More than 50 years after it was imposed by the British, the Kenyan Government has lifted the ban against the Mau Mau, the movement that fought against British colonial rule. Mau Mau, or the Land and Freedom Army, have waited a long time to receive recognition. Their attacks on white settlers in retaliation for the massacre of thousands of Africans threw the colonial society into panic and Britain imposed a state of emergency in 1952. About 100 Europeans and 13,000 Africans died in the conflict which ended in 1956. Yet despite playing an obvious role in fighting for independence, no Kenyan government has previously been prepared to lift the ban, partly because the Mau Mau rebellion was in part a civil war. Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta was a strong nationalist but he was not a member of Mau Mau despite being convicted of belonging to the movement in what historians regard as a rigged show trial.
| It never occurred to me that Jomo wasn't a Mau Mau. Guess you learn something every day... |
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