Muigwithania 2.0

Karanja’s Dairy(daily Kos) -I am a fire breathing liberal, and a huge Obama supporter, for which reason, I liked the idea of an Ahmadinejad loss in the recent Iranian elections, particularly given that the storyline that was developing was that his loss would be translated as a win for Obama’s softly softly approach toward Iran and as an endorsement by the Iranian people (whom conservatives like to proclaim they have no quarrel with – even as they support sanctions that would weaken the Iranian economy wreaking havoc to those very Iranian people’s lives) of his extension of an open hand of friendship and open dialogue. Alas, the election did not go as I had hoped, against the slim odds that Mir-Hossein Mousavi might have toppled Ahmadinejad. Slim odds, in my opinion, because as all news media admitted in the lead up to the election, the close polls that were coming out of Iran were questionable, at best, and even if they had been accurate, the best case scenario would have suggested that the election would turn on turnout, and would have gone to whomever would succeed in getting out their supporters. I would argue that in fact it is quite likely that the polls would have unduly skewed toward the opposition, given that the opposition’s support was centered in the urban areas, and among the young and educated elites within the country, who would have access to telephones and other telecommunications technology and hence may very well have been over-polled.

This would suggest to me that in fact the polls showing Mousavi running almost even with Ahmadinejad could not be relied on as an indication of national sentiment right across Iran. Ahmadinejad according to all media reports enjoyed greater support from the majority of the rural population, who have benefitted hugely from his policies. Those people live outside Tehran, do not Tweet, and possibly have little reason to take to the streets, particularly given that their man got back in office. Whatever you think of Iran, and its system of government, Ahmadinejad was elected democratically four years ago, and has ruled in accordance with a relatively free, fair and democratic Iranian system, which contrary to popular belief is actually one where dissent takes place in relative openness and without crackdowns as most would prefer to believe. That the supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is an unelected official and the true Iranian Head of State is certainly a situation that is suspect in mine, as well as in the eyes of many, but then again, I can’t believe the United Kingdom, the other country whose nationality I hold, has a Monarch as the official Head of Sate.

Furthermore, the Supreme Leader was installed as a result of the Theocracy that followed the Iranian Revolution that ousted the Shah of Iran, who btw, had been installed by the United States interfering with and ousting the democratically elected Iranian government of the time in 1953. With regard to the British Monarchy, I am personally super offended that my taxes go to support a whole family and their cousins and aunts and uncles, who also happen to be the world’s wealthiest welfare dependents, but that’s just me. So, with that out of the way, the idea that this election was not free and fair is not a foregone conclusion. The fact that the demonstrators are fighting a dictator is not necessarily one that is borne out by all the facts. That they are demonstrating against a leader they did not vote for and whom they do not like is certainly clear. That the elections were rigged is certainly not clear either. Therefore, to continue to encourage the Iranian people to demonstrate against the election is not necessarily responsible. Senator Saxby Chambliss of GA, went on Chris Mathews declaring that the election was stolen and calling on President Obama to call it as such. This is hugely irresponsible, and is not backed by any facts whatsoever. President Obama, as usual is ahead of most everyone else, and has struck exactly the right tone on the question of the Iranian elections. As he pointed out, not only is there no guarantee that Mousavi would be dramatically different, but there really is nothing to suggest that Mousavi won, other than that his supporters are certainly very passionate, and clearly do not accept that Ahmadinejad won. Surely if Ahmadinejad was the tyrannical dictator that it has been suggested he was, I can’t imagine that we would have seen the relative calm surrounding the demonstrations that we have seen, notwithstanding the eight deaths that were reportedly caused by Ahmadinejad’s supporters, and not by official government personnel.

