Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

[Magda Hassan]

Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

By Ian Cobain, The Guardian
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 21:26 EDT



Topics: Hanslope Park ♦ Mau Mau rebellion


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 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 8,800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire.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 are made available to the public on Wednesday at the National Archive at Kew, Surrey.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, including a case of aman said to have been "roasted alive"; and papers detailing the lengths to which the UK 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 eg police informers", that might compromise intelligence sources, or that might "be used unethically by ministers in the successor government".Among the documents that appear to have been destroyed were: records of the abuse of Mau Mau insurgents detained by British colonial authorities, who were tortured and sometimes murdered; reports that may have detailed the alleged massacre of 24 unarmed villagers in Malaya by soldiers of the Scots Guards in 1948; most of the sensitive documents kept by colonial authorities in Aden, where the army's Intelligence Corps operated a secret torture centre for several years in the 1960s; and every sensitive document kept by the authorities in British Guiana, a colony whose policies were heavily influenced by successive US governments and whose post-independence leader was toppled in a coup orchestrated by the CIA.The documents that were not destroyed appear to have been kept secret not only to protect the UK's reputation, but to shield the government from litigation. If the small group of Mau Mau detainees are successful in their legal action, thousands more veterans are expected to follow.It is a case that is being closely watched by fFormer Eoka guerillas who were detained by the British in 1950s Cyprus, and possibly by many others who were imprisoned and interrogated between 1946 and 1967, as Britain fought a series of rearguard actions across its rapidly dimishing empire.The documents show that 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 the UK. In many colonies, these were described as watch files, and stamped with a red letter W.The papers at Kew depict a period of mounting anxiety amid fears that some of the incriminating watch files might be leaked. Officials were warned that they would be prosecuted if they took any any paperwork home and some were. As independence grew closer, large caches of files were removed from colonial ministries to governors' offices, where new safes were installed.In Uganda, the process was codenamed Operation Legacy. In Kenya, a vetting process, described as "a thorough purge", was overseen by colonial Special Branch officers.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.Painstaking measures were taken to prevent post-independence governments from learning that the watch files had ever existed. One instruction states: "The legacy files must leave no reference to watch material. Indeed, the very existence of the watch series, though it may be guessed at, should never be revealed."When a single watch file was to be removed from a group of legacy files, a "twin file" or dummy was to be created to insert in its place. If this was not practicable, the documents were to be removed en masse. There was concern that Macleod's directions should not be divulged "there is of course the risk of embarrassment should the circular be compromised" and officials taking part in the purge were even warned to keep their W stamps in a safe place.Many of the watch files ended up at Hanslope Park. They came from 37 different former colonies, and filled 200 metres of shelving. But it is becoming clear that much of the most damning material was probably destroyed. Officials in some colonies, such as Kenya, were told that there should be a presumption in favour of disposal of documents rather than removal to the UK "emphasis is placed upon destruction" and that no trace of either the documents or their incineration should remain. When documents were burned, "the waste should be reduced to ash and the ashes broken up".Some idea of the scale of the operation and the amount of documents that were erased from history can be gleaned from a handful of instruction documents that survived the purge. In certain circumstances, colonial officials in Kenya were informed, "it is permissible, as an alternative to destruction by fire, for documents to be packed in weighted crates and dumped in very deep and current-free water at maximum practicable distance from the coast".Documents that survive from Malaya suggest a far more haphazard destruction process, with relatively junior officials being permitted to decide what should be burned and what should be sent to London.Dr Ed Hampshire, diplomatic and colonial record specialist at the National Archive, said the 1,200 files so far transferred from Hanslope Park represented "gold dust" for historians, with the occasional nugget, rather than a haul that calls for instant reinterpretation of history. However, only one sixth of the secret archive has so far been transferred. The remainder are expected to be at Kew by the end of 2013.

[Jan Klimkowski]

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 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 8,800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire.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,"

This demonstrates why Official History, especially involving an Authorized Historian being given Unique Access to an otherwise Secret Archive must NEVER be trusted.

All those Professors getting access to secret intelligence service files and writing patriotic histories about our brave spooks, whose occasional wacky moments included exploding cigars and poisoned elephants, come immediately to mind.

[Magda Hassan]

Colonial Office files detail 'eliminations' to choke Malayan insurgency

Documents transferred to National Archives lay bare how communist groups were targeted in long jungle war.

