Kenyans take Britain to court over colonial-era torture

Nearly half a century after Kenya won its independence, three elderly Kenyans who say they were tortured at the hands of the British during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s are seeking justice in a London courtroom, rekindling debate over how Britain should reckon with its colonial past.

The British government admitted Tuesday in court that the three Kenyans had suffered torture and other abuse under British rule in what attorneys believe to be the first official government acknowledgment of colonial-era abuses, the BBC reported. But British officials argue that too much time has passed to hold a fair trial, with many of its possible witnesses now dead.

That argument has drawn uproar from Kenyan activists and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who have accused Britain of stalling and relying on legal technicalities to avoid responsibility for abuses.

"We find it morally reprehensible for the British government to continue waging a war of attrition against Mau Mau torture survivors, most of whom are quite advanced in age, and who need to see justice in this case done sooner than later," Muthoni Wanyeki of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission said last year.

The historic trial has split the British over whether justice can or should be served now. In a fiery column for the Daily Mail, historian Max Hastings wrote that although there was no doubt that the British acted ruthlessly in Kenya to suppress rebellion, the trial was a spectacle and a waste of taxpayer money.

"If the former Mau Mau plaintiffs win their case at the High Court and receive a truckload of cash, this will open the way for thousands more claimants from every corner of the old Empire," he argued.

The Kenyans and their attorney argue that a newly released stash of colonial documents detailing how the British abused detainees during the Mau Mau rebellion offers ample evidence to allow a trial. The papers reveal disturbing stories of Kenyan prisoners being raped, summarily executed and even roasted alive.

"This is not a case where there is a dearth of evidence," attorney Richard Hermer said in court,  according to the Independent. "This is a case where there is an extraordinary amount of evidence."

Somali refugees increasingly endangered in Kenya camp, agencies say

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya is the biggest in the world, a sprawl of nearly half a million people, some of whom have lived there for about two decades.

Residents who fled famine and warfare in Somalia have now seen grandchildren born and raised in what was supposed to have been a temporary home. They have also seen predators and criminal groups flourish; and watched as recruiters lure bored and frustrated boys back to Somalia to serve in armed militias or pirate gangs.

Last year’s famine in southern Somalia saw Dadaab’s population swell by 160,000 to its present 465,000. As a result, Dadaab is running desperately short of funds for food and vital services, according to an appeal by eight aid agencies, including Oxfam and Save the Children.

The organizations warned that they face a $25-million shortfall for their humanitarian operations in the coming three months, putting 200,000 refugees at risk. From September, 50,000 refugees will have no water and sanitation facilities, according to the agencies, unless fresh funding arrives.

They also warned that 130,000 people could soon be without adequate shelter, living in flimsy plastic structures that deteriorate quickly in the harsh weather.

At the same time, they say, continuing to operate Dadaab as it has the past two decades is untenable. The camp was initially built as temporary housing for 90,000 people. Its massive population, almost all of whom are Somalis, survives on subsistence-level rations, with little hope of returning to Somalia or getting work in Kenya, and with few medical or educational services.

“Refugee camps are only temporary solutions and the situation is increasingly untenable. Funds are needed now to save lives, but we can’t keep pumping money in year after year while the camp keeps getting bigger. A change in approach is urgently needed. However, right now, the world has an obligation not to turn its back on Dadaab and the needs of the people there,” Nigel Tricks, head of Oxfam in Kenya, said in a statement.

A briefing paper on Dadaab released by the agencies Thursday reported there are two health units for 78,000 people and 70% of the camp’s 164,000 children do not go to school, making them vulnerable to militia recruiters.

Violence and insecurity is rife. Rapes of women and girls are common, and reports of sexual violences increased by 36% between February and May, but funding for protection of children and women has declined, according to the aid agencies.

A lack of security at the camp has also affected operations of the agencies, with several aid workers kidnapped from Dadaab.

Local attitudes toward the camp’s population range from indifference to hostility. Refugees compete with the local population for firewood, water and land.