Many news reports have admitted that it is not clear that Mousavi won, and in fact, the only extent to which many have gone was to argue that Ahmadinejad could not have won by the margins that it is claimed he won. I argue that in fact it is highly credible that he did win by larger than expected margins, given the heavy skew in favor of the opposition, that I believe the polls would have had, and given a possible higher turnout among the rural vote that supports Ahmadinejad than the urban (more visible, more tweetable) vote. We in the west had absolutely no opportunity whatsoever to gage the rural support for Ahmadinejad, and furthermore, given that they may not have even viewed President Obama’s extension of friendship, may not have necessarily cared for greater engagement with the west, and hence may well not have cared for a change of government. I come from Kenya, and during the recent turmoil that followed the disputed elections of December 2007, I saw similar kneejerk reactions in the west in support of the opposition, calling for President Kibaki who had won in a closely contested election, to back down and or negotiate to end the impasse.

What most in the west were not privy to, was that the opposition were in fact a murderous bunch of thugs who killed over a thousand government supporters and tried to ethnically cleanse the government supporting members of the Kikuyu tribe from opposition strongholds, leading to hundreds of thousands displaced form their homes and ending up as internally displaced people, who to this day remain displaced, over two years later! It was not convenient to report this particularly given that the opposition was seen as more pro-western, which in fact they were. It is not that the Kenyan government is anti-western, but in fact the reality is that the opposition was far more malleable towards western manipulation, with the opposition leader, Raila Odinga having close ties to the MI6, and having enjoyed the support of British business backers, who stood to gain from greater exploitation of Kenya in a Raila administration. In that election, just like in the Iranian, there was no clear evidence that the incumbent had not indeed won, but furthermore, there was evidence that the opposition had been less than honest and transparent in their strongholds, having started their murderous rampage on the eve of the election, killing security personnel who had been sent to man polling stations within the strongholds of the opposition in Western and Nyanza provinces.

The US and Britain were impatient with President Kibaki, I believe who had refused all western aid, having succeeded in turning Kenya into a self dependent economy that was growing at a 7% rate annually and running purely on tax revenues. One example of his refusal to play ball was when he refused George Bush’s “so called” aid for HIV AIDS programs, which came with the strings attached of having to spend the money on US patented drugs, which cost so much more than generics that Kenya could have obtained from India and Brazil. It is therefore with such examples that I tread the free Iran bandwagon with great care, knowing that I do not understand enough about internal Iranian politics to jump to the conclusion that a) Iran is not Democratic and that b) that Mousavi won the last election. As far as I can see, there are demonstrations against an election result that a good number of Iranians, quite possibly almost half of the population disagree with. Can you even begin to imagine if the nearly half of the American electorate that voted for Senator McCain had refused to accept the election results last year, and decided to take to the streets? That would be seriously huge numbers and would certainly produce the same results as what we are seeing in Iran.

Granted that is a distant possibility, but take for example, Gore vs. Bush in 2000. That election was even closer, and was disputed and remains disputed to this day. That is one situation where demonstrations could have taken place, and indeed did take place. But can you imagine what it would have looked like if masses of Democrats had felt strongly enough to come out for big demonstrations. I certainly think that people actually did feel strongly enough and would have come out en masse if Gore had encouraged it. He did not. Moussavi has been encouraging the demonstrations, and so has the western media in their one sided coverage. I am just not convinced that the western view will be borne out by the facts on this occasion. I support the right of the Iranian people to demonstrate in peace, without the fear of violence or retribution, but this seems to be the case right now. I support the right of the Iranian people to demand exactly what sort of government they want to see, and indeed to question their election results if they do not feel that they were fair and transparent enough. I will however, not jump on the bandwagon of jumping to the conclusion that this half, if that, of the Iranian population is the only true point of view. I also wholeheartedly agree with President Obama’s decision to sit this one out, and I believe that time will prove him right to have done so very soon, and I sincerely hope that he does not cave to the right’s demands to throw himself any further into the melee.

