A call to march towards Jerusalem on the first Friday and Sunday of June
Palestine Information Center – 25/05/2011
WEST BANK — The Muslim Youth League in the West Bank has called on the Palestinian people to march towards occupied Jerusalem in June as part of activities “Jerusalem and Return Intifada” to mark the 1967 occupation of Jerusalem.
The League said in a statement “We have a date on Friday 3rd June and Sunday 5th June to scorch the land underneath the feet of the occupier in occupied Jerusalem and Khalil al-Rahman, near the separation wall, at occupation roadblocks in Hawwara, Qalandia and Attara and bypass roads.”
“Today, after 44 years of shame and defeat, after two intifadas of the Palestinian people, after the Arab people’s revolutions and after the return marches.. it is time to wash the shame of June .. let us move for the liberation of the Aqsa Mosque, release it from its chains, foil Zionist schemes and demolish [their hopes of building the] temple [on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque].
On 5th June 1967 Israeli occupation tanks rolled into the holy city, the rest of Palestine, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. They desecrated the holy Aqsa Mosque, demolished the Magahrbeh quarters, adjacent to the Aqsa Mosque and since then the occupation has been relentlessly working to Judaize the holy city.
“Move Over AIPAC” Activist Injured By AIPAC Members
By Kevin Murphy – IMEMC and Agencies – May 25, 2011
A “Move Over AIPAC” activist who interrupted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu during his speech to US Congress has been hospitalised due to injuries received. The protester claims she was beaten by AIPAC activists before being detained.
Rae Abileah, a 28 year old Jewish American of Israeli descent, heckled Netanyahu from the gallery of US Congress. Abileah shouted “stop Israeli war crimes”. She was confronted by American Israel Public Affairs Committee members in the gallery who tackled her to the ground before she was led out by security.
“They assaulted me and I fell on the floor. The activists strangled me and beat me. Then I was dragged out by police who arrested me,” Abileah said. According to JNet, she was hospitalised with suspected neck and shoulder injuries and released into police custody after some hours.
Having travelled to Gaza last year, the activist from Codepink, one of the members of the “Move Over AIPAC” coalition, said she felt compelled to speak out against what she views to be Israeli war crimes. “As a Jew and an American taxpayer, I can’t be silent when these crimes are being committed in my name and with my tax money” she said.
The Move Over AIPAC coalition is a coalition of over 100 civil society organisations in America organised to hold counter demonstrations during Benjamin Netanyahu’s six day visit to the US.
Abileah’s actions highlighted a recent problematic phenomenon for Netanyahu; a vocal and persistent movement of mainly young Jewish people critical of Israeli policy in Palestine. The activist said, “we are a young generation of Jews who don’t intend to sit by in silence and allow prime ministers who commit crimes against humanity speak,”.
Obama Supports Full Israeli Withdrawal? Words vs. Actions
Michael Warschawski – Alternative Information Center – 22 May 2011
President Obama’s announcement in favour of withdrawal to the lines of 1967 was surprising, particularly as it was said mere hours before his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.
Advisors to the American president obviously knew that the announcement would invite a counter-response by the most right-wing prime minister in the history of Israel. “Blunt” was the definition of analysts close to the White House: without diplomatic language, the prime minister responded that he has no intention or ability of returning to the lines of 4 June 1967, for both security and demographic reasons.
Did President Obama wish for confrontation with Netanyahu? Are we at the beginning of a crisis in US-Israeli relations? We are also one year before elections in the United States, and the Democratic party will soon require the traditional donations of the Jewish and pro-Israeli capitalists.
There is no doubt that the differences in approach between the two countries are real, and at conclusion of the meeting with Netanyahu, Obama even warned that “the primary differences of opinion with Israel remain regarding the manner for reaching peace in the Middle East.” No more and no less! While the Americans think that peace requires an Israeli withdrawal to the lines of 4 June 1967, the Israeli prime minister believes that peace in the region will be obtained by an expansion of settlements. Minor differences….and despite this, it paradoxically appears that the declaration of Obama was said for the good of the Israeli state, because after the declarations will come actions, and especially the planned September vote in the United Nations General Assembly.
