Negotiations are currently being carried out between the British government and legal representatives of Mau Mau insurgents who were tortured by colonial law enforcement officers during the Mau Mau rising.
Britain established British East Africa, as a protectorate on 1 July 1895. Under an arrangement similar to the plantation of Ulster in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries, white settlers were encouraged to emigrate to Kenya. The British seized over 7 million acres of land including an area that became known as the White Highlands, which was set aside for the exclusive use of white European settlers.
Kenyans rebelled against British rule and colonialism, climaxing with the Mau Mau Revolt of 1952. A state of emergency was declared on 20 October 1952, during which Operation Jock Scott was launched. Although KAU President Jomo Kenyatta and 180 other Mau leaders were interned without trial, as happened later with Operation Demetrius in British Occupied Ireland, many of the movement’s most instrumental members were able to evade capture, as news of the impending sweep had been leaked.
By 1953, the British had screening centres in their detention camps, and began mass deportations of Kikuyu from Nairobi, which was the center of the Mau Mau insurgency. Forced labor was imposed, and internment camps were established. Within these internment camps and screening centers torture took place. A 2011 editorial in The British Guardian compared them to Nazi concentration camps:
'There is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya’s Belsen, he called one camp.'
The Kenya Human Rights Commission reported that 90,000 Kenyans were tortured or executed by British security forces during the Mau Mau Rebellion, as techniques including electric shock, cigarette burns, sodomy and rape were used to gather intelligence about insurgent operations. Some were burned alive, while others were castrated or had other body parts cut off. In many cases, detainees died due to such brutal treatment.
'With the tacit consent of ministers at Westminster, a British administration in colonial Kenya chose to behave as if Africans had no human rights. Rattled by a handful of murderous attacks on planters, they tried to face down the rebels using the empire's default setting of brutality. Castration, sodomy, rape and beatings were everyday weapons in its unremitting defence of the rights of the white settlers.'
In 2009, British lawyers Leigh, Day & Company filed a compensation claim on behalf of five Kenyans who suffered abuse and torture at the hands of the British authorities. In addition to detailing acts of torture against each of the claimants, the papers alleged “widespread interference by British authorities in criminal investigations into allegations of abuse and torture of Kenyans” and that “London ignored detailed reports of widespread and systematic violence by security forces.” According to the suit, “Far from being the acts of a few rogue soldiers, the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of Kenyans during this period was systemic and resulted from policies which were sanctioned at the highest levels of the British government by the then-colonial secretary.”
Other colonial situations in which Britain used torture include Swaziland, Aden and British Guiana. These stories are detailed in a book calld, Cruel Britannia. These same techniques were used in British Occupied Ireland during the Troubles, the ones that were inflicted on the Hooded Men. In fact, both the Compton Committee and the Parker Committee found that the techniques used in British occupied Ireland in 1971 were the same as thosee approved for use in previous operations that included Kenya.
Forty two years ago internment without trial was again introduced in British Occupied Ireland after which the irish Government were forced to take the British to the European Court of Human Rights where the British were found guilty of torture. AAfter the verdict the British Government gace an undertaking to the world they would use these techniques again. What they failed to mention was that they passed the techniques on by training Americans to use them in Abu Graib. They also fulfilled their undertaking by using Americans and extraordinary rendition to do their dirty work for them.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said, “It is an enduring feature of our democracy that we are willing to learn from our history.” Given Britain’s sustained use of torture against its own people, one must question the veracity of that statement indeed any statement beaing in mind the treatment of one Martin Corey. Martin Corey was incarcerated by the British in Long Kesh Concentration Camp over 40 years ago and is still interned without trial now in Maghaberry.
We are just coming up on the 42nd anniversary of internment without trial, in the latest phase ob Britain's unrelenting war on the plain people of Ireland when internment without trial was introduced on the 9 th of August 1971. The Plain people of Ireland took to the streets to protest internment without trial, unarmed peacefully in Derry. They were gunned down in a cold blooded massacre on Bloody Sunday in Derry. Martin Corey currently interned more than 3 years without trial, simply for his political belief in a United Ireland. He is a prisoner of political conscience interned by the dictat of an unelected English Viceroyal in Ireland
Saturday June 15, 2013 17:03
by brionOcleirigh - AllVoices
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6Bearing in mind we are constantly being told, that we are in a Peace Process, not wartime Ireland, those supremacist bigoted Tories in London or sectarian Orange Order Loyalists in Belfast, who dismiss Martin Corey’s political internment, as relevant only to traditional Irish Republicans’ or just to the scum state of British Occupied Ireland, would do well to remember the words of their great Tory leader Winston Churchill who wrote;
Habeas corpus and trial by jury are the supreme protection of ordinary people from the state. The power of the state casting a man into prison without formulating charge or deny him judgment by his peers is the odious foundation of totalitarian governments.
To be precise Winston Churchill wrote: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
To be further precise, Winston who defeated the Nazi's, I am sure would also agree, that whatever else, neither the Tories or the Orange order can be accused of being communists, so by the very own standards, of their greatest leader, they are most definitively NAZI.