By Karanja- A liberal American Blogger on Daily Kos

http://karanja.dailykos.com/

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It is inconceivable that anyone would have investigated the activities of Mungiki and Sabaot Land Defence Force in a mere ten days. This is hardly enough time to investigate chicken theft.On his visit, Alston spent one hour with the Police, despite having been granted total access. It was apparent he did so merely to fulfil a mandatory requirement, rather than establish the truth. In fact, during the two 30-minute sessions at Police Headquarters, he complained he would be late for other appointments and had to leave. He did not try to visit any police stations and cannot now complain he was not assisted.

Alston provides little beyond wild allegations. It seems he was handed a written document by local activists to adopt as his own work. In his hurry to use plagiarised material, he failed to interrogate why civil society organisations used unqualified persons to conduct post mortem examinations in Mt Elgon.In his overzealousness to condemn those he was instructed to, he has published inexcusable falsehoods. His assertion there was no need to assemble evidence to apportion blame is an astonishing disregard for due process. According to him, the fact that any unproved allegation had been made is sufficient reason to condemn the Government without the need for further proof!

There is no precedent for such absurd reasoning. All reports by rapporteurs are made on the basis of information sufficient to require further investigation, not to sustain a conviction.
The report comes as ‘civil society’ organisations with links to Mungiki try to elicit public sympathy against efforts to restore law and order. Their diversionary tactic is to distract attention from the more than 5,000 Mungiki prosecuted, including the leader Maina Njenga, and the many defectors executed by this gang.Little or no effort was made to investigate each allegation or to obtain credible evidence. Given the resources available to organisations that have made these allegations, it is telling that none has sought to “bring the killers to book” by setting in motion any proceedings or, at the very least, lodging formal complaints.In summary, Alston suggests that he had three objectives: (a) to ascertain the types of unlawful killings; (b) to investigate whether those responsible are held to account; and (c) to propose measures to reduce incidence of killings and “impunity”.It is sad to note that:He chose to concentrate exclusively on accusations against the police. He did not find it necessary to ask about the systematic murder of citizens by Mungiki. Maybe he thought it was not important. He, however, appeals to the criminals to stop killing!b) Alston did not identify even one person responsible for specific killings sufficiently enough to sustain any prosecution;c) The ‘recommendations’ he makes were handed to him by activists keen to attract donor funding and, therefore, neither interested in truth nor accuracy.

There are a number of factors that militate against any attempt to take the report seriously. First, the sweeping findings and generalisations by the rapporteur are astonishing. Obsession with the police is evident in the three areas that he elected to study.

Alston provides not an iota of evidence on alleged killings by police. All he has are wild allegations by civil society groups. Torture allegations against police or military personnel are based on similar information. These, however, are outside Alston’s mandate and fall within the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Torture, an established office in the same UN office. He also concentrates on post-election violence, which was not a case of extra-judicial killings. Police action in reaction to widespread politically-instigated violence was, arguably, also outside his mandate.

The report is a cheap anti-police statement that strains to ensure the result is skewed. Alston claims he interviewed many Government officials, but he falsified the list of people he met and his visits were brief and hurried. His report is fabricated and postulated entirely on the allegations of phantom witnesses supplemented by bias and prejudice.

In current investigations, it is clear that Mungiki hace changed tack and infiltrated the public opinion machinery. The activities of the group have escalated following the report’s release.While cases of human rights abuse cannot and will not be tolerated, it is essential that there be credibility in independent investigations. This report, sadly, does not have such credibility. It would have been useful to have a truly independent report with plausible evidence of wrongdoing. But our security shall not be battered by populist compilations with no investigative merit.

By Eric Kiraithe

God hates seven things. Tellingly, the first is pride. When someone overvalues himself by undervaluing others, he inevitably reveals it with his proud look. Puffed up in self-conceit, he may also devise evil and sow discord. No wonder God hates proud looks. Proud and powerful people may think they can disregard others’ displeasure, but they cannot disregard God’s opposition.