There is a foundation to believe that the American declarations concerning withdrawal to the 1967 lines come to please the Arab states and the Arab street, to show them that the United States does not stand unconditionally behind Israeli policies; in this sense the White House invited the blunt response of Netanyahu and counted on it. Now, Obama has free reign to torpedo the decision of the United Nations concerning a Palestinian state in the borders of 4 June.
“Words don’t cost money”, and of course Obama and Clinton estimate that Israel will soon require practical assistance from the United States in the international arena. It is not difficult to bet that in this test, the United States and its president will stand by Israel. One does not need to love conspiracy theories to understand that beyond the mutual lack of sympathy between Obama and Netanyahu, there exists coordination between them and a sort of division of labour. One speaks against settlements and the other immediately builds 1,400 new housing units in settlements.
It is possible to speak about a crisis between two allies only and when Washington will impose sanctions on Israel, for example if it will delay military assistance for several months. The end of days? Not necessarily: When in 1991 George Bush the father encountered the refusal of Yitzhak Shamir to announce a freezing of settlements, he froze bank guarantees worth NIS 13 billion dollars that were promised by Congress, and the money remained in the United States until Shamir fell and was replaced by the Rabin government. American pressure is possible, but there is great doubt if Obama will use it. His seemingly far-reaching statements are no more than a cover for the expected American support of Israel in the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Israeli forces install fence around Qalqiliya village
Ma’an – May 23, 2011
QALQILIYA — Israeli forces began to install a barbed-wire fence on Monday around a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, saying it was meant to prevent stone throwing.
Residents of Izbat At-Tabib, located east of Qalqiliya, awoke to the sounds of construction, and were told that lands made inaccessible by the construction were being confiscated for the construction of a buffer area between the village and the settler road that passes to its north.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the construction and said it was to deter stone throwers.
Bayan Tabib, president of the village’s council, said the construction and confiscations came without warning, and effectively caged in residents.
“This was an arbitrary decision meant to isolate the village and part of the Israeli effort to take it over. Israeli forces have threatened more than once to displace our people,” he said.
The village is located about 1.5 kilometers from two settlement blocs, one of which extends some 22 kilometers into the occupied West Bank.
Izbat At-Tabib is the second Palestinian population center that has been fenced in under the pretext of preventing stone throwing.
In March, the town of Beit Ummar was fenced in from one side, and three homes and workshops demolished.
Ameer Makhoul: One Year of Imprisonment
Ameer Makhoul, Gilboa Prison-2011
A year has passed since my imprisonment. My share has been more modest compared to other prisoners who are about to enter their fourth decade in Israeli prisons. It’s true, one should not differentiate between the sentences the same way we should not differentiate between the fighters for freedom – the sentence of the judges of oppression is always one of cruelty, terror and abuse. What is most important, however, is that it is always temporal.
Things in Palestine occur according to the following rule: the harsher the escalation of state sponsored terrorism, oppression, political persecution and deportation policies, the stronger is our steadfastness, challenge, remaining, preservation of our identity and commitment to our cause and dispossessed rights. They wish to fragment our cause according to geography and the color of identification cards, but our senses are never suppressed and our struggle for liberation is one in all of its components. While they continue to reproduce oppression, we reproduce freedom and break out of their vicious circle, transforming their actions into reactions to ours. Our right to Palestine, whether we are in our homeland or in exile, is one: the return, self-determination, ending the occupation, prisoners’ release, recovery of confiscated land, dismantling settlements and the apartheid wall, protection of Jerusalem, the Naqab, the Galilee and the coast from Judaization and eviction projects and breaking the Israeli blockade on Gaza- all these causes form part of our one cause.
But the struggle for our cause is not waged only by us Palestinians, for it is being complemented by the rebellions in the Arab world and the global BDS movement, succeeding in isolating Israel on both the Arab and international levels. These actions are nothing but an extension of the Palestinian anti-normalization movement inside Israel and of our struggle to strip the racist colonizing regime from its legitimacy.
