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Reports had started to come back from one of the last parts of the empire Kenya that seemed to show that those in charge had gone out of control. They had been fighting a liberation movement called the Mau Mau. The reports said that hundreds of thousands of Kenyans had been put into special camps where they were going to be psychologically adjusted. The British were trying to manipulate what their chief psychologist called the African Mind. But what then happened in the camps turned into a frenzied madness. The British used mass torture and killing as they desperately tried to hold on to power. The government in London denied all the accusations but the rumours of violence and horror continued. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head I: Bloodshed on Wolf Mountain, BBCiplayer 2021
Mau Mau – their goal was freedom from British rule. Jeremy Paxman, Empire V: Doing Good, BBC 2012
The authorities rounded up Mau Mau suspects thousands at a time herding them into vast internment camps. ibid.
Fifty years later Britain’s Kenya cover-up revealed: Government efforts to cover up one of the worst episodes in British colonial history have been revealed by the discovery of a vast cache of documents relating to the bloody Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.
The papers, documenting efforts to put down insurgency, were spirited out of Africa on the eve of Kenya’s independence and have been held in secret government archives for half a century. The Times online article April 2011
The ferocious Nandi bear – this beast reportedly roams the forests of western Kenya and is said to have an insatiable appetite. The existence of these creatures has been a hotly debated topic for over a century – is it a myth or a monster? Destination Truth s4e1, Skyfy 2010
The creature has a muscular body, high shoulders and a powerful sloping back. ibid.
It is our belief that the Nandi bear seen today is a large hyena. ibid.
In the heart of Kenya’s stunning countryside a massive volcano called the Menengai Crater is the unexpected home of a reportedly intense paranormal presence. Destination Truth s4e6
The legend adds that the bodies of the dead were thrown into the abyss as the fighting raged on. ibid.
Voices singing and a visible ball of light – that’s the craziest clash of stuff I’ve ever seen and heard in one place. ibid.
In September 2013, al-Shabab and al-Qaeda, linked terrorist groups from Somalia, attacked a shopping mall in neighbouring Kenya. This World: Terror at the Mall, BBC 2014
They had killed sixty-one including a dozen children and three pregnant women. ibid.
Kenyans risk 4 years’ prison for using plastic bags in world’s toughest ban. Financial Times report 29th August 2017
By the time we completed it several of the contributors had been brutally murdered. Ross Kemp on Gangs s4e4 & s4e5, Sky 2008
‘Hundreds of people including women and children have been killed in explosive riots across Kenya.’ ibid. television news
The Mungiki have a reputation for using beheadings, skinnings and dismemberment as their chosen methods of execution … The Mungiki claim to have millions of members. ibid.
When I met the leaders they were a slick outfit, they were very convincing … They are highly organised. ibid.
The poverty is just shocking. ibid.
I’ve come to meet the glue kids: these kids are addicted to solvents and they are just some of the 350,000 kids that are homeless in Kenya … That number is expected to increase dramatically … I was truly horrified. ibid.
Mothers who are heavily addicted giving the glue bottle to their toddlers. ibid.
Friday August 7th 1998: Two men in a delivery truck set off from a suburb of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. In the back, 1,600 pounds of explosives. 45 minutes later the truck pulls up at the rear entrance of the United States’ embassy … Over 200 were killed, thousands more were injured. Peter Taylor, Age of Terror 4/4: War on the West, BBC 2008
This is the story of unheeded warnings, missed opportunities, the slaughter of innocence. Osama bin Laden’s war on the West is the latest bloody chapter in the Age of Terror. ibid.
Key evidence in a landmark legal settlement: in June this year the Foreign Secretary William Hague announced a £20 million compensation package for more than 5,000 victims of British brutality in Kenya during the colonial period. Document, BBC Radio 4 10th September 2013
‘By far and away the nastiest of all those campaigns.’ ibid. historian
Three and a half tons of documents were destroyed in the run-up to independence. ibid.
The World Bank says Kenya is growing faster than any other sub-Saharan African nation. But there is one major impediment to the country’s continued growth: Kenya has been run dismally as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Storyville: The Underdog and the Battle for Kenya, television news, BBC 2020
Kenya’s vice-president has denied orchestrating post-election violence since 2007 that left more than 1,000 dead and 500,000 homeless. ibid.
Daughter: Where are you going?
Father: I’m going to topple the government. ibid.
Every day I covered violence. Every day they decide not to publish my photos because they’re too violent. ibid. Boniface Softie Mwangi
I can’t stand politicians. I can’t stand the hypocrisy. I thought something was amiss. ibid.
So come Independence, we have the first president of Kenya – Jomo Kenyatta – who is a Kikuyu. And what does he do? To conquer the country he decides, you know what, Kikuyus are supreme. Kikuyus are important. And to date during those years is to kill anyone who is a threat. ibid.
Thank you so much for coming today. Ukweli Party is a new political party that brings together citizens who want to live in a Kenya where everyone is free. ibid.
Look at this broke idiot! ibid. market woman, re Softie
Activist Boniface Mwangi says he fears for his life after receiving death threats. ibid. television news
After eight months in exile the family returns to Kenya ten days before the election. ibid. caption
Post-election violence consumes parts of Kenya for months. ibid. caption
Stop Killing Us. ibid. Softie’s T-shirt; peaceful protest on which rozzers opened fire, Softie needing surgery
After months of defiance, opposition leader Odinga stuns his supporters by accepting a deal with President Uhuru. ibid. caption
All these politicians are a pile of shit. ibid. Softie
Kenya: a country created barely a century ago where the Britain spun a stereotype while carving out a brutal empire. When independence created new heroes and icons. And an exciting collision of cultures. African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power III: Kenya, BBC 2020
An almost symbiotic relationship with their cattle and their land. ibid.
What a possession it was – to the British a space more than twice the size of their homeland with wild savannah and mountains of eerie beauty packed with exotic wildlife. ibid.
The British worked hard in the 1950s to spin their own version of events. ibid.
Central Nairobi, once a backwater railway silo, was transformed into a modern metropolis. ibid.
What I was told was a lie … Mau-Mau represented a radical reaction to a series of economic, political and social changes brought about by the British rulers for their own gain … A bitter and bloody war had been fought on the way to Kenya’s independence. Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson VI: Mau-Mau, Channel 4 2021
The British would rather choose to forget … The freedom fighters took an oath to expel the white man from their homeland. ibid.
Kenya had been colonised ever since the British East Africa Company arrived towards the end of the nineteenth century. ibid.
The workers were repressed while the land owners lived a life of luxury. ibid.
‘Kenya also had an apartheid system that was imported by the British and by white settlers.’ ibid. Anna Adima, York University
The British officially declared them to be terrorists. ibid.
Guerrilla warfare had broken out in Kenya. ibid.
It’s a busy Friday morning in the African city of Nairobi. Then, the air is shattered by a massive explosion. A huge bomb detonates outside the American Embassy demolishing a neighbouring seven-storey building. Hundreds of people are buried and thousands are injured. Seconds from Disaster s2e18: American Embassy Bombing, Nairobi
The driver steers the truck straight at the fence. As rescuers arrive they are confronted with total chaos: the force of the huge blast has brought the Ufundi building crashing to the ground. ibid.