Peter reminds us not to trust in ourselves but in the One who will exalt us “in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). As we submit to Him, we avoid the risk that pride brings to our character and we become thankful, humble servants of God.

We should never look down on others ! devise evil and sow discord with the aim of building ourselves.We can grow and build without undervaluing others.Because we seek a better future for ourselves We  should also seek a better future for others  even though seperate from ourselves

With the pervasive demonisation of the Mungiki militia group providing an effective cover for the killing of members of the Kikuyu community – Mungiki and non-Mungiki alike – ordinary citizens are reluctant to speak out, both for fear of being accused of supporting the sect and of the reactions of Mungiki militia to criticism. Calling on the political and religious leadership of the Kikuyu community to face up to the challenge in its midst, Maathai urges the country to heal the growing rift between the community and other Kenyans.

Mungiki

In the course of history everywhere in the world, it is the leadership of the day that guides its people towards peace or war, poverty or wealth, development or collapse, slavery or freedom. And so it is with Kenya’s current leadership, a leadership which is failing to see the signs of anger and frustration of those they govern even though the writing is on the wall. Since the rupture over the infamous Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2003, the referendum on the constitution, the general elections and the subsequent fallout from them, Kenya has continued to slide dangerously backwards.

In 2008, thanks to a quick response from the African Union and the international community, Kenya was saved from the brink and a National Accord was arrived at to allow the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to declare a ceasefire, share power and work towards national cohesion and reconciliation. Kenya was given a new lease of life but since then the leadership has wasted away that second chance as it continues to compete and play politics with only 2012 in mind. In the past, the failure to recognise danger signs were the reason why some people expressed shock and dismay that deadly post-election violence could happen in Kenya in 2007-08. Such people had believed that Kenya was a peaceful country. Unfortunately, that perception was because people ignored the danger signs and lived a lie. To such people the tribal clashes of 1991, 1992 and 1997 were quickly forgotten. Yet during those earlier clashes, as in 2007-08, distress calls to the police for help were ignored. Many people died, and more were maimed, raped and displaced, while much property was destroyed. Again, once politicians shared power and privileges, nobody was held responsible for those crimes. Everything was swept under the carpet and was quickly forgotten. As it turned out, the clashes of the 1990s proved to be rehearsals for the post-election violence of 2007-08 and in all cases the violence was largely directed at the Kikuyu community.

Currently, the danger signs are palpable. Instances of citizens being murdered in cold blood in cases where no robbery is involved, or citizens shouting down leaders at public rallies – such as happened during Jamhuri Day (12 December 2008) and Labour Day (1 May 2009) – or youth uprooting the railway, engaging police in gun battles in rural towns, or engaging in killing orgies of defenceless villagers, are all signs of a society that is falling apart and losing respect for the rule of law. The government knows that the violence and killings are largely perpetrated by members of militia groups, which are created and funded by politicians. Different communities have their militia, which bear different names. The government knows these militia groups and knows that politicians use them to punish and defeat their opponents, especially during elections. If they win elections, the same politicians end up in government and become part of the leadership.

Mungiki, which is currently making headlines, is the militia group from the Kikuyu community. Information about the group is kept secret, but unconfirmed reports indicate that this militia is split into several groups. The original Mungiki members were only interested in pursuing the Kikuyu form of worship, which prays facing Mt. Kenya. This group does not believe in Christianity and calls for the traditional Kikuyu way of life, including practicing female circumcision. Owing largely to its stand on those two issues, the strongly christianised Kikuyu community has been unsympathetic towards this group and has largely demonised the sect. The banning of the sect by the government has criminalised it, and therefore the community and Kenyans in general have tolerated the extrajudicial killing of its members.The police have taken advantage of this demonisation and criminalisation to kill Mungiki indiscriminately, because they know that they will not be called to account. Why the members of the sect are denied freedom of worship, in a country where everybody else can worship as they please, is not clear. Indeed it is only among the Kikuyu community that worshiping in a traditional way is demonised, criminalised and the killing of followers is tolerated.

