Mau Mau D-Day as veterans file case against UK

• They seek an apology for abuses at the very least, and some form of compensation

“What you are doing is wrong,” he wrote to his boss adding “I can’t accept this job”.

When in March, 1959, 11 inmates died in the Hola camp, the investigating magistrate, W. H. Goudie, blamed officially-sanctioned brutality for the deaths.

So what now? Today, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Mau Mau War Veterans Association will file a suit in London against the British Government for human rights abuses and torture. It is expected that the British Government will present a range of legal arguments to stall the case, deny responsibility or refute the allegations. The case could drag on for years.

One of the best legal teams, Leigh Day & Co Solicitors, have been hired. The firm has previously litigated on behalf of the Maasai bomb victims and the Kenyan women who claim to have been raped by British soldiers.

The wazee are in London to make their plight known to the British public. And what will they be asking for? An apology at the very least and some form of reparation to enable them to live their sunset years with some degree of dignity, comfort and security.

Highly immoral

There can be no argument that the treatment meted out to these men and women, who were demanding their God-given right to be free, was highly immoral. But would it not be an even greater immorality to deny these veterans their right to recognition and a better life?

The Mau Mau freedom fighters are now in their eighties and nineties, many of them ailing. Kenya owes its independence to these valiant patriots who should be accorded justice.