Imperial Reckoning

by Caroline Elkins

  3. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  4. Mahehu, interview, 23 January 1999.

  5. Njuki, interview, 23 January 1999.

  6. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  7. Mutahi, interview, 25 February 1999.

  8. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  9. The ritual indoctrination of the detainees into the Pipeline is reminiscent of that accompanying the transformation of free men into slaves, rendering them into what Orlando Patterson calls “socially dead beings.” See Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). This also bears a striking resemblance to the ritual dehumanization and transformation of Jews in the Nazi system. Daniel Jonas Goldhagen presents a similar discussion and elaborates more fully on the idiom of pain as introduced by the Nazis into their system of concentration camps in Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1997), 298–99. How much the camp personnel in Kenya were aware of these historical precedents is a matter for speculation, though variations of these earlier ritual forms of subjugation and transformations into “socially dead beings” were recurring themes in the Pipeline, particularly in the large reception camps like Manyani. So too were the attempts of the Mau Mau detainees to resist or otherwise alter these dehumanization processes. The degree to which the detainees were successful in their efforts to reshape the coding of the intake processes will be discussed throughout this chapter.

  10. Macharia, interview, 17 January 1999.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Mahehu, interview, 23 January 1999.

  13. Charles Kariuki, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 10 April 1999.

  14. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  15. British colonial health officers commented extensively on the unsanitary conditions of the Manyani Railway Station, where many detainees relieved themselves just before embarking or after their disembarkment from the gari ya waya, or detainee train. In one instance the local hygiene officer wrote, “Quantities of human faeces were found to be scattered in open trenches, some distance from latrines; human faeces also found on the ground outside of the latrines.” KNA, AH 9/8/19/2, memorandum from A. A. Phillips, hygiene officer, to W. E. Terry, officer in charge, Manyani Camp, “Manyani Railway Station,” 16 March 1956. See also KNA, AH 9/8/19/1, memorandum from W. E. Terry to Lewis, “Conditions at Manyani Railway Station,” 20 March 1956. For reports on the lack of food and water during the rail transfers, see KNA, AH 9/31/108/1, memorandum from the district commissioner, Nyeri, “Complaints by Detained Transferred from Nyeri to Manyani,” 2 November 1955.

  16. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999. Several other detainees who spent time on Mageta Island also recalled awakening to endless replays of “God Save the Queen.” For example, Paul Karanja, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 12 April 1999; and Mahehu, interview, 23 January 1999.

  17. Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee: The Account by a Kenya African of His Experiences in Detention Camps, 1953–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).

  18. Ibid., 67.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Gakaara wa Wanjau, interview, Karatina, Nyeri District, 23 February 1999.

  23. These various “rules to live by” were discussed to varying degrees by nearly all of the former detainees whom I interviewed. In addition, they are mentioned in Kariuki’s “Mau Mau” Detainee, 111–12; and Karigo Muchai and Daniel Barnett, The Hardcore: The Story of Karigo Muchai (Richmond: Liberation Support Movement, 1973), 43–44.

  24. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  25. Eric Kamau Mithiori, interview, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 16 January 1999; and Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  26. Shadrack Ndibui Kang’ee, interview, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 17 January 1999; Wanjau, interview, 23 February 1999; Charles Karuihu, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 10 April 1999; and Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 113.

  27. Karanja, interview, 12 April 1999.

  28. Njari Githui, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999. The constant “brainwashing”—as many detainees called it—of the guards by the British officers in charge of the camps was a recurring theme in the oral testimonies, particularly the emphasis on Mau Mau cannibalism. This is also discussed in some of the memoirs. See Gakaara wa Wanjau, Mau Mau Author in Detention (Nairobi: Heinemann, 1988), 29–31, with regard to the locals on Lamu; and Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 62.

  29. Gideon Muiyuro Kiamani, interview, Mugoiri, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 21 February 1999.

  30. Nearly all of the detainees whom I interviewed discussed the black market, including Stephen Kinyanjui, Kariokor, Nairobi, 16 December 1998; Githui, 22 February 1999; Douglas Kariuki Njuguna, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 17 January 1999; and Kaharika Gachugi, Ngorano, Mathira, Nyeri District, 21 March 1999.

  31. Macharia, interview, 25 January 1999.

  32. Wilson Njoroge, interview, Kariokor, Nairobi, 10 December 1998.

  33. Detainees provided several descriptions of guards befriending them not necessarily—at least in their opinion—because of the illicit trading but because they sympathized with the detainees’ condition in the camps and their struggle against the British colonial government. Gakaara wa Wanjau also discusses this extensively in his Mau Mau Author in Detention.