The second group camouflages itself as Mungiki but is said to be comprised of militiamen being recruited from thousands of unemployed youth. With the failure of the cash crop economy, impoverishment and the introduction of drugs and illicit alcoholic drinks in the Central region, it has been easy to recruit youth and men into militia groups. Criminality gradually infiltrated some of these militia groups, especially as they sought ways to sustain themselves beyond the handouts from their sponsors. Therefore, they become available to politicians and others for hire. They are the type we encounter protecting grabbed public lands or properties built on stolen land. Sometimes they may receive police protection, an indication of their political patronage.

The third group is claimed to be closely connected to the law enforcement arm of the government and is used to collect information, intimidate and instil fear in citizens, terrorise matatus and silence elements like dissidents, activists and competing elements. It may also provide ‘protection’ or other services for a fee. These are the ones people accuse of hiring police guns to commit crimes.

In some cases the militiamen and the law enforcement arm of the government form a symbiotic relationship, which sometimes goes sour with either of them getting killed. When militiamen are killed they are labelled thieves and members of the Mungiki sect. That is usually an indication that the matter get closed and no further action is expected. Because of the internalised disdain of the Mungiki sect, especially in the Kikuyu community, the expected outcry against their killings has been absent and nobody in the community wants to be seen supporting Mungiki. At the same time Mungiki has instilled so much fear in the community that nobody is willing to speak about them or their actions for fear of immediate elimination.Therefore, when innocent persons are killed and are labelled Mungiki, death is stoically accepted as the will of God and the community internalises the pain. Killing members of Mungiki, irrespective of their innocence, has became so acceptable that all that police have to claim to literally get away with any murder is to say that the victim was a member of Mungiki. Unfortunately, that has degenerated into acceptance of killing of innocent Kikuyus. Currently this is further degenerating into members of Mungiki turning on the community itself in a cycle of vengeance and tit-for-tat.

The recent murder of the son of the former member of parliament for Gatundu North, Hon. Kariuki Muiruri, painfully exemplifies the tragedy and the dilemma that the Kikuyu community faces. The son was shot dead by a plainclothes policeman, who subsequently walked into a police station and wrote in the Occurrence Book (OB) that he had killed a thief who was also a member of the Mungiki sect! Yet the son was on holiday and the two met casually at a social place. Whatever the circumstances that led to the shooting of the son, this was a case of an innocent young man killed by a policeman who knew that nothing would happen to him if he were to record that the man was a member of the Mungiki sect. But for the fact that the victim was the son of a former member of parliament and a former assistant minister, Muiruri’s son would have joined the list of thousands of Kikuyu youth who have been killed under similar circumstances and labelled thieves and members of the Mungiki sect.

The Mungiki phenomenon, almost like the Mau Mau experience five decades ago, is providing cover for extrajudicial killings, intimidation, harassment, criminalisation and the bashing of the Kikuyu community under the pretence that police are protecting citizens from Mungiki. Sometimes police are fully aware of the activities carried out by this group. The killings in Mathira and Kirinyaga, for example, are said to have been committed with full knowledge of the law enforcement arm of the government. Indeed, citizens claim that distress calls to the police for help were never responded to until the killings had been completed. The extrajudicial killings of innocent Kenyans have been attracting international attention. This is because not only is the state perceived to be failing in protecting its citizens, but the police are being blamed for some of the deaths. Promises to carry out a thorough investigation come to nothing, and nobody has been held to account. After all, the police cannot be expected to investigate and incriminate themselves.

Perhaps militia groups like Mungiki have gotten out of hand. But is the right response to militia groups a license to kill them indiscriminately? We are not in a state of war, and nobody should be killed without following the due process of the law of the land, police excuses for self-defence notwithstanding. Police Commissioner Hussein Ali will find it hard to explain how in his era Kenya has experienced a level of carnage at the hands of the police greater than at any other time, even when compared with the colonial era. When the government sends the message that the Mungiki group should be crushed, it is an endorsement for extrajudicial killings. For their part, the militiamen will subsequently go on a killing spree to avenge members killed. This cycle of death has become a common feature, has instilled fear and has given rise to frustration in the people of Central Kenya.