Speaking on behalf of prisoners’ movement, I wish to allude to the dangers of the so-called security coordination between Israel and any Palestinian or Arab party. The victims of such coordination are, first and foremost, the fighters and prisoners of the freedom of Palestine and the Arab peoples. We call on the Arab peoples to stop the complicity of some Arab regimes with Israel on the so-called security-coordination level by launching an Arab and Palestinian campaign for this cause.
To spend one year in prison is a high price to pay for their unjust rule. However, free will has made of this year an act of steadfastness, challenge and struggle for our people. I here send a message of appreciation and love to all the people who call for my release, as well as to the popular committee for my defense and the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms, which has launched a campaign for my release from the very first moment when I was arrested. From inside the prison cells I also wish to greet my loving and supportive family, and to all those who are in solidarity with our cause, here and abroad, as individuals and the organizations they represent. They are in constant contact with me, and are partners in our struggle for liberation and freedom. What we seek, we the political prisoners, is freedom and not to accumulate more years of imprisonment. We were born free, and protecting our freedom is our responsibility.
On May 15th we commemorated the 63rd anniversary of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba. Our strength continues to stem from the justice of our cause and rights, which can be fulfilled only through struggle. To struggle for liberation, as well as to rebuild ourselves as people and institutions, is our right and obligation. As for the price that is paid- it will always be painful, whether it is individual or collective. Regardless of how painful it is, we will never deviate from the road to liberation and freedom of our people and land.
Their rule, not matter how long, is temporal, but our freedom is our destiny.
~
Ameer Makhoul is the General Director of Ittijah- Union of Arab Community-Based Organizations in Palestine 48 and president of the Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms of Palestinians 48. He is a Palestinian political prisoner who has been in prison since May 2010.
Translated to English by Shadi Rohana, Alternative Information Center (AIC
Israeli Occupation Forces raid Palestinian homes just to “get acquainted”
Palestine Information Center – 20/05/2011
NABLUS — IOF troops raided a number of Palestinian homes in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday to “get acquainted” with their residents.
The raids were concentrated in the Daheya neighbourhood to the east of the city and two of the homes raided belonged to the families of Jittan and Shaaban.
One of the owners of the homes raided told PIC correspondent that IOF soldiers raided his house at 2:00 am and that among the soldiers were intelligence officers and that one of those officers told him that they did not intend to arrest anyone, but they only wanted to “get acquainted.”
The Palestinian home owner further said that the officer introduced himself saying that his name was “Ali” and that he was in charge of that area. He further informed the head of the household that he wanted to “get acquainted” with him and his family.
The officer’s questions were concentrated about members of the family, what jobs they have and their financial situation. He also asked what Palestinians thought of the reconciliation agreement between Palestinian factions. The questioning lasted about an hour.
Such raids, “just to get acquainted”, have been frequently taking place in the West Bank and are causing great concerns among residents who do not know the real aim behind such raids.
Did Obama’s big speech offer any hope for Palestine?
By Ali Abunimah – Electronic Intifada – 05/19/2011
The New York Times was quick to spin Obama’s speech in ‘historic’ terms
“Obama Endorses 1967 Borders for Israel” as part of a “Broad Speech Rejecting Status Quo in the Middle East” – that was the instant spin on the front of The New York Times website within minutes of the president speaking.
But while President Barack Obama laid out in a little bit more detail a US “vision” of what “peace” would look like in his much anticipated speech on US policy in the Middle East and North Africa, there was precious little new.
Moreover, the speech affirmed that the United States will not take any effective action to advance its vision of a two-state solution.
The president covered broadly the uprisings in the Arab world and the American response to them, but I will look at the sections on Palestine – not necessarily in the order of delivery, but by theme.
The 1967 lines
What the president actually said was:
We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.
There is a world of difference between “the 1967 lines” and “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” It is sort of like the difference between “a true story” and a Hollywood movie “based on a true story.”
As the Palestine Papers showed, US-brokered negotiations for years were predicated on trying to reach such a result, and despite unprecedented Palestinian concessions agreeing to allow Israel to annex most of its settlements, no agreement could be reached.