Moreover, some Kenyans see the camp as a potential source of terrorists after a series of recent attacks in the capital, Nairobi, and the seaside town of Mombasa. Kenya is currently fighting a war against the Somali Islamist militia Al Shabaab.

Reluctant to attract more refugees from Somalia, the Kenyan government has resisted providing updated sewer systems, water, schools and clinics, according to Refugees International, an advocacy organization, in a report in December. 

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Photo: Saad Siyat, 2, struggles to take his last breath inside the Dadaab refugee camp, where he was brought malnourished and unconscious in this February 2009 photo.'Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times 

U.S. ambassador to Kenya quits, citing differences with bosses

WASHINGTON -- J. Scott Gration, a former campaign advisor to President Obama, has resigned his post as U.S. ambassador to Kenya, citing differences with his superiors.

Gration said in an emailed statement Friday that "differences with Washington regarding my leadership style and certain priorities lead me to believe that it’s now time to leave."

U.S. officials said the issue was Gration’s management style rather than U.S. policy on Kenya, which has become an important ally on counterterrorism and humanitarian relief issues in East Africa.  

The State Department’s inspector-general has conducted an investigation of operations of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. His report, due next month, is expected to include some criticism of the ambassador.

Gration was an advisor to Obama on military issues during the 2008 presidential campaign. The son of missionaries and a former fighter pilot, Gration was named special envoy to Sudan during the early part of Obama’s term. He became ambassador to Kenya in April 2011.

U.S. ambassadors to Malta and Luxembourg have also given up their jobs following critical inspector-general reports within the last year.

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Photo: U.S. Ambassador to Kenya J. Scott Gration, left, speaks with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson at a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, on June 10. Credit: Jason Straziuso/Associated Press

Refugees of 2011 underline 'suffering on an epic scale'

More people became refugees in 2011 than in any other year since the new millennium began, with one out of every four of them coming from Afghanistan, the United Nations refugee agency reported Monday.

The agency called the new numbers a sign of “suffering on an epic scale.”

Though more than 800,000 people fled across borders last year, the highest number since 2000, the number of people displaced worldwide actually dropped as millions of people returned to their homes, the agency said.

All in all, 42.5-million people were displaced or seeking asylum last year, a figure that could actually be higher since many countries do not report the number of people believed to be stateless.

Afghanistan produced the most refugees, followed by Iraq, Somalia and Sudan. Most fled to neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Iran and Kenya; Pakistan hosted more than 1.7-million refugees last year, the largest number in the world according to government estimates. Nearly all of them came from Afghanistan.

The U.N. refugee agency said while growing numbers of displaced people have returned home, it is alarmed that almost three out of every four refugees under its watch have been exiled from their homes for at least five years, many of them languishing in refugee camps.

The report was released ahead of World Refugee Day on Wednesday. The day comes as the agency is grappling with several new crises.

The U.N. recently lamented a dire shortfall of funding to help people uprooted by conflict in northern Mali, where Tuareg rebels have declared their own state. Bangladesh has turned away Rohingya Muslims trying to leave Myanmar after a recent eruption of ethnic violence, despite calls from the U.N. and other countries to allow them in. And in South Sudan, tens of thousands of refugees crossing from Sudan are suffering from deadly dehydration.

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Photo: Afghan refugees travel on a truck as they cross the border between their homeland and Pakistan  at Torkham on May 20. Credit: A. Majeed / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images.

Kenyan police say Nairobi blast was a bomb attack

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Kenyan police said Tuesday that a blast that injured more than 30 people in a Nairobi shopping center the day before was caused by a homemade bomb, following reports that a suspicious bag was left at the scene just before the attack.

Police had initially blamed faulty electrical wiring for the blast about 1:15 p.m. But on Monday, Prime Minister Raila Odinga had already voiced the fears of many Kenyans when he called the blast a terrorist attack.

One witness told local media that she saw a man come into a shop several times in the area where the attack occurred. She saw him leave a bag and quickly depart, minutes before the blast.