The way I see it, the political and religious leadership of the Kikuyu community should rise to the challenge facing the entire community. This is a community that suffers from accumulated trauma and frustration extending back to the beginning of the colonial era. From the latest attack during the post-election violence, the community has yet to bury their dead, settle the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and send their children back to school. A culture of Kikuyu bashing, criminalisation and isolation is being perpetrated and is quickly entrenching itself, creating a deep rift between the community and other Kenyans. The fact that this is happening when the national leadership in State House is from the community is doubly tragic. How can they be so bashed, so criminalised, killed, displaced and humiliated when their beloved son is in State House? Will he wait until he or members of his family are touched by the tragedy afflicting the community? If they are now encouraged to turn on each other, there will be no shortage of helping hands, including being given guns to kill their own children! For a country awash with militia groups, these are dangerous signs not only for the Kikuyu community, but for Kenya as a whole. The question I would ask Prime Minister Raila Odinga is, have you not heard the cries or seen the tears of these Kenyans in your capacity as the coordinator of government business? Have you not seen the mourning mothers?

* Wangari Maathai .Nobel Peace Prize winner

In a few weeks, a group of quiet, dignified elderly men and women will arrive in London to explain how the forces of the British state crushed their testicles or breasts with pliers. It was part of a deliberate policy of breaking a civilian population who we regarded as “baboons”, “barbarians” and “terrorists”.They will come bearing the story of how Britain invaded a country, stole its land, and imprisoned an entire civilian population in detention camps – and they ask only for justice, after all this time.

As a small symbol of how we as a country have not come to terms with our history, compare the bemused reaction to the arrival of these Kenyan survivors of Britain’s gulags to the recent campaign supporting the Gurkhas. We have all waxed lyrical over the Nepalese soldiers who were, for two centuries, hired by the British Empire to fight its battles. Sometimes they were used in great causes, like the defeat of Nazism. Sometimes they were used to crush democratic movements in India or Malaya or Pakistan. But they did the bidding of the Empire – so they are that rare bunch of foreigners whom the right will welcome. I too strongly supported their rights to reside in Britain, out of simple humanity – if they’re good enough to die for us, they’re good enough to live with us. But isn’t it revealing that even in 2009, we can cheer the servants of Empire but blank the people mutilated and murdered by it?

The British arrived in Kenya in the 1880s, at a time when our economic dominance was waning and new colonies were needed. The Colonial Office sent in waves of white settlers to seize the land from the local “apes” and mark it with the Union Jack. Francis Hall was the officer of the East India Company tasked with mounting armed raids against the Kikuyu – the most populous local tribe – to break their resistance. He said: “There is only one way of improving the [Kikuyu] and that is to wipe them out; I would only be too delighted to do so but we have to depend on them for food supplies.”

The British troops stole more than 360,000 acres from the Kikuyu, and renamed the area “the White Highlands.” But the white settlers were aristocratic dilettantes with little experience of farming, and they were soon outraged to discover that the “primitives” were growing food far more efficiently on the reserves into which they had been driven. So they forced the local black population to work “their” land, and passed a law banning local Africans from inde-pendently growing the most profitable cash crops – tea, coffee, and sisal.