Although it is true that the Obama administration previously adamantly refused to mention the term “1967 lines,” its doing so now is couched in such a vague formula that it does not contradict President George W. Bush’s April 2004 pledge on behalf of the United States to support Israel’s annexation of its West Bank settlements.
Moreover, as Palestinian Authority (PA) “chief negotiator” Saeb Erekat recently told The Electronic Intifada, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas remains fully committed to “land swaps” to allow Israel to keep its settlements even if the UN recognizes a Palestinian state “on the 1967 line.”
Shortly after Obama’s speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a grand-standing statement rejecting the 1967 borders as “indefensible.” He needn’t worry. There were enough loopholes in Obama’s speech to drive several large settlement blocs and perhaps even the entire Jordan Valley through.
Israel as a “Jewish state”
Obama has done it before, but once again he explicitly endorsed Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state”:
a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people, each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.
It is shocking that a president who constantly boasts that he is only in the White House because of the victories of the US Civil Rights movement against vile Jim Crow racism would endorse Israel’s demand to be allowed to discriminate against Palestinians. I explained in detail why Israel’s demand to be recognized as a “Jewish state” is totally incompatible with democratic principles and human rights in a 2009 article in The Nation:
If Israel has a “right to exist as a Jewish state,” then what can it legitimately do if Palestinians living under its control “violate” this right by having “too many” non-Jewish babies? Can Israel expel non-Jews, fine them, strip them of citizenship or limit the number of children they can have? It is impossible to think of a “remedy” that does not do outrageous violence to universal human rights principles.
And indeed, recognizing Israel’s “right” consigns not only Palestinian refugees to the trash heap, but Israel’s own 1.4 million Palestinian citizens whom leading Israeli politicians like Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni and foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman view as a fifth column and hope to expel or denationalize.
Obama made a nod to this kind of racism when he warned that “The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River.” This was a coded reference to what Israelis openly term the “demographic threat” to a Jewish majority posed by the reality that Palestinians are once again becoming the majority population throughout historic Palestine. This is due to natural growth of Palestinians, a lower Israeli Jewish birthrate and the dearth of Jews around the world who wish to settle in historic Palestine.
In my 2009 article, I explained in American terms why this is unacceptable and racist:
What if we apply Israel’s claim to the United States? Because of the rapid growth of the Latino population in the past decade, Texas and California no longer have white majorities. Could either state declare that it has “a right to exist as a white-majority state” and take steps to limit the rights of non-whites? Could the United States declare itself officially a Christian nation and force Jews, Muslims or Hindus to pledge allegiance to a flag that bears a cross? While such measures may appeal to a tiny number of extremists, they would be unthinkable to anyone upholding twenty-first-century constitutional principles.
Yet this is precisely the nightmare vision Obama is endorsing for Israel which has become increasingly bold in its passage of new laws discriminating against non-Jews, and is in the grip of state-funded rabbis calling for Jews to shun and boycott non-Jews and refuse to rent or sell homes to them.
Hamas
The president said:
the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.
On its face this might appear to be a softening of Obama’s long-standing rejectionism of any dealings with Hamas in that he’s not calling for an immediate aid cut-off to the Palestinian Authority. He appears to be giving the Palestinians time. But it still looks certain that the ultimate US response will depend on whether Hamas submits – as Fatah has done – to Quartet conditions.
Always more sensitive to Israelis
If this was a speech intended to woo an Arab audience, then it is notable that Obama displayed the typical bias characteristic of American officials. He was very graphic and vivid about Israeli suffering and victimhood, while vague and evasive about the vastly greater terror Palestinians have experienced under Israeli rule. Reflecting on decades of conflict, Obama said:
For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them.
Aside from its visceral language, this formulation feeds the myth that hostility to Israel is primarily a result of Arabs being “taught to hate,” when in fact if Arabs do hate Israel it is a result of Israeli actions. Israel teaches Arabs to hate Israel. Contrast the president’s words on the other side:
For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.
That’s it? Toward the end of the speech, the president did mention “the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas” and “a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza” – but this was only to offer an example of a Palestinian who decided to let bygones be bygones despite Israel’s ongoing actions.
