🇰🇪Kenya's Mau Mau: The Last Battle l Witness
172,024
Published 2013-05-23
We follow the journey of Kenyans seeking justice for Britain's role in the torture during the 1950s Mau Mau uprising.
Filmed over three years, The Last Battle traces the story of a small group of elderly Kenyans in their successful fight to win acknowledgement of the abuses suffered at the hands of the British colonial authorities at the height of the 1950s Mau Mau emergency.
With intimate and disturbing interviews, observational footage, photographs and archive, this revelatory and compelling documentary follows the developing legal case and lays bare a history that was deliberately hidden, allowing the central protagonists to tell the world, for the first time, their stories and what happened to them.
FILMMAKER'S VIEW
By Jemma Gander
As a British filmmaker I first learned of the independence struggle in Kenya after reading an article in an African magazine. I was both shocked yet eager to find out more about these freedom fighters who were tortured by British soldiers in the 1950s.
Britain is often seen as the paternalistic colonial power in comparison with other European powers and I was eager to reveal the truth about the British, their often brutal suppression, of a people who were fighting for self-rule.
I began making the film in 2009 when four elderly Kenyan men and women travelled to London to seek justice and recognition over the British government's role in the torture of suspected Mau Mau members.
I then flew to Kenya a year later to speak to the claimants about their experiences during the Mau Mau uprising and the physical and emotional scars they have been living with over the past 50 years.
Paulo Nzili and Ndiku Mutua told me about how they were castrated with pliers when they were arrested for being part of the Mau Mau. Jane Muthoni and Naomi Nziula spoke about the brutal sexual torture they experienced when they were arrested on suspicion of being involved with the movement.
The attacks were so horrific that pregnant Naomi miscarried after being sexually assaulted with a glass bottle, and her three other children have been missing ever since.
On a personal level, I feel privileged to have spent time with these brave and inspiring people who, despite their age, will not give up the final battle - the battle they see as their last chance to regain dignity and pride.
John Nottingham, an ex-British district officer with the British colonial government who has tirelessly fought for justice for the Mau Mau veterans, told me: "It nearly destroys me that you can keep on and on without creating a closure. It really is time for closure."
The film is broadcast as the British government decides to postpone the appeal of the October 2012 verdict, which could see the claimants take the British government to a full trial.
Fifty years after these people suffered torture - and at least 10 years of fighting for justice - the elderly claimants' representatives are sitting down with the British government's legal team to discuss a possible resolution that could finally see the last battle won.
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All Comments (21)
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My mom who is still alive is one of them. She is a very proud mau mau fighter. She narrates to us the reason she is unable to read or write is because she refused to attend school in order to supply food to men who were fighting and more so because education was seen as conforming to a white man way of life. We call her an iron lady. To this day at 90, she is very sharp and quick witted.
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On behalf of myself,my nation of Apache Nation USA & our families;We are sorry about the very atrocious treatment of all parts of Africa,especially Kenya.❤
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The level of patience and understanding that some of the torture survivors have is unbelievable. They don't hate, and aren't bitter. They simply want recognition of the injustice they suffered, and just compensation for it, so they can get closure.
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My grandfather was among the last people to be released from Hola camp,he died shortly after. My grand mother was shot on the leg as she attempted to take food to the forest for the Mau Mau. She still bear the scar on her right calf to this day. when I see her and the atrocities she witnessed I feel as if I went through them myself.
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I still do not understand how Britain has not paid for all the crimes they committed in Africa.
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My dad is 82. He took his first oath (tricked into doing it as were most other people) while on holiday from high school, which would be in the early 50s. When he narrates the stories from those days, he mentions the murdered victims by name, like X, son of Y, the way Kikuyu identified themselves back in the day. It makes it very palpable and real to me. When I drive him upcountry, he loves to tell tales of memorable things that happened at different places along the way, like pointing out areas that used to have bandits, or a spot where a mad man tried holding a falling tree after it had been struck by lightning and got crushed by it to death, etc. There's also stories about spots where people were deliberately ran over by British soldiers driving their Jeeps or Land Rovers - I don't remember which. Or this poor man who was used as a human shield by a colonial officer, who had strapped the man to his vehicle door, such that the man was hanging outside the driver's door, strapped on to the body of the moving vehicle, so that should a freedom fighter (the British called them terrorists, but we call them freedom heroes) hiding in the bushes by the roadside fire at the vehicle, the poor man would get hit instead of the colonial officer. My dad knew that man by name. My dad had cousins who were little kids then, playing out in the grass when they noticed tufts of grass getting uprooted from the ground and flying up in the air before falling again as if by an invisible being. They rushed in to tell their aunt to come out and see the 'miracle'. The invisible hand behind the uprooting turned out to be bullets from a sniper's gun. We're talking about kids about ten years old. That's what the British were doing in Kenya and treating our grandparents worse than they treated their pets or livestock. I have no hate against the British, but I just do not understand how a people who claim to be civil would act like this to another people who welcomed them into their country and were hospitable to the comers. And to think that such people still exist today...
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The crimes of the British colonial masters shall never go unforgotten.I recall the stories from my ancestors the trauma left on our Kenyan & African people cannot be bribed by any amount to be forgotten. Malipo ni hapa hapa duniani.
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our grandmother with 8 children was taken while looking some veg in her fram, and by that time my grandfather was arrested too and our Grandmother was not seen again but we will meet again in the New Kingdom.
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I have spent the better part of this year going back to my roots. I've read every material I have found about MAUMAU and watched every documentary about the same. I have listened to stories of people who have information on the same passed to them by word of mouth by their forefathers. And to date, I still do not comprehend exactly why the British put our freedom fighters through this. I've cried so many times just listening to some of the torture they were put through. Inhumane is an understatement. We surely didn't deserve this freedom fighter. Kenyatta should be ashamed for not honoring them! Long live Maumauđź’”
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The dignity these broken people display is admirable. I hope they get something out of how horrific they were treated......just awful. Bless them all.
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What a harrowing story to tell, yet done so in such a delicate manner. Let's hope they receive the apology and reparation they justly deserve.
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Pausing this for a while, cannot continue, it's too graphic. Britain was practicing Hitlerism in Kenya while fighting it in Germany!
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Lest we forget the pain and human rights abuses perpetrated by the British government in Kenya.
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Why is it that so many British people refuse to pronounce African names, e.g. Kenya, the way they should be spoken according to the people who belong there, but insist on the anglicised 'Keenya'? It seems to me it is a continuation of colonial superiority complex.
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This case shows who is the real savage. Reparations now.
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I learnt some days back that the name MAU MAU was initiated by kenyans freedom fighters which meant " mzungu aende kwao mwafrika apate uhuru ". Which is which?
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They let this drag out until the guilty died off after enjoying full lives. The MauMau should’ve sought judgement through the UN and reached out to blacks all over the world. We must unite and seek REAL justice- whatever that may be.
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hurts to see the real heroes are the ones still suffering up to now , while some people like the kenyattas have land that should belong to this people. disappointing
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Absolutely fabulous documentary once again great work from Aljazeera English. I find the torture details shocking but it is good that at long last these elderly Kenyans have been listened to and proven their claims are true. I know there are always criticisms of the courts but when they get it right like on this occasion it is wonderful to witness proper justice. The British government were wrong to cover up the truth for so long.
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the imperialist english have always called the colonised savages yet it was the english who carried out all the savagery.