The people of Kenya objected, and tried to repel the invaders. They called for ithaka na wiyathi – land and freedom. After peaceful protests were met with violence, they formed a group, dubbed the Mau Mau, to stop the suppression any way they could. They started killing the leaders appointed by the British, and some of the settlers too. As a result, the London press described them as “evil savages” and “terrorists” who were motivated by hatred of Christianity and civilisation. They had been “brainwashed” by “Mau Mau cult leaders”, the reports shrieked. The 1.5 million Kikuya overwhelmingly supported the Mau Mau and independence – so the British declared war on them all. A state of emergency was announced, and it began with forced removals of all Kikuyu. Anybody living outside the reserves – in any of the cities, for example – was rounded up at gunpoint, packed into lorries, and sent to “transit camps”. There, they were “screened” to see if they were Mau Mau supporters. One of the people locked up this way for months was Barack Obama’s grandfather.

Professor Caroline Elkins, who studied the detention camps for five years for her remarkable book Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, explains the tactics adopted by the British to snuffle out Mau Mau. “Electric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire,” she writes. “Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin and hot eggs were thrust up men’s rectums and women’s vaginas. “The screening teams whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects.”

The people judged to be guilty of Mau Mau sympathies were transferred to torture camps. There, each detainee was given a number which they had to wear on a band on their wrist. They were then stripped naked and sent through a cattle dip, before the torture would begin again. “Detainees were frog-marched around the compound and beaten until blood ran from their ears,” Elkins writes.

The Kikuyu survivor Pascasio Macharia describes some of the tortures he witnessed: “The askaris [guards] brought in fire buckets full of water, and the detainees were called one by one, [my friend] Peterson first. The askaris then put his head in the bucket of water and lifted his legs high in the air so he was upside down. That’s when [one of the camp commandants] started cramming sand in Peterson’s anus and stuffed it in with a stick. The other askari would put water in, and then more sand. They kept doing this back and forth … Eventually they finished with Peterson and carried him off, only to start on the next detainee in the compound.”

British Crimes against Kikuyus

When I reported from Kenya earlier this year, I met elderly people who still shake with fear as they talk about the gulags. William Baldwin, a British member of the Kenya Police Reserve, wrote a memoir in which he cheerfully admits to murdering Kikuya “baboons” in cold blood. He bragged about how he gutted them with knives while other suspects watched. Another British officer, Tony Cross, proudly called their tactics “Gestapo stuff”. For the civilians outside, life was only slightly better. Women and children were trapped in 800 “sealed villages” throughout the countryside. They were surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, and forced at gunpoint to dig trenches that sealed them off from the world.

There was always another, honourable Britain that fought against these crimes. The Labour left – especially Barbara Castle and Nye Bevan – fought for the camps to be exposed and shut. They didn’t succeed until the British imperialists were finally forced to scuttle away from the country entirely. We will never know how many people they murdered, because the colonial administration built a bonfire of all the paperwork on their way out the door. Elkins calculates it is far more than the 11,000 claimed by the British Government, and could be as many as 300,000.

Yet in Britain today, there is a blood-encrusted blank spot about Empire. On the reality show The Apprentice, the contestants recently had to pick a name for their team, and they said they wanted “something that represented the best of British” – so they settled on “Empire”. Nobody objected. Imagine young Germans blithely naming a team “Reich”: it’s unthinkable, because they have had to study what their fathers and grandfathers did, and expunge these barbarous instincts from their national DNA.

This failure to absorb the lessons of Empire is not only unjust to the victims; it leads us to repeat horrifying mistakes. Today, we are – with the Americans – using unmanned drones to bomb the Pakistan-Afghan borderland, as we did a few years ago in Iraq. Nobody here seems to remember that the British invented aerial counter-insurgency in this very spot – with disastrous consequences.

In 1924, Arthur “Bomber” Harris bragged that all rebellion could be stopped with this tactic. We have shown them, “what real bombing means, in casualties and damage: they know that within 45 minutes, a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed,” he said. Yet instead of “pacifying” them, it radically alienated the population and lead to an uprising. If we knew our history, we would not be running the same script and expecting a different ending.

Gordon Brown said last year (in India, of all places) that “the days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over”. The survivors of England’s blanked-out torture camps are entitled to ask: when did they ever apologise?

j.hari@independent.co.uk