"He came into the shop twice, looking at T-shirts," Irene Wachira, the witness, told Reuters news service. "He said he didn't have money so he left. Then he came back. He left a bag and a few moments later we had an explosion. The roof caved in and debris started falling on us."

Nigerian extremists open fire on Christians, killing as many as 20

This story has been updated. See the note below.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- A terrorist attack at a university in the northern Nigeria city of Kano on Sunday left as many as 20 Christian worshipers dead and dozens of other people wounded.

Gunmen in a car and on motorcycles threw homemade bombs at Christians gathered on the campus of Bayero University and shot them as they tried to flee, according to agency reports.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings, but the assault was similar to previous attacks by Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist group. At least 450 people have died in attacks this year, according to Associated Press.

Sunday’s attack followed bombings Thursday at two offices of the daily newspaper This Day in the capital, Abuja, and in Kaduna, which killed at least seven people. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for those attacks.

Reuters news service quoted university spokesman Mustapha Zahradeen saying that two university professors were killed in the Kano attack.

Newly discovered oil fuels hope and fear in Kenya

Kenya has struck oil, a discovery that has fueled hope and fear in the East African country. President Mwai Kibaki broke the news Monday, telling Kenyan media that although the country was still years away from producing oil and that its commercial viability is uncertain, "it is very good news for our country."

The Tullow Oil company said that a well in Turkana, an arid region in northwest Kenya, had turned up oil much like "the light waxy crude discovered in Uganda." At least four exploratory wells are expected to be drilled this year, Bloomberg News reported.

"To make a good oil discovery in our first well is beyond our expectations," Tullow exploration director Angus McCoss said in a statement Monday. "We look forward to further success as seismic and drilling activities continue to gather pace."

The discovery elated some Kenyans.The Turkana people in the region where the oil was found are an ethnic minority that has had to contend with drought and hunger, relying on aid to survive.

"We will have provision of services that will mean schools, networks, bursaries; it will mean everything that an ordinary Kenyan will need for their lives to move on," Lion Lepalo, executive director of a Turkana nonprofit group, told Kenyan radio station Capitol FM.

One television report from Kenyan-based Citizen News showed Turkana people breaking into song and dance as they learned of the oil. "The black gold could be the ultimate game-changer," the report said.

But others were wary, fearing that oil wealth might be exploited without returning the profits to the Kenyan people. Almost half of Kenyans live in poverty, according to the most recent World Bank figures.

"With the discovery of oil, Kenya is at a crossroads where it must take the highway to heaven or hell," opined Tim Wanyonyi in the Daily Nation. In Russia, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, he wrote, "instead of this black gold helping them improve the quality of life for their people, it has caused suffering."

"But not all oil producing nations are cursed and Kenya has a chance to choose which way to go," Wanyonyi concluded.

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Video: People in the Turkana region react to news that oil has been found nearby. Credit: Citizen News

Sex workers march for legalization, against harassment in Kenya

Every day on WorldNow, we choose an interesting photo from around the world. Today we picked this shot from Kenya, where masked sex workers are marching against police harassment.

Male and female sex workers marched through the streets of Nairobi on Tuesday with orange and black masks that said "Sex workers rights are human rights." Some hoisted signs saying "My body my business."

"It is about time that society stops its hypocrisy on sex workers," Daughtie Ogutu, a founding member of the Kenya Sex Workers Alliance, said on Kenyan television.

Besides pushing back on harassment, the sex workers are also seeking legalization of their trade. The mayor of Nairobi has raised the idea of creating red-light zones, Kenyan news reports said.

"Nairobi could even have its own version of De Wallen, the largest red-light district in Amsterdam, which is an attraction for tourists seeking sex," the Kenyan Daily Nation wrote in February.

The idea upset the metropolitan development director of Nairobi, who said legalizing and taxing prostitution would encourage immorality, the Kenyan Broadcasting Corp. reported.

After a barrage of criticism, Nairobi Mayor George Aladwa said that he hadn't said that prostitution would be legalized and was merely airing his views, according to Kenyan radio.