  34. Mwaria Juma, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 9 February 1999; and Githui, interview, 22 February 1999.

  35. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 73.

  36. Kinyanjui, interview, 16 December 1998.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Charles Mwai, interview, Ngorano, Mathira, Nyeri District, 21 March 1999.

  39. Kariuki, interview, 10 April 1999; and Njoroge, interview, 10 December 1998.

  40. Karue Kibicho, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 8 February 1999. For the British colonial government’s use of the riot or Emergency squads to enforce “strict discipline and control” in the camps and prisons, see, for example, KNA, JZ 4/51, memorandum from J. H. Lewis, “Emergency Squads,” 19 February 1955; and KNA, JZ 8/7, memorandum from Lewis, “Draft of Orders to Officers i/c Prison Establishments on the Use of Emergency Squads,” 7 January, 1955.

  41. Stephen Kinyanjui, interview, Kariokor, Nairobi, 13 January 1999.

  42. Paul Karanja, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 12 April 1999.

  43. Joseph Wahome Gakuru, interview, Ruguru, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 March 1999.

  44. Githui, interview, 22 February 1999.

  45. Several detainees discussed the secret circulation of news, including Macharia, interview, 17 January 1999; Harun Kibe, interview, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 30 January 1999; and Lawrence Mbugua Nduni, interview, Riruta Ward, Dagoretti Division, Nairobi, 13 August 2003. See also Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 74; and for reference to Kimongo Times, see KNA, AB 1/94/38, memorandom from G. E. C. Robinson, “Report from the Sakwa/Saiyusi/Mageta and Kisumu Classification and Rehabilitation,” 3 July 1956.

  46. This phrase was used by Kang’ee, interview, 17 January 1999.

  47. For example, Kinyanjui, interview, 16 December 1998; and Mithiori, interview, 16 January 1999.

  48. Samuel Gathura, interview, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 20 February 1999.

  49. J. M. Kariuki recounts this story in “Mau Mau” Detainee, 74. Several detainees who had been at Manyani Camp also recounted it to me, with some variation. They included Njuki, interview, 23 January 1999; and Kariuki Karanja, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 27 March 1999.

  50. Many ex-detainees discussed their own rehabilitation classes in great detail, including Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 110–11; Muthuita Zakayo, interview, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 17 January 1999; Njuki, interview, 23 January 1999; Gathura, interview, 20 February 1999; and Kagombe, inter
view, 24 February 1999.

  51. Zakayo, interview, 17 January 1999; and Gathura, interview, 20 February 1999.

  52. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  53. Magayu Kiama, interview, Aguthi, North Tetu, Nyeri District, 25 February 1999.

  54. In their oral interviews several former detainees attested to this. Also, the colonial government estimated in the early days of the Emergency that as many as half of the detainees were practicing Christians. KNA, AB 1/85/30, memorandum from Alan Knight, “Analysis of Religions of Detainees,” 30 November 1953.

  55. Mathu Mwangi, interview, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 21 February 1999.

  56. Mutahi, interview, 25 February 1999.

  57. Mwangi Maithori, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999.

  58. Munyinyi Githiriga, interview, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 20 February 1999.

  59. Matuini’s preachings and constant presence in Manyani was discussed by nearly every detainee who recalled passing through the camp. He is also discussed at length in Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee.

  60. Terence Gavaghan, interview, London, England, 28 July 1998. In his book Of Lions and Dung Beetles: A “Man in the Middle” of Colonial Administration in Kenya (Devon: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1999), 236, Gavaghan uses a slightly different phrase to describe the Reverend Kariuki, writing he was “goggled like Mr Toad.”

  61. Maruga Maithori, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 9 February 1999.

  62. Joshuah Muvakavu, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999.

  63. Maithori, interview, 9 February 1999.

  64. Detailed memoranda by missionaries are numerous and include KNA, AB 2/41/44, Father J. Scarcella, “Some notes on Screening and Rehabilitation,” May 1957; and KNA, AB 4/121, “CCK Reports—Inspection of Camps, 1956–58.”