The president would never dream of actually supporting efforts to hold Israel accountable. Indeed, he vowed:
Our commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums.
Clearly the president cannot risk offering sympathy to Palestinians proportionate to their actual suffering. As he has learned before, this would risk offending the Israel lobby which demands that American politicians always portray Israel as the principal victim. Recall that during the 2008 campaign Obama once accidentally let slip that “Nobody is suffering more than Palestinians” but later “clarified” that he meant they were suffering at the hands of their own leaders, not Israel.
Obama vows to continue its inaction and condemns Palestinians taking action
Putting the merits of Obama’s “vision” aside, what will the president actually do to advance it? Before he laid out the details, Obama said:
Now, ultimately, it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them – not by the United States; not by anybody else.
What this means in translation is that the United States will not put any pressure on Israel to change its behavior – such as forcing it to stop building settlements. But Obama will continue to support lop-sided “negotiations” between local superpower Israel and a Palestinian Authority that is actually dependent on Israel for its mere survival (as Israel’s recent withholding of PA tax funds shows). No peace, let along a just one, can emerge from such “negotiations.”
Palestinians must sit on their hands
During his speech, the president also warned:
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
The reference to “delegitimization” appears to be a coded condemnation of the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, a growing nonviolent campaign to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. That’s out.
The bid to get Palestine recognized as a state is a desperate effort by the PA to seek international support in the face of intransigent US bias toward Israel. That’s out too.
Next the president tells Palestinians to reject “terror.” Ok, fair enough. And indeed elsewhere in his speech Obama was fulsome in his praise for “nonviolence.”
But what happened when tens of thousands of Palestinians peacefully marched for their human rights, including their right to return to Palestine even if they are not Jewish, last Sunday on Nakba Day? Israel gunned down more than a dozen people and the White House endorsed its actions.
So as far as Obama is concerned Palestinians have no options but to turn to negotiations that have proven utterly fruitless as even he acknowledged.
Soon after Obama was elected in 2008, I predicted that his tenure – despite high expectations everywhere else – would not produce any progress toward the mythical “two-state solution.” I see no reason to change that assessment.
But I concluded then, as I do now, that “This does not however mean that the situation will remain static or that those pursuing a just peace have no recourse for action.”
Indeed as recent months have shown throughout the region, the fates of nations are in the hands of their own citizens, not those of the American president.
EU official: Open Gaza crossings immediately
Ma’an – 19/05/2011
GAZA CITY — EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva called for the “immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons,” following her trip to the coastal enclave Tuesday.
It was a message she also conveyed to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Tel Aviv, when she met with the official after her Gaza visit.
Her trip, a statement from her office of International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response said, “highlighted the dramatic human and far-reaching effects of the blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel’s four-year siege on Gaza has seen the slow closure of import terminals and imposition of strict control on the goods permitted to enter the area. The ban includes a prohibition on the import of a long list of goods, like construction material, industrial items for manufacturing, electronics, medical equipment and many fertilizers. Without access to the materials, factories remain closed, homes remain in rubble, the medical sector remains inadequate and farming undeveloped.
The “blockade exacerbates the predicament of a large number of Palestinians, and hinders the flow of humanitarian aid, persons and commercial goods to and from the Gaza Strip,” Georgieva’s statement noted.
The commissioner said the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access for Gaza should be implemented; a comprehensive agreement mandating international forces on the Rafah border area between Egypt and Gaza, as well as a regular system of imports from Israel into the coastal enclave.
“The blockade maintains Gaza people in a state of humanitarian vulnerability and dependency. By impeding the movement of people and the import and export of goods, there is hardly no prospect for development. For example, it is very difficult to bring construction materials into Gaza, where they are urgently needed to build houses and schools as well as health and sanitary basic facilities,” she said.
Plans Announced For 1,500 New Settlement Units In Jerusalem
By Kevin Murphy – IMEMC and Agencies – May 19, 2011
Maan news agency reports that The Planning and Building Committee for Jerusalem have announced plans for 1,500 new Jewish only housing units in illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
The announcement comes hours before US President Barrack Obama’s talk on the region later today and days before Israeli PM’s speech before US congress next Tuesday. The housing units are due to be built in the illegal settlements of Har Homa and Pisgat Ze’ev. The settlements are part of land occupied after the 1967 war and as such are internationally recognised as Palestinian Territory. Much of the settlements are on privately owned Palestinian land.
