Summit Gist

Tortured, beaten, castrated by soldiers from his own army - for joining Mau Mau In the eyes of many historians, the campaign against Mau Mau fighters was the bloodiest British suppression of any of their colonial uprisings anywhere in the world When Mwangi Kanyari returned to Kenya in 1946 after fighting for the allies in Egypt in World War II, he expected land and freedom; to live peacefully on a small farm with his wife and family amid the fertile White Highlands that the British had occupied for 100 years. Within a decade Kanyari had been tortured, beaten and castrated by soldiers of the same army he had been proud to serve with. His crime? Taking the secret oath and joining the underground liberation army known as Mau Mau. Fighting for independence, Mau Mau attacked police posts and assassinated Kenyans loyal to the Crown. Assaulting remote farms, they struck fear into the white community, killing 32 settlers and making Mau Mau a byword in Britain for what was then termed ‘sa...