  65. Anonymous, interview, Kariokor, Nairobi, 14 December 1998.

  66. RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 365, Fabian Colonial Bureau, papers, box 117, file 4, 21–29, letter from anonymous CMS missionary to B. Nicholls, and forwarded to the Fabian Colonial Bureau, 23 November 1953; KNA, MAA 9/930/1, minute from the secretary of African affairs, K.M. Cowley, to E.H. Windley, 8 June 1954; and KNA, MAA 9/930/5, memorandum from Ernest Bastin, general superintendent of the Methodist mission, to E.H. Windley, 20 June 1954. Several detainees discussed Catholic anti–Mau Mau patrols in the reserves, including Kinyanjui, interview, 13 January 1999; and Mwai, interview, 21 March 1999.

  67. Gathigi, interview, 20 February 1999.

  68. Elijah Ndegwa Gikuya, interview, Murarandia, Kiharu, Murang’a District, 20 February 1999.

  69. KNA, AB 1/106/2, memorandum from camp commandant, Tebere Works Camp, “Rehabilitation: Religious Services,” 12 March 1954.

  70. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  71. Ibid.

  72. Njoroge, interview, 10 December 1998.

  73. Mwaria Juma, interview, Kiamariga, Mathira, Nyeri District, 10 February 1999.

  74. Gathigi, interview, 20 February 1999.

  75. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  76. Ibid.

  77. KNA, JZ 8/8/74, memorandum from officer in charge Molo Camp, “Greys and Whites,” 17 August 1954. For the British colonial government’s concern and response to the “saturation” of the camps, see, for example, KNA, AH 9/19/12, memorandum from E. C. Eggins, “Works Camps,” 4 August 1954; and KNA, AH 9/1/90/1, memorandum from the minister of defense, “Detainees and Detention Camps,” 27 November 1954, 7. For British colonial officials commenting on detainees “going sour” and becoming “blacker,” see, for example, PRO, CO 822/794, minute from Buist, 16 March 1954; and PRO, WO 276/428/108, memorandum from Hope to Heyman, 8 October 1955.

  78. PRO, CO 822/801/55, minute to file from Lennox-Boyd, “Confidential—Kenya,” 23 August 1955.

  79. Numerous official memoranda illustrate the streamlining of the Pipeline by the end of 1955. They include KNA, AB 2/41/34, memorandum from the secretary of defense to the secretaries of African affairs and treasury, 6 April 1956; KNA, AB 2/44/7, memorandum from Lewis, “Identification of Mau Mau and other convicted Prisoners on Reception into Prison or Approved School, and of Male Persons Detained under the Emergency Regulations on Reception into a Detention Camp” KNA, AB 18/27/25, memorandum from the secretary of defense, “Movement of Detainees,” 6 October 1955; KNA, AB 1/89/8, memorandum from G. Bennet to officer in charge, Nairobi area rehabilitation, 31 October 1955; and KNA, AH 9/32/184, extract from the Official Committee on Resettlement, 7 December 1954.

  80. Kinyanjui, interview, 16 December 1998; Henry Huthu, interview, Waithaka Ward, Dagoretti Division, Nairobi, 12 August 2003; and Michael Matindi Kariabe, interview, Ruthigiti, Karai, Kiambu, 9 August 2003.

  81. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999. In their oral testimonies several other former Mau Mau adherents shared similar stories of Home Guards coming to the camps and announcing that the wives of the detainees were bearing their children.

  82. Gustaw Herling, A World Apart, translated by Andrzej Ciozkosz (New York: Arbor House, 1986), 131

  83. Macharia, interview, 25 January 1999.

  84. Ibid. For a similar account of bucket fatigue and human waste, see RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 527/528, End of Empire, Kenya, vol. 3, Sam Thebere, interview, 176.

  85. Gathigi, interview, 20 February 1999; Mutahi, interview, 25 February 1999; and Mwai, interview, 21 March 1999.

  86. Kibe, interview, 30 January 1999; Maithori, interview, 22 February 1999; and Gakuru, interview, 22 March, 1999.

  87. As quoted in Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 368.

  88. Anonymous, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 16 April 1999. In their oral testimonies, other detainees also discussed camp “wives,” as they called them. They included Njoroge, interview, 10 December 1998; and Paul Mwangi, interview, Westlands, Nairobi, 7 August 2003.

  89. Kinyanjui, interview, 16 December 1998; Njoroge, interview, 10 December 1998; and Mwangi, interview, 7 August 2003.

  90. Tzvetan Todorov, Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps, translated by Arthur Denner and Abigail Pollak (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 40.

  91. Njoroge, interview, 10 December 1998.

  92. Macharia, interview, 25 January 1999.

  93. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  94. Anonymous, interview, 20 February 1999.