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Photo: Kenyan sex workers march to protest for the legalization of prostitution on Tuesday in Nairobi. Credit: Boris Bachorz / Agence France-Presse

 

Widow of London Underground bomber sought for alleged Kenya plot

REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- Kenyan police are hunting for the British widow of one of the 2005 London Underground suicide bombers, whom they suspect of involvement in a terror plan to blow up luxury hotels or restaurants in the East African nation, according to the Associated Press and major London newspapers.

The woman is also suspected of helping to finance terrorist groups, including Al Shabab, the Somalia militia linked to Al Qaeda, the news reports said.

The AP, quoting an unnamed top Kenyan police official, said that fingerprint evidence indicated that Samantha Lewthwaite, 28, stayed for several weeks last year in an upscale Mombasa house alleged to be linked to a terror cell. She fled last December after being briefly interviewed -- but not arrested -- by Kenyan police. She reportedly convinced them she was a tourist.

Lewthwaite, allegedly traveling on a fake passport, is the widow of Jermaine Lindsay, a suicide bomber who killed 26 people on a Piccadilly line train in London in 2005, one of four simultaneous suicide bombings.

World's slum children in desperate need, UNICEF says [Video]

REPORTING FROM JOHANNESBURG -- You see them, night and day, in nearly every African city. They are ragged children dodging between the cars: beggars, shoeshine boys, teenage prostitutes, petty traders and porters carrying loads on their heads with thin, pinched faces and anxious eyes.

They tap on car windows, begging, and wait by the highway desperate to sell their goods.

Around half the people in the world live in cities and towns, a billion of them children, as the urban population spirals. Millions of children live in slums and shantytowns and they're dying of the same illnesses that kill the rural poor, according to UNICEF: hunger, diarrhea and disease caused by poor sanitation and overcrowding.

Many of the urban poor don't go to school, according to a UNICEF's report on the state of the world's children. Instead they work, often in dangerous or exploitative jobs. Some 115 million of the world's children work in hazardous jobs, the report said.

Like the rural poor, slum children often lack access to water, electricity and health facilities.

According to the report, the plight of the the urban poor has been overlooked, their poverty concealed in statistics that indicate that, on average, children in urban settings are better off.

"The hardships endured by children in poor urban communities are often concealed, and thus perpetuated, by the statistical averages on which development programs and decisions about resouce allocation are based. Because averages lump everyone in together, the poverty of some is obscured by the wealth of others," the report said.

Some 60% of urbanized Africans live in slums, and by 2020 the global slum population will reach 1.4 billion, mainly in Africa and Asia. In Nigeria, 50% of the population lives in cities and in South Africa, 62% have fled rural areas hoping to find jobs in cities and towns.

But they often meet not just unemployment, poverty and hunger, but precarious housing, forced to live in flimsy shacks or squalid rooms with no tenant rights.

Lack of food contributes to a third of the deaths of children under 5 years old annually, according to the report. A 2004 study of 10 sub-Saharan African countries found that more than 40% of urban populations were undernourished and in several countries the figure was higher than 70%.

In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, two-thirds of the population lives in sprawling slums where the under-5 mortality rate is "alarming" the report said, at 151 per thousand live births.

"Poor water supply and sanitation, the use of hazardous cooking fuels in badly ventilated spaces, overcrowding and the need to pay for health services, which effectively puts them out of reach of the poor, are among the major underlying causes of under-5 deaths," the report said.

People in urban slums are often forced to pay street vendors for potable water, so the cost of water can be 50 times higher than for wealthy people in the same city. A study of Kenyan urban slum dwellers in 2009 showed that, with public health facilities almost nonexistent, people used unlicensed and ramshackle private clinics offering substandard treatment.

"When we think of poverty, the image that traditionally comes to mind is that of a child in a rural village,” said UNICEF Director Anthony Lake in a statement released with the report. “But today, an increasing number of children living in slums and shantytowns are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world, deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive.

“Urbanization is a fact of life and we must invest more in cities, focusing greater attention on providing services to the children in greatest need,” Lake said.

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Video: UNICEF