strategy employed by post-colonial governments in Kenya to cloak their own complicity in ensuring that British interests in the country were preserved.

Post-independence Kenyan elites benefitted from colonial policies that alienated Africans from their own land and became the biggest beneficiaries of post-independence land grabs disguised as land redistribution or adjudication. After independence, the so-called home guards or loyalists became the biggest beneficiaries of land and political power. According to Kenya’s 2013 Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission report, “Rich businessmen and businesswomen, rich and powerful politicians who were loyal to the colonial administration, managed to acquire thousands of acres at the expense of the poor and the landless.” Hence, “instead of redressing land-related injustices perpetrated by the colonialists on Africans, the resettlement process created a privileged class of African elites, leaving those who had suffered land alienation either on tiny unproductive pieces of land or landless.” Even today in Kenya, members of freedom fighting movements like the Mau Mau remain landless and poverty-stricken while those who sided with the colonialists are among the richest people in the land.

After independence, the so-called home guards or loyalists became the biggest beneficiaries of land and political power.

The Mau Mau remained a proscribed organisation for four decades after independence. It was only in 2003, when Mwai Kibaki became president, that the Mau Mau were recognised for the role they had played in Kenya’s struggle for independence. Kenyatta Day on 20 October was renamed Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) to commemorate all those who died while fighting for freedom. In 2007, a statue of Dedan Kimathi was erected in Nairobi’s central business district, and in 2015, following the 2013 UK court decision to compensate Mau Mau veterans, the British government put up a Mau Mau memorial sculpture in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park “as a symbol of reconciliation between the British government, the Mau Mau and all those who suffered”.

Despite these symbols of reconciliation and healing, the traumatic legacy of British colonialism lingers in Kenya to this day. This is why Kenyans were demanding an apology from the King – because the wounds have not yet healed. While a public apology might not have been enough to completely heal the wounds and traumas of the past, it would have been an important first step.

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