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It started since
1970’s. The British army continued on Kenyan soil even after Kenya became
formally independent, with the ostensible reason of training their troops. The
UK is till now maintaining a training base near Mount Kenya.
In Mosai area, the
British troops used the area as a firing range, left it with thousands of
unexploded munitions, which crippled and killed hundreds of people. Last year,
lawyer Martyn Dey fought a case against the British army and got compensation
worth $ 70 lakhs.
While investigating
these cases, the British solicitor interacted with tribal women of that region.
Three decades of continuing atrocities on women and suppression of the truth
came to light. Martyn Dey received a plethora of complaints by tribal women. As
he began to fathom the facts, it was a tragic tale of tribal wom-en that
continued for three decades.
Mr. Dey told the BBC
Radio 4 programme: "When women first came to see me about six months ago, I
couldn’t believe it could be true. But more we went to police stations, clinics,
hospitals and local government offices, the more we were able to find
contemporaneous documentary evidence to show that women are complaining about
the rapes over a 30-year period. What really worries us.., despite the fact that
this was reported first in 1977 to the British commanding officers at the time,
no attempt was ever made,.. to try to stop this happening"
Here are some of the
tormenting testimonies:
Oseina Thomas Koital
testified to Amnesty International in June 2003:
She was in her late
teens. Two decades ago, around midday, she was taking her sheep home. Seven UK
soldiers caught her. She screamed and struggled. She remembers being raped by
four of them. Then she lost consciousness. Soldiers were white and weaving
military boots, a headgear of leafy branches, and had backpacks and guns. When
she regained consciousness, she was in a pool of blood. Even after two decades,
she never regained her health.
Margaret Risambu, 30,
spoke to BBC on line in July 2003. It was in 1988 when she went to visit her
brother-in-law who works at Wamba. Her brother-in-law had sheep and goats, one
day she followed the herd. On the way there was a polytechnic, which the British
Army was constructing. The British soldiers asked her whether goats were hers.
The place was a bushy place with thorn trees. They dragged me down. There were
four of them. I was pregnant at that time. Two months.. Since then she started
bleeding furiously and she has not been able to conceive. She did not enough
money to go for medical tests. She said: ‘We have the exhibits.. The kids are
there. Most of the kids are suffering. They are sick. We want education; we want
shelter – for those kids. Most of those who were raped and now have kids left
the school.
Anna Tipitia, said to
Guardian that she was attacked by two soldiers in 1983. They raped, beat and
kicked her in a brutal attack in which they broke her pelvis. She said "Even
if the British soldiers compensate me, I will never be able to forget.’’
Hundreds of Risambas
and Tipitas narrated these harrowing tales. More than two thirds of the rapes
were gang rapes and about forty women had children. 650 Kenyan women told these
stories of gang rape, unwanted pregnancies, ruined lives and mixed race children
shunned by the community, to British solicitor Martyn Dey, who was planning a
legal action against the British army personnel on behalf of these women. The
mercenararies did not spare young boys too from their heinous crime. The lawyers
got testimonies of 15 boys who were sodomised by the army. Most of them from
Nanyuki in the Mkogodo area; five are from Isiolo.
Victims of rape carry
a terrible stigma in Masai society. Many of the women spent years of isolated
life. It has been toughest for those who had mixed-race children. Fair skinned
and blond-haired Maxwell, whose mother Elizabeth says she was gang raped by
British army personnel. She said that her life became miserable. At school no
one would sit beside his son. He was taunted with the name ‘British Johnny’.
British are synonymous with hatred for Masai tribes.
The Ministry of
Defense first denied the allegations. Later in the face of a flood of evidence,
it said that it knew the complaints afresh. In 1983 itself, there was a meeting
between Masai tribal leaders and MoD officials. As this meeting came to light
the MoD kept mum. Uncovering of hospital records since the 1970’s also helped to
establish the Kenyan women victims’ case strongly. It was forced to grant legal
aid for 650 Kenyan women who are suing the Ministry of Defense. The women
victims, despite many odds, continue to protest and demand justice. Hundreds of
Kenyan women, victims of rape, demonstrated on August 14th in Nairobi. After
these demonstrations, the British Royal military police descended on Kenya as an
eye wash to look into the cases where there is some documentary evidence. Women
who demonstrated said they do not trust the army to investigate itself.
When people have
started fighting for justice, the British army began the propaganda that many
claims are false and women are coming forward keeping in view the fat
compensation. The fact is that the stigma of admitting to being a rape victim is
so great in Kenya that the women have lot to loose by joining the action. Some
had been already thrown out of their homes by husbands and fathers.
Commit atrocities and
suppress the truth! That seems to be the British government policy. The
comprador government knows about the atrocities and kept mum. While social
stigma is one reason why women did not come out openly earlier, the real reason
is the complicity and collaboration of the Kenyan government. Their attitude
towards the Masai tribals is always that they are second grade citizens.
But worldwide,
revolutionary movements are in ferment, whether they are the tribal areas of
Chattisgarh, Jharkhand; or the North- East part of India; or the interiors and
hitherto so much neglected areas of Himalayan Nepal, or the Ayacucho hills of
Peru.. Even the Masai tribals can not sit silent to the decades of atrocities
and the complicity of the Kenyan compradors. These oppressed people will turn
into a tornado to bury the culprits.
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