Her Majesty's working class 'commoners' would do well also, to remember the words of the German anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
“Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me”
The action of the unelected British Viceroyal and the Government’s Office in overturning a decision of the Belfast High Court, to release veteran Republican Martin Corey, confirms the default position of the British, Peace Process or not, when dealing with Irish working class, as unadulterated, naked, bloody repression.
All the lofty talk of the rule of British law, upon which the British Monarchial state is supposedly based, counts for nothing, when it comes to dealing with those in British Occupied Ireland or elsewhere, whose only "crime’ is to seek self determination for their respective communities or nations.
In Martin Corey's case, the British state has dumped their 800 year old Magna Carta, their Habeas Corpus from the time of their own King John, and courts of a fair and transparent trial, in order to block the release of a traditional Irish Republican, without a shred of credible evidence for "the judgement of his peers" to quote Churchill again.
The political internment of Martin Corey has lifted the veil of secrecy, on the rotten nature, of the scum state of British Occupied Ireland by the standards of any objective, civilized, international observer.
The British repression and brutality visited on Martin Corey, constitutes not only an attack on Martin’s human rights, not only an attack on the human and civil rights of people in British Occupied Ireland but an attack on all ordinary people, referred to as commoners, by their medieval Monarchy, not modern day citizens.
The apologists for sectarian Stormont and the political power sharing arrangements, propagating the illusion, that everything is normal, speak of a new ‘human rights’ regime, with new policing and justice standards. On the day of the recent release, of the interned Marian Price, the President of Provisional Sinn Fein, a principal partner in the power sharing British regime, Gerry Adams himself said, “The logic of today’s release is that Martin Corey should also be freed.”
Now Mr Adams, with all due respect to the part your party played, in the release of Marian Price, after three long years of internment without public charge, reason or time frame, in the instance of 63 year old Martin Corey, there comes a time to walk the talk, to take responsibility as in even the most pretentious democracy.
You sold the Peace Process on a power sharing basis to your movement. I and others like me were willing to give you the benefit of considerable doubt, for the sake of peace. Your Nationalist predecessor the non republican SDLP, walked out of the Stormont parliament, with the introduction of internment without trial 40 years ago, while you own peace loving comrades are still being jailed, while the British are consistently breaking the terms of the peace process.
Enough is enough. You do have the power, mandated to you originally, by the hard work, hardship and commitment of FORMER political activists, like Martin Corey. You are obliged by principles of the 'Irish Republican Movement' from which you originate and derive your power originally, to use that power to dismantle what even the English Tory Churchill referred to as: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
Mr Adam's, strip away the spin and dross of the current Tory dismantled and discredited 'peace process', the reality of what remains, is the same discredited, sectarian, undemocratic, colonial scum state, with its speclal courts of repression, special laws of repression and a still colonial police force of the RUC/PSNI, to politically police the dictat of a Monarchial tin-pot dictator. Nothing has changed in terms of the repression of the British Crown towards the native Irish people of British Occupied Ireland ask Martin's neighbours.
With a heavy and reluctant heart, I have to report nothing has changed within the British Sectarian Stormont parliament, in the cozy relationship of Britain and it's well oiled middle class career politicians, despite the odd outburst of electioneering bluster, chasing the Queen's shilling, at the expense the of the people of no property, such as the politically interned Martin Corey.
As a former chairperson of Newry Sinn Fein, I'm calling you out Comrade Adams. Be a man, take responsibility, instruct you party to exercise their political mandate, like the SDLP did all those years ago, and inform the Tories of your party's intention, to withdraw from the British parliament of Stormont, until their odious internment without trial, of ordinary Irish people is finished once and for all.
Peace with Justice
Anois a chairde, tagaigi uile Ta an cogadh deiridh ar suil! Aontaionn an tidirnaisiunta An cine daonna go leir! Nil trust ar bith againn i dtaoisigh Na suil le slanaitheoir o neamh 's muid ag braith ar ar lamha feinig Chun saol nua a bhaint amach! Os muid a chruthaios gach saibhreas, Os muid a throideas gach cath Aontaithe le chiele gan aon aighneas Is againn a bheas an rath Anois a chairde, tagaigi uile Ta an cogadh deiridh ar suil! Aontaionn an tidirnaisiunta An cine daonna go leir
The Cause of Ireland is the Cause of Labour - James Connolly
If I simply wanted votes, i would be still in Provisional Sinn Fein but you see i am not a careerist politician. I am not sure you noticed but this thread is not about me, it's about Martin Corey who doesn't have a life right now, because imperialists, or to be more accurate, uncivilized pirates, who learned their trade from the Roman Empire, invaded his community and he was unselish enough 40 years ago, to defend that community.
Martin was neither charged or given reason or trial as in a civilized country and his life of freedom has been being taken away from him. His local lawyer Rosemary Nelson, who would normally defend him, was murdered by the same state imperialist British forces, but then he wasn't even given a trial. He therefore has to go to the European Court of Human Rights, where Britain was already found guilty o f torture of Martin's comrades, interned 4o years ago, to try get justice.