• 
  

• Owen Bowcott
  
• The Guardian, Wednesday 18 April 2012
  
• Article history
  

A photograph taken by a British sergeant on patrol in the Malayan jungle in 1952. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

The "elimination of ranking terrorists" was a repeated theme in secret monthly reports on casualty figures circulated by the director of intelligence in British-controlled Malaya during the 1950s.
Long-lost files from the "emergency" period, when insurgents attempted to drive out colonial occupiers, reveal how the protracted jungle war was fought to drive communist groups into submission and deprive them of food and support.
The first tranche of documents belatedly transferred from the Foreign Office depository in Hanslope park, near Milton Keynes, to the National Archives in Kew, show how British officials in Kuala Lumpur interpreted virtually all anti-colonial protests as evidence of a planned communist takeover.
But many potentially embarrassing documents, including probably some of those relating to the alleged 1948 massacre by Scots Guards of 24 villagers in Batang Kali, appear to be missing.
These missing papers could have been among scores of files listed for destruction in the colony's final months.
A compensation claim by relatives and survivors of the killings described by some as the "British My Lai massacre", after the US troop killings in Vietnam is due to come to trial in London in May.
Among documents that survived the transfer are reports issued monthly from the director of intelligence in the Federation of Malaya.
"The last month of 1956 brought a total of 41 eliminations of terrorists, which is average for the year," the director, G C Madoc, noted. "During the year, 287 terrorists were killed, 52 were captured and 134 surrendered. The [communist] politburo policy of avoiding contacts and conserving terrorist strength remains in force."
Madoc added: "In spite of the considerable difficulties of creating underground control organisations from the jungle, it is known that the MCP [Malayan Communist party] is striving continuously to implement directives on subversion in town and villages …
"Hence the need to maintain constant watch over the gullible and ambitious opponents [of] the existing regime who are natural and probably unconscious targets for subtle forms of subversion."
Casualty tables written for December 1956 record: "Ranking terrorists eliminated 8." The phrase "eliminated" is used repeatedly to describe the killing of insurgents. In January the following year, Madoc recorded: "In Selangor a small but important success was achieved when the whole of the Ampang branch, on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, was eliminated."
In March 1957, less than six months before the colony's formal independence, a monthly intelligence assessment observed: "By the standards of the last year the number of terrorist eliminations may be considered satisfactory."
Photograph: The National ArchivesThe killing of Tan Fuk Leong, it was noted in May that year, "by aerial bombardment, may presently ease the situation in North Negri Sembilan [sic]."
The assessment added: "His inspiring leadership of the 3rd Independent Platoon has been a major factor in the preservation of MCP influence in the north of the state. We know from experience that the elimination of senior leaders has little apparent effect on the morale of followers, but the plain fact is that only one deputy platoon commander survives."
Other means of combating communist subversion included banning books from 29 blacklisted publishing houses in Hong Kong, China and Singapore. A branch of the Labour party of Malaysia was censured for staging a concert at which "two objectionable songs were sung in spite of the fact that the police had registered their disapproval".
Another secret file reports on an inquiry into allegations that British troops regularly strip-searched and abused women near the village of Semenyih during a "food denial" operation aimed at preventing rice being smuggled out to communist units in the jungle.
Women complained that they were forced to remove their clothes, which were then thrown some distance away so they had to recover them under the gaze of loitering soldiers. The final report into the allegations is absent from the file.
An insight into how the government in London initially resisted the anti-colonial winds of change is contained in a "secret and personal letter" sent out in March 1953 by Sir Thomas Lloyd, permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office.
Dispatched to "governors of non-self governing territories", it began: "The growth of anti-colonial activity is a feature of the general world situation with which we have to reckon these days. The dangers for us from it are sufficiently obvious, not least because its use to smooth the way for communist strategy in colonial territories … It may only be a matter of time before members of the Arab/Asian bloc will cause [their] agents to interest themselves to our detriment in the underground political affairs of our territories."
His circular, posted to British governors in Malaya, British Guyana, Fiji, Cyprus, Kenya, Uganda, Jamaica, Trinidad, Northern Rhodesia and other colonial outposts, requested feedback on "the effect of anti-colonialism on the attitude of the politically conscious among indigenous colonial people". It added: "In territories where there is a domiciled European population, [we recognise that] this is far from being the whole story."
In Malaya, a far-seeing official acknowledged that: "The word 'colonial' has acquired a stigma and should be dropped. We should not have a Colonial Office, a secretary of state for colonial affairs, a colonial service and so on. Why not 'Commonwealth protected territories' or some such phrase?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr...?fb=optOut

[Jan Klimkowski]

From the little evidence that remains, these "eliminations" (lovely bureaucratic phrase) appear systematic.