The settlements have been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration in its search for a resolution to the conflict. Obama offered extensive benefits to Netanyahu in return for a halt to settlement construction, including vetoing any Palestinian motions in the UN. However Netanyahu rejected the propsals and resumed settlement activity last September.
Palestinian leaders say a halt to settlement construction is an absolute prerequisite to any potential peace talks. Settlement activity, they claim, makes a future Palestinian state unviable and must be stopped.
British Colonial War Crimes in 1950s Kenya Mau-Mau Rebellion Whitewashed
By Jemima Pierre | BAR | 05/17/2011
The western-manipulated International Criminal Court, which has indicted only African leaders, tries to give the world the impression that barbarity descended on the continent when the white colonists left. But four aging Kenyan “Mau Mau” freedom fighters, demanding reparations, are forcing Britain to acknowledge the savagery of white settlers and soldiers. “The generation of Africans who fought against colonialism is dying without recognition of their fight or their suffering at the hands of racist colonialism.”
In early April 2011, four elderly Kenyansi—three men and one woman—appeared in the High Court in London, accusing England of systematic torture during their siege of the so-called Mau Maus and demanding reparations for their treatment. One of the men was castrated by the British colonial government in Kenya. Handcuffed and pinned to the ground with his legs pulled apart, his genitals were sliced off by the white officers. He was then left for days without medical attention until he was liberated by Kenyan rebels. The one woman claimant was subjected to sexual torture. White soldiers repeatedly inserted bottles of boiling hot water into her vagina. In addition to these cases, thousands of Kenyans were maimed, lynched and brutally murdered by the British during the last century. Thousands of others were subjected to rape, forced labor, and gross abuse and torture in detention camps. It was part of a deliberate policy of the colonial British government to break a civilian population cast as “baboons,” “barbarians,” and “terrorists” and who were seen as a threat to the colonial order in east Africa.
The proper name for the liberation forces that fought against British colonialism and land-grabbing in East Africa was the Kenya Land and Freedom Army.ii The movement was derisively called “Mau Mau” by the British propaganda machine in an attempt to depict these African freedom fighters as a primitive and anti-white tribal cult. Against this, the late C. L. R. James described the movement as “an ad hoc body of beliefs, oaths, disciplines newly created for the specific purpose of gathering and strengthening the struggle against British imperialism, its military, political and economic domination and, in particular, the Christianity it sought to inject and impose.” And it was land and white settlers, not African “tribal” beliefs that were at the heart of the so-called Mau Mau revolt against British colonialism.
The colonial invasion of Central Kenya began in the late 1880s. It was formalized through military conquest, particularly over the most numerous ethnic group, the Gikuyu, as well as the Embu and the Meru. By 1903, the British colonial government sent in waves of white settlers, from South Africa and England, with the hope of creating another “white man’s country” in Kenya. They stole between 60,000 and 1 million acres of land, settling whites in the most fertile regions with the coolest climates—an area they eventually named the “White Highlands.” By the time the colony of Kenya came into being in 1920, more than 10,000 whites had settled over 25% of Kenya’s best territory. At the same time, the African population, mainly but not entirely the Gikuyu, were driven into reservations or were forced to work as sharecroppers. Then, through hut and poll taxes, restrictions on movement through the issuing of kipande (identity passes), and limits on agricultural production, Africans became systematically entrapped into the racist Kenyan colonial system. Add to this mix the ever-expanding power of the white settlers and Christian missionaries, and Kenya was primed for a revolution.
