(London) King Charles III was called on Wednesday to offer a “national apology” for atrocities committed during the British colonial era in Kenya during his visit to the East African country planned for the end of the month .
Buckingham Palace announced on Wednesday that Charles III and his wife Camilla will make a state visit to Kenya from October 31 to November 3, the king’s first trip to a Commonwealth country since his coronation.
“If he doesn’t come to apologize for the atrocities they inflicted on us, then he shouldn’t come,” John Otieno, a 53-year-old accountant, told AFP.
Buckingham added that the king’s visit will also be an opportunity, among other things, to discuss “the most painful aspects of the common history of the United Kingdom and Kenya” in the years preceding independence.
Between 1952 and 1960, more than 10,000 people were killed in Kenya following the Mau Mau revolt against colonial rule, one of the bloodiest repressions of the British Empire.
After a legal process lasting several years, the UK agreed in 2013 to compensate more than 5,000 Kenyans for their treatment during the uprising, totaling almost £20 million (23 millions of euros).
“Her Majesty will take time during the visit to deepen her understanding of the wrongs suffered by the Kenyan people during this period,” the palace added.
“We hope that he will present a national apology,” retorted Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi, the daughter of resistance leader Dedan Kimathi, hoping that this visit will help “close” this chapter.
“Everything else will be fine” after the British government has shown “its goodwill” on this issue, she added.
“Freedom Fighters”
This woman, at the head of a foundation defending the interests of veterans of the War of Independence and active on environmental issues, also expressed the hope that London would help her country locate the graves of “freedom fighters “.
This research also concerns the grave of his father, who was hanged in 1957 at Kamiti Prison in Nairobi, but whose remains have not yet been found.
The King’s visit to Kenya, at the invitation of Kenyan President William Ruto, will take place as Kenya prepares to celebrate the 60e anniversary of its independence, proclaimed on December 12, 1963.
Charles III’s first visit as king will take place “in the country in which the reign of Queen Elizabeth II began”, in February 1952, Buckingham Palace said. Then princess, she was in Kenya as part of a tour of the Commonwealth when her father King George VI died.
No more “colonial master”
Other Kenyans expressed hope that this visit will help usher in a new era in relations with London.
The king “is welcome in Nairobi, but as someone with whom we can negotiate shared development, not as a colonial master,” said teacher Kamau Njoroge, 49.
“I pray that this will change the problems we are seeing in Nanyuki,” he said, referring to allegations of abuse by British soldiers at a training camp near Nanyuki, a town about 200 km north of Nairobi.
“They continue to harm our people in Nanyuki and remain unpunished,” added accountant Otieno, alluding to another source of tension linked to the presence of British soldiers in Kenya.
In August, the Kenyan Parliament launched an investigation targeting the British army, which has a base on the outskirts of Nanyuki.
The most high-profile case was that of the death in 2012 of a young Kenyan mother, Agnes Wanjiru, whose body was found in a septic tank after she was last seen alive with a British soldier.