  95. Ibid.

  96. PRO, CO 822/794/27, “Progress Report—Rehabilitation,” 30 December 1954.

  97. KNA, JZ 8/8/102, memorandum from G. E. C. Robertson to Askwith, 6 December 1954.

  98. KNA, JZ 8/1, memorandum from G. P. Lloyd for the acting secretary for African affairs to all PCs, Central and Rift Valley provinces, “Releases of Detainees,” 24 February 1956.

  99. Ibid.

  100. KNA, AB 2/41/44, minute to file from Tatton-Brown, 19 July 1956.

  101. KNA, JZ 8/12, memorandum from Cameron for Lewis, “Oathing in Camps,” 26 September 1955.

  102. KNA, OP/EST 1/527/2, memorandum from Askwith to provincial commissioner, Central Province, “Rehabilitation,” 10 May 1955. This trend of public hangings in the camps increased over time with the use of informants, according to Askwith. T. G. Askwith, interview, Cirencester, England, 8 June 1998.

  103. Githigaita, interview, 1 February 1999.

  104. Askwith, interview, 8 June 1998.

  105. This term is used throughout British colonial files to describe those detainees who were on the proverbial fence—“wavering” between Mau Mau and cooperation with the British colonial government. See, for example, KNA, MAA 9/930/41, memorandum from the provincial commissioner, Central Province, to the minister of African affairs, 22 February 1955.

  106. For example, KNA, JZ 8/1, memorandum from W. E. Knowlden, staff officer, Kiambu Works Camp, “Movement of Warders,” 7 July 1955. Numerous documents detail the increase in warder discipline, including KNA, JZ 18/7/39H, officer in charge, Marii
ra Works Camp, Annual Report, 1956; KNA, JZ 18/7/39F, officer in charge, Kamaguta Works Camp, Annual Report, 1956; and KNA, JZ 18/7/39D, officer in charge, Kandara Works Camp, Annual Report, 1956.

  107. KNA, JZ 4/51, memorandum from J. H. Lewis, “Welfare—Warder Staff and European Officers below the Rank of Assistant Superintendent,” 19 February 1955; and KNA, AB 1/90/23, “Re: Exemption Certificates for KEM Special Tax,” 1 April 1955.

  108. Anonymous, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 12 April 1999.

  109. Kagombe, interview, 24 February 1999.

  110. Gachugi, interview, 21 March 1999.

  111. Primo Levi, If This Is a Man, translated by Stuart Woolf (New York: Vintage, 1996), 97.

  112. Anonymous, interview, Westlands, Nairobi, 8 August 2003.

  113. Anonymous, interview, Ngecha, Limuru, Kiambu District, 16 April 1999.

  114. KNA, AB 18/27/6, D. J. MacInnes, “Brief on White Detainees Undergoing Rehabilitation at Marigat Camp,” February 1955.

  115. Mutahi, interview, 25 February 1999.

  116. Hunja Njuki, interview, Ngorano, Mathira, Nyeri District, 23 January 1999.

  117. KNA, AB 1/90/64, minister of works and minister of commerce and industry, “Embakasi Airport—Progress Report,” 18 December 1956; KNA, AB 1/90/65, memorandum from Secretary of Defence Magor, “Supply of Prison Labour for the Embakasi Airport,” 27 December 1956; KNA, AB 2/44/23, telegram from W. M. Campbell, acting commissioner of prisons, “Labour: Embakasi Airport and Langata Quarry,” 6 August 1955; and KNA, AB 2/44/27, telegram from secretary of defense, “Labour: Embakasi Airport and Langata Quarry,” 20 August 1955.

  118. Mlango wa Simba’s directive is a quote from Kinyanjui, interview, 16 December 1998. The details on Embakasi are drawn from several interviews, including those with Njuki, 23 January 1999; Kinyanjui, 16 December 1998; Patrick Gaitho Kihuria, Ruguru, Mathira, Nyeri District, 24 January 1999; Githigaita, 1 February 1999; and George Maingi Waweru (General Kamwamba), Muhito, Mukurweini, Nyeri District, 25 February and 1 March 1999. Note that threats similar to those made by the officers in charge of Embakasi were made at several detention camps. For instance, in his memoir Karigo Muchai reflected at length on his years in detention and wrote that the “European in charge” of Mackinnon Road welcomed all new detainees by announcing, “This camp is called Kufa na Kupona, which means in English, ‘Life and Death.’ It is well named. Those who cooperate with the screening team and the rehab officers leave here alive. Those who faile to cooperate usually die at Mackinnon Road.” (Muchai and Barnett, The Hardcore, 50).