745R.00/10–2452
The Consul General at Nairobi ( Dorsz ) to the Department of State
No. 93
Subject:
- Preliminary Reaction to Government’s Aggressive Campaign Against the Mau Mau
- Ref: Consulate General’s Despatch No. 81 of October 10, 1952.1
The Consulate General’s Weekly Review (despatch No. 90 of October 23, 1952),2 contains a summary of the several aggressive moves taken by the Kenya Government during the last week in dealing with the unrest in Kikuyuland (Central and Rift Valley Provinces). Of the measures taken, that which will doubtless have the most far-reaching effect is the issuance of Emergency Regulations. (See Consulate General’s despatch No. 89 of October 22, 1952, for the text of these Regulations.)3
Under the Emergency Regulations the Government, through the [Page 350] police and armed forces, has given itself what amounts to a free hand in dealing with the situation. The most important of the powers which it has acquired is that which amounts to arrest and detention without the necessity of preferring charges—merely “for the purpose of maintaining public order”.
Within a matter of a few hours after the declaration of the State of Emergency by the Governor, police details picked up over sixty of those who had been designated for arrest under this arbitrary power. Within two days the total reached 104 (90 of whom were Kikuyu), others marked for arrest have gone into hiding. Some of the more important of those arrested were immediately transported to points in the Northern Frontier District, where, for all practical purposes, they are as isolated as they would be on another planet. The Government has indicated that at least a number of those detained will be held for the duration of the emergency.
One of the first persons arrested under the Emergency Regulations was Jomo Kenyatta, President of the Kenya African Union and political leader of the Kikuyu tribe, whom a Government spokesman has described as the person the Mau Mau look to as their leading spirit. It is of interest that the East African Standard on October 22 and the Daily Chronicle of October 23 carried brief items implying that Kenyatta has Moscow connections. It is to be noted that in each case the connection of Kenyatta with either Mau Mau or Moscow was implied and not directly stated. It is the Consulate General’s opinion that the Government has no more tangible evidence of the one than it has of the other. Since it had no basis for a judicial prosecution of Kenyatta, the Emergency Regulations are being used to get him out of circulation without due process of law. Mr. Michael Blundell, Leader of the European Elected Members of Legislative Council, has stated to officers of the Consulate General that the principal reason for setting up the Emergency Regulations was to be able to confine Kenyatta and others considered to be troublemakers.
[Here follows a list of others arrested under the emergency regulations.]
It will be noted that those listed are indicated as having close connections with the Kenya African Union. However, the Colonial Secretary is reported here to have made it clear, in answer to a question in the House of Commons, that the Kenya African Union was not being proscribed, and that Kenyatta was “being arrested as an individual concerned with Mau Mau terrorism”. The conclusion which the Consulate General believes must be drawn from the arrest of these K.A.U. leaders under the Emergency Regulations is that the Government is convinced that Mau Mau is directly connected with the K.A.U., but that they lack at the present time the means to prove it in court, or even to the satisfaction of public opinion.
[Page 351]The rapidity with which the Government has acted in the three days since the declaration of the State of Emergency is reported to have bewildered the Kikuyu. However, while there was no immediate reaction, two days after the State of Emergency was declared a Senior Kikuyu Chief was hacked to death near Nyeri while trying to break up a meeting of 500 Mau Mau adherents without sufficient police support. One of his armed askaris suffered a similar fate. The murder of this Senior Kikuyu Chief Nderi, following the murder of Senior Chief Waruhiu, leaves only one Kikuyu Senior Chief living. He is under threat of death by Mau Mau. A further reaction has been a strike of Kikuyu workers on coffee estates in the Kiambu and Ruiru Districts, where a dead cat was found with a message warning of death to any Africans working on European estates.
Meanwhile, additional restrictive measures are being applied to Africans, For instance, on October 22, an order was issued under the Emergency Regulations prohibiting the movement of any vehicles owned or driven by Africans or in which Africans were travelling in three Districts of the Rift Valley Province. Likewise, additional districts were placed under curfew restrictions for Africans. These restrictions, like the cases of police bullying which continue to be reported cannot be expected to make the law-abiding African happy in his present plight.
Official reports have spoken hopefully of satisfaction among law-abiding Africans of the strong Governmental measures, and limited observation by the officers of the Consulate General would confirm that reaction among Africans in Nairobi. However, it is believed that the Government has understimated the terror which the Mau Mau has spread in the Kikuyu Reserves. The murder of Senior Chief Nderi after the declaration of the State of Emergency and the Government’s extraordinary “show of force” would seem to indicate that the force of Mau Mau terror continues.
Concurrent with the declaration of the State of Emergency, the Government has undertaken a more intensive effort to inform the African population on the facts and implications of the present situation. Europeans are urged to make available radio listening facilities to their employees and special newspapers in Swahili and Kikuyu are being made available, in order that the “official” news will receive the widest circulation. The reaction of the Kikuyu to this effort may be better assessed within a few days, when it may become apparent whether or not the drastic action of the Government has had the hoped for effect of “breaking the back” of the Mau Mau movement.
These “propaganda” efforts of the Government are, unfortunately, commencing on a high intellectual level, with no emotional appeal. Their effectiveness in “winning friends and influencing Kikuyus” in their present format is considered very doubtful.
[Page 352]If, despite the action of the Government, the Mau Mau continues to be an effective subversive force, the Government will be in a very embarrassing position. Critics in the British Parliament and elsewhere abroad will doubtless accuse the Kenya Government of having bowed to “old settler” pressure and resorted to repressive arbitrary measures to break up the Kenya African Union, the only important African political organization in Kenya—without having shown it to be responsible for the subversive activities of Mau Mau—in an effort to stifle African political development. If it fails to prove a connection between the Kenya African Union, or its leaders, and the Mau Mau movement, the Government will have made martyrs of those arrested under the Emergency Regulations, who will be able to plead that they were moderate, constitutional advocates of their people’s cause, before their own people and before world opinion.
On the other hand, a cessation of Mau Mau activities as a result of these arrests or the discovery of a connection between the K.A.U. and Mau Mau will vindicate the Government’s action before public opinion, and could be used as justification for the confinement of Kenyatta and his lieutenants beyond the term of the emergency, by means of “quasi legal” detention orders.
This is a calculated risk which the Government took in its “all out” campaign, from which it will find it extremely difficult to retreat without an admission of defeat. It has “declared war” against Mau Mau granting itself extraordinary emergency powers, and at the same time has committed itself before world opinion as requiring those powers to stamp out a retrogressive movement. If the actions taken under the Emergency Powers—which the Government could not otherwise have taken—prove ineffectual, both the Kenya Government and the British Government will be hard put to justify the actions which they have taken.
- Supra .↩
- Not printed; it summarized the events of the week of Oct. 16–22 and indicated how crime in Nairobi had been reduced by the mobilization of government forces. (745R.00/10–2352)↩
- Not printed; it indicated the discretionary powers which had been vested in the Governor and his subordinates by the Emergency Regulations. (745R.34/10–2252)↩