The lawyer Pat Finucan, who was an expert on European Law in Belfast, was also murdered by British state forces. Now that doesn't leave Martin with many options, other than to plead his case with the public despite considerable British censorship but then Martin's local journalist was also murdered by British state forces, that's why I am here ,trying to do the best I can, as a citizen(not commoner) journalist.
Seeing as you learned your craft from Imperial Rome and bearing in mind your good name, Mr. Ivor Bigun, I have a friend who is wondering if you knew this fellow dinosaur in the video below? With regard to getting a life , I already got one, a very good one, thank you, you see I am a freeman. Life is short Ivor and we pass this way but once, everything after that for me at this stage, is a bonus but community like life, is bigger than the self, as you will no doubt learn one day, when life puts manners on you as it does with us all, ask Maggie Thatcher, who said their is no such thing as community.
pompeii_mosaic
The town of Lurgan and the associated towns of Portadown and Craigavon, make up part of what has been known as the "murder triangle"; an area known for a significant number of state sponsored sectarian murders and reactionary defensive fatalities, during 'The Troubles.' Lurgan still is one of the areas in British Occupied Ireland, where traditional republicans have considerable levels of support. The legacy of the latest 'Troubles' is an extension of the ongoing British mentored Loyalist sectarianism, against the native Irish population, which sometimes erupts into violence at 'interface areas.'
At the early part of the 70's, the British were sponsoring, over a hundred heavily armed local British soldiers, along with scores of British paramilitary police, in an area known as 'The Murder Triangle', to regularly murder local nationalists, many of them totally innocent of any political activity, in a campaign of repressive fear oppression and ethnic cleansing. One of the first inquiries to shed light on this form of intelligence-led policing and fear based ethnic cleansing, was the Stalker Inquiry.
John Stalker an honest English policeman, was asked in May 1984 to investigate six deaths at the hands of the RUC in three separate incidents in 1982. Before he had completed his investigation this honest policeman from Manchester, was removed from the inquiry and suspended from his post in the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on suspicion of associating with known criminals in Manchester. He was later cleared and reinstated but retired within a few months, the damage to the investigation was done.
In his book on the affair, John Stalker, gives his impression of RUC Special Branch after investigating two of the incidents. The Special Branch targeted the suspected terrorist, they briefed the officers, and after the shootings, they removed the men, cars and guns for a private de-briefing before CID officers were allowed any access to these crucial matters. They provided the cover stories, and they decided at what point the CID were to be allowed, to commence the official investigation of what had occurred. The Special Branch interpreted the information and decided what was, or was not, evidence. "I had never experienced, nor had any of my team, such an influence, over an entire police force by one small section".
He described at length the way the Special Branch and MI5 gave him the run-around and refused to give him vital information. He had discovered that in one of the incidents, in which two people had been shot in a hayshed, the building had been bugged by MI5. He had requested access to the tape and the file of the informant who had been involved in this and one of the other incidents.
Some six months after first requesting the tape, he was told that it no longer existed, but he could have the transcript provided he signed a secrecy form. He refused so Special Branch and MI5 did not allow an independent police investigator access to crucial information. The protection of their informer took precedence over accountability and transparency. Stalker’s persistence had dire personal consequences. He was subsequently removed from the inquiry on carefully circulated lies.These are the same people to this day who decide who is interned without trial on the unreliable paid evidence of self serving informers. This is the secret SS scum state that interns Martin Corey today. To understand the 22 years spent behind bars by Martin Corey, we must understand this war on ordinary Irish people in their own land by British Imperialists.
In 1973 before Martin Corey served 22 years with regard to a shooting in defence of his community, a book entitled THE BLACK PAPER, Northern Ireland — The Story of the Police was published by the Central Citizens’ Defence Committee, Belfast. It sadly traces the attempt and breakdown of the reform of the police from the 1968 period onward. It concludes:
"All the wishing in the world will not achieve the impossible. There is no way out of this torturous dilemma but the more difficult way that must be faced up to sooner or later. Law and order will not return to British Occupied Ireland on any basis but one. It will have to be seen to apply equally and fairly, to everyone in the land, whatever their position, even if they wear a uniform or hold a seat in Parliament. Only when that is seen to be happening, will the laws gain the respect from the community upon which its validity rests. This respect had been lost in British Occupied Ireland. It must be regained and strengthened. When those who make the law, break the law, in the name of the law, there is no law."
The current use of internment without trial, secret evidence, secret trials, the primacy of secrecy around paid, informer's evidence and political policing, is certainly not the way to a lasting peace. Justice must not be just done, but must clearly seen to be done by all sections of the community. Anyone who ignore this reality, is a superficial careerist who is not genuinely interested in peace. It is the consistent position of traditional Irish republicans, that this is not possible within a scum state, within the small island of Ireland, created originally, strictly on the basis of a sectarian head count by the British to create division as in all of their colonies to justify their presence and maintain their self interests with exploitative supremacy.
Viceroyal Villiers II