Thus we are not talking of the "British My Lai massacre", but rather of a British Phoenix Program.

Of death squads.

[Keith Millea]

Batang Kali relatives edge closer to the truth about 'Britain's My Lai massacre'

Key Malayan Emergency notes have been handed to families of the 24 unarmed victims of the December 1948 shootings

Only an idiot could compare the massacre in Malaya of 24 victims to My Lai,where there were over 500 old men,women,and children slaughtered.

[Magda Hassan]

Secret files show Kenya massacre cover-up

• Robin Millard
  
• AAP
  
• December 01, 2012 4:27PM
  

Declassified UK files have shed more light on the 1959 deaths of 11 men during the Mau Mau uprising.


SECRET documents just released show how British colonial authorities in Kenya tried to hush up the 1959 Hola detention camp massacre, in which 11 men were beaten to death.

The files shed more light on the March 3, 1959 deaths during the Mau Mau uprising, which were initially blamed on contaminated water, though autopsies found the men were severely beaten. No prosecutions were ever brought.
The papers revealed that prison camp staff made no attempt to tell the truth about what happened, while the government minister for Britain's colonies wanted the incident to "drop out of sight", according to the files released on Friday.
Many more Kenyans were injured in the incident.
The testimony of a Kenyan colonial official that the camp commandant knew "perfectly well what was going on" was discounted by the attorney-general due to suspicions over his connections with a Kenyan nationalist politician.

The declassified Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) documents have been released by the National Archives.
Wambugu Wa Nyingi, one of three elderly Kenyans who last month won a High Court ruling allowing them to sue the British government for damages over torture in detention, claims he was beaten unconscious during the Hola incident.
The UK is appealing against the judgment, arguing it is not liable and a fair trial would be impossible more than 50 years after the event.
Lawyers for the three veterans said that in light of the documents released on Friday, Britain now "had nowhere to go other than to sit round a table and agree a settlement for the Mau Mau survivors".
Early public statements suggested the 11 men had died after being poisoned by a contaminated water cart.
But three days later, Evelyn Baring, Britain's colonial governor in Kenya, wrote to Alan Lennox-Boyd, colonies secretary in London, to say such reports had been misleading.
"Result of first three autopsies is that in each case, death was due to violence," said his telegram to London.
As inquests into the deaths began, Baring told London in another telegram: "Government chemist told of examination water from cart and stomach contents. Both negative, no poisonous substances found."
"Broadly, death was caused by shock and haemorrhage due to multiple bruising caused by violence," Baring said.
It was for the attorney general Eric Griffith-Jones to consider bringing charges. He wanted to do so over the "shocking and disturbing" incident but said any criminal prosecution would fail due to a lack of proof.
A secret letter he sent said it was impossible to ascertain which guards had inflicted which blows.
An FCO spokesman said the files were an important part of UK history.
"It is not for us to comment on the detail of the papers released today, particularly given the ongoing court case brought on behalf of Mau Mau veterans," he said.
At least 10,000 people died during the bloody 1952-1960 Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule.
Tens of thousands were detained, including US President Barack Obama's grandfather.
http://mobile.news.com.au/breaking-news/...public_rss

[Peter Lemkin]

Are there any documents on the British BOMBING of Iraq LONG ago WW1 era? A stamp was even issued about the event...but of course those who perished under the bombs [for nothing but being in the wrong place under imperialistic bombs] were likely never counted...much as the USA and its cabal of the willing do not count the dead in Iraq now....likely well over one million...perhaps two. The USA has done more than its share of file disappearing acts. I always wonder if they really destroy the files or file them in the 'do not file file'. Perhaps out there somewhere in an atomic bomb proof vault in an area only accessible to those of the highest of the highest security clearances are the, for example and among many others, the MK/ULTRA files - said to have been destroyed. JFK's brain may be there too.