DIASPORA MESSENGER
TUESDAY 19 APRIL 2012 Written by
Administrator
LONDON: Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful
acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire
were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of
post-independence governments, an official review has concluded.
Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret British Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.
The archive came to light last year when a group of Kenyans detained and allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion won the right to sue the British government.
The Foreign Office promised to release the 8800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire near London.
The historian appointed to oversee the review and transfer, Tony Badger, master of Clare College, Cambridge, says the discovery of the archive put the Foreign Office in an ''embarrassing, scandalous'' position. ''These documents should have been in the public archives in the 1980s,'' he said. ''It's long overdue.''
The first of them would be made available to the public yesterday at the National Archive at Kew, south-west London.
The papers at Hanslope Park include monthly intelligence reports on the ''elimination'' of the colonial authority's enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, and papers detailing the lengths to which Britain went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
However, among the documents are a handful which show that many of the most sensitive papers from Britain's late colonial era were not hidden away, but simply destroyed.
These papers give the instructions for systematic destruction issued in 1961 after Iain Macleod, secretary of state for the colonies, directed that post-independence governments should not get any material that ''might embarrass Her Majesty's government'', that could ''embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others e.g. police informers'', that might compromise intelligence sources, or that might ''be used unethically by ministers in the successor government''.
The documents that were not destroyed appear to have been kept secret not only to protect Britain's reputation, but to shield the government from litigation. If the Mau Mau detainees are successful in their legal action, thousands more veterans are expected to follow.
The documents show colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence - usually known as ''Legacy files'' - from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to Britain. Officials were warned they would be prosecuted if they took any paperwork home. As independence grew closer, large caches were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.
Clear instructions were issued that no Africans were to be involved: only an individual who was ''a servant of the Kenya government who is a British subject of European descent'' could participate in the purge
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/shameful-last-acts-of-british-empire-exposed-20120418-1x7mu.html#ixzz1sUlHGf8r
Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret British Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.
The archive came to light last year when a group of Kenyans detained and allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion won the right to sue the British government.
The Foreign Office promised to release the 8800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire near London.
The historian appointed to oversee the review and transfer, Tony Badger, master of Clare College, Cambridge, says the discovery of the archive put the Foreign Office in an ''embarrassing, scandalous'' position. ''These documents should have been in the public archives in the 1980s,'' he said. ''It's long overdue.''
The first of them would be made available to the public yesterday at the National Archive at Kew, south-west London.
The papers at Hanslope Park include monthly intelligence reports on the ''elimination'' of the colonial authority's enemies in 1950s Malaya; records showing ministers in London were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau insurgents in Kenya, and papers detailing the lengths to which Britain went to forcibly remove islanders from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
However, among the documents are a handful which show that many of the most sensitive papers from Britain's late colonial era were not hidden away, but simply destroyed.
These papers give the instructions for systematic destruction issued in 1961 after Iain Macleod, secretary of state for the colonies, directed that post-independence governments should not get any material that ''might embarrass Her Majesty's government'', that could ''embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others e.g. police informers'', that might compromise intelligence sources, or that might ''be used unethically by ministers in the successor government''.
The documents that were not destroyed appear to have been kept secret not only to protect Britain's reputation, but to shield the government from litigation. If the Mau Mau detainees are successful in their legal action, thousands more veterans are expected to follow.
The documents show colonial officials were instructed to separate those papers to be left in place after independence - usually known as ''Legacy files'' - from those that were to be selected for destruction or removal to Britain. Officials were warned they would be prosecuted if they took any paperwork home. As independence grew closer, large caches were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.
Clear instructions were issued that no Africans were to be involved: only an individual who was ''a servant of the Kenya government who is a British subject of European descent'' could participate in the purge
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/shameful-last-acts-of-british-empire-exposed-20120418-1x7mu.html#ixzz1sUlHGf8r
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