December 13, 2011

Alyn Smith gives Nigel Farage a telling off

Alyn Smith MEP intervenes on Nigel Farage in debate on the Euro crisis and receives a warm applause for suggesting that Scotland would be better off representing herself in the European family of nations.

December 12, 2011

The Mau Mau uprising against British imperialism

{SNIP} In April four elderly black Kenyans appeared in the High Court in London seeking recognition of atrocities committed against them during British imperialism’s brutal colonial rule. The Kenyan claimants, Ndiku Mutua, Paulo Nzili, Wambugu Wa Nyingi and Jane Muthoni Mara are survivors of the barbaric torture that was meted out to countless thousands of black Africans in detention camps between 1952 and 1961. Of the four claimants (a fifth died before the High Court hearing) Jane Mara was subjected to sexual abuse, one man was castrated and another was beaten unconscious during an atrocity in which eleven men were clubbed to death. British imperialism pillaged and exploited Kenya and used savage repression to crush the anti-colonial revolt known as the Mau Mau uprising.

The survivors are demanding that the British state take responsibility for their treatment in the camps and that the government pay around £2 million, a trifling sum, into a welfare fund. With swinish racist arrogance, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) insists that Britain cannot be held responsible, and that any atrocities that may have been committed under colonial rule became the responsibility of the Kenyan government that took over at the time of independence in 1963. Furthermore, says the FCO, too much time has elapsed for the claims to be valid.

The High Court has yet to decide whether or not the case will proceed to trial. But if the British state had got its way, the evidence in this case would never have seen the light of day. Since independence, the former colonial overlords have kept a tight lid on the documentary record of repression in Kenya. Nonetheless, much effort by researchers and advocates for the survivors has resulted in a significant victory. In May the FCO was forced to hand over 300 boxes of files, some 17,000 pages, including material relating to the suppression of the Mau Mau revolt. The departing colonialists destroyed many of the files at independence and removed others, having “made a calculated decision not to hand over any of its colonial era files to the Kenyan government” (guardian.co.uk, 5 April). A letter dated 7 November 1967, issued under Harold Wilson’s Labour government, explains that the general practice at independence was not to hand over files that “might embarrass HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] or other governments” or members of the police or military forces (guardian.co.uk, 5 April). [b/]{SNIP}


Link: http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wh/215/Kenya.html

Follow up: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14232049

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"Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!”

February 14, 2021

I'm so stealing that.

perfect for Graham.

February 14, 2021

Trump's oversized ego will drive him to run

He really is addicted to the rallies and adulation. The only way he doesn't run if he's not capable physically.

February 14, 2021

Spoiler alert

Who fucking cares? If we can't toss his ass in jail keep going after him, his assets, his family, his image his everything. Make him bleed from a thousand paper cuts. Make it toxic to be named trump.