INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 8 MARCH 2005
ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE WOMEN IN KENYA
Picket Kenya High Comission, 45 Portland Place, London W1, Oxford Street tube. 1pm-3pm
Organised by the African Liberation Support Campaign Network (ALISC Network), Black Women’s Rape Action Project, Women Against Rape, All African Women's Revolutionary Union

THE BIG COVER UP

30 years of British army rape in Kenya

For the last 30 years British soldiers stationed in eastern Kenya have raped women, girls and boys from local villages.  When the Kenya women took the courageous decision to seek justice, they exposed:

* the usual unholy alliance between the British and Kenya Governments to suppress the truth

* the usual racist and imperialist actions of the British

*that their own government, though elected by Kenyans, takes instructions from London.  This is so well known and widespread that, in the words of one of the women, “It has become a big joke.” 

Classic tactics
Faced with an impending prosecution the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) moved swiftly to investigate itself. In July 2003 the Royal Military Police (RMP) arrived in Kenya. By September, “Kenyan and British forensic experts discovered that all police records examined to date are forgeries.” At the same time the RMP concluded that of the 800 allegations of rape made,  “... no more than 30 are credible.” Is this not like asking an accused thief to investigate the robbery?

Smear Campaign
All the major British newspapers have published reports on the alleged Kenya rapes and the ‘forged’ police records. They have presented the women of Kenya as gold-diggers, albeit within the context of overwhelming poverty. The Times of 27 September 2003 reported, “... the British Government was the target of a huge attempted fraud.”

Colonial Mentality, Slave Mentality
The government of Kenya has as usual neglected the interests of its own women citizens. It would not stand up against the British and for the women, whose enormous caring and agricultural work keeps most people in Kenya alive.  Instead it permitted the rapes to continue even after they were brought to the attention of local authorities. It failed to conduct its own investigation and ensure that its own citizens received justice, including compensation. In April 2003, when the RMP went to Kenya to investigate the rape claims, the Kenyan government ensured that the RMP had access to all the police and hospital records that it required.  Questioning the women involved, transporting them to where the rapes took place, they then leaving  the women there! According to the women, “It was like being raped all over again”. The rape of the Samburu and Masai women is a continuation of British colonial policy which perpetrated genocide against the Mau Mau independence movement. As well as men who were held in camps, entire villages of women and children were also detained.  British troops tortured, raped, mululated, starved and executed hundreds of thousands, reminiscent of Nazi Germany.  The British government ignored the numerous oofficial complaints.  They were determined to subdue this grassroots movement.

The institution that has benefited from the actions of the Kenyan Government is the British Army, which has recently been exposed as torturing and raping Iraqis alongside their US allies in Iraq.

Kenya, like every other neo-colonial government in Africa and elsewhere, is neither sovereign nor independent.  This is easy to prove. If African soldiers stationed in Dorset had raped 30 white women from a nearby village, how would the independent British Government respond?  We call on the Government of Kenya to do likewise. 

* the Kenyan women’s struggle is part of an international women’s movement against rape.  In the UK rape victims face hostility and character assassination, and less than 6% of reported rapes result in conviction.

* the announcement claiming that the documents were forged, the reduction in the number of 'credible' claims, and the smearing of the women in the press are part of a strategy to reduce to the barest minimum any compensation that must eventually be won by the rape survivors and their families.

* any attempt by the MoD and the press to present the women of Kenya as gold diggers must be condemned. They are the victims of a horrendous crime of violence and abuse.

* both the British and Kenyan governments share joint responsibility for the crimes that have been committed and all pressure should be brought to bear on them for justice and compensation for the women.