Though all ethnic groups were affected by British colonial land-grabbing and dispossession, the Gikuyu experienced this most acutely. They did not take lightly the heavy theft of land. When, in 1943, the colonial government threatened groups of Gikuyu with yet another eviction from their lands, they decided to take action. Their struggle began with overt passive resistance but was quickly radicalized. Wings of the movement began armed guerilla attacks on white settler holdings and on Africans who supported the British regime. At the height of the revolt, it was estimated that 1.5 million Gikuyu and other Kenyan groups had taken secret oaths of unity to fight against white settlers and colonial rule. They were met with a brutal armed retaliation. By late 1952, the colonial governor of Kenya declared a state of emergency. The colonial government established and enforced communal punishment, curfews, schemes to confiscate African properties, censors for publications, detention without trial, control of African markets, forced migrations, and detention and labor camps.
By late 1954 the revolt was said to have been militarily defeated by the British army, but the state of the emergency was not lifted until 1960. During the six intervening years, the Mau Mau struggle continued as the British colonial government established a terrorist state. The assault on the Africans continued both through the campaign to arrest and dispose of the alleged Mau Mau leadership, and in detention camps, prisons, and “emergency villages.” The British focused primarily on forcing the Gikuyu to renounce their oath of unity by the most brutal means. According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission, by the time the colonial government ended the state of emergency, over 90,000 Kenyans were executed, maimed, or tortured, while 160,000 were held in detention camps. Others have argued that the numbers were higher. What is well documented is how colonial agents were unrivaled in their barbarity. They castrated and sexually abused, starved, and maimed detainees in order to force the alleged oath takers to confess. They used electric shock, cigarettes and fire, broken bottles, gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men’s rectums and women’s vaginas. The assault only came to an end when the Gikuyu population was almost physically decimated and psychologically broken.
If not for the legal case brought against the British government by four surviving Kenyans, we would not know about the trove of secret colonial files documenting the systematic nature of their torture of Africans. The generation of Africans who fought against colonialism is dying without recognition of their fight or their suffering at the hands of racist colonialism. In the current context where Africans, through organizations such as the ICC, are constructed and targeted as the greatest purveyors of “crimes against humanity,” it is well worth remembering the venal work of Europeans in Africa. The demands for reparations may begin with four elderly Kenyans traveling to the old center of the British empire, but the colonial archive surely documents crimes against the Herero, the Congolese, and many other victims of European colonialism. We should not forget their struggles.
i – Wambugu Wa Nyingi, Jane Muthoni Mara, Paulo Nzili, and Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua
ii – For Further Reading: C. L. R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt (1995); Caroline Elkins, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (2005); Cora Presley, Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion, and Social Change in Kenya (1992); Gerald Horne, Mau Mau in Harlem? The U.S. and the Liberation of Kenya (2009)
Jemima Pierre can be reached at BAR1804@gmail.com.
Featured Video
Billionaires and Officials Are Just Blatantly Ignoring the Will of the People
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ‘Little Sparta’: Why The UAE Attacked Iran for Israel’s Sake
- Iran Blames European Tanker for Oil Slick Near Kharg
- Hamas leaders say targeting families will fail to extract concessions
- Harrowing testimonies expose Israeli torture of Gaza hospital director
- UAE provides $100m for US-backed Gaza police force vetted by Shin Bet
- Britain quietly approves $11.85m arms licence to Israel despite Gaza ban
- Britain’s population replacement has passed the point of no return
- US-Iran ‘Calibrated Escalation’ Risks Sliding Into All-Out War – Expert
- Iran – End of the Drought & the Destruction of US Radar Installations in the Middle East
- Prediction: NATO’s Collapse & Nuclear War
- If Americans Knew
- Israel is enabling a possible plague in Gaza – Daily Update
- A Conservative’s View: Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America
- Israel’s war on the West Bank comes for Palestinian greenhouses
- New $270 million Israeli-only roads project in the West Bank is Netanyahu’s latest bid to impose de facto annexation
- Gaza investigation: A family’s fight to find their missing relatives
- MSF: Israel’s deliberate restriction of food and aid led to alarming malnutrition levels in Gaza
- Israel earmarks $270M for Israeli-only roads (that’s apartheid) – Daily Update
- Two Supreme Court Justices were secret agents who helped Israel cover up its attack on the USS Liberty
- Bari Weiss ‘Meddles’ With ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Story on Palestine
- Zionists Are Gunning for Your Freedom of Speech
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
Aletho News 