Mau Mau secret files released

The National Museums of Kenya has released more information on the history of the Mau Mau freedom fighters, including their incarceration at various detention camps in Lamu.

The findings, contained in secret files from the colonial government intelligence, show that Lamu had many detention camps spread on the mainland and the island, where key Kenyan freedom fighters were jailed.

The files, marked “top secret”, were found at the Lamu Fort, which was a prison during the colonial period. They contain confidential letters on prominent figures such as Jomo Kenyatta, Achieng’ Oneko, Bildad Kagia, Paul Ngei, Pio Gama Pinto and Muindi Mbingu, some of whom were detained in Lamu.

The communication was between the local colonial administrators and the headquarters in Nairobi as the detainees were moved from one camp to another. At the Coast, the notorious camps were at Manyani, Hola and on Manda Island.

One of the confidential reports is that of Ngei in the early 1950s that described him as an educated and extremely dangerous agitator closely associated with Kenyatta and other leading politicians.

The conclusion was made since he was a publisher of two “seditious” newspapers Wasya wa Mukamba (The Voice of Kamba) and Uhuru wa Mwafrika (Freedom for Africans).

The correspondence also gives information on Asian detainees such as Pinto, Davinder Singh Gopal and Babubai Umedhbhai Patel, who were at a special camp for Asians in Takwa, Lamu. This shows that the fight for freedom cut across tribe and race.

Lamu had about nine detention camps, which the colonial administrators considered the most ideal for “hard-core” freedom fighters.

The NMK assistant director in charge of Coast, Mr Athman Hussein, said the colonialists chose islands such as Manda and Takwa as ideal camps because the detainees could not escape by swimming across the sea.

“This is very important information which should now be in the public domain,” he said.