To any serious minded-historian who had worked on the British Colonial Ofice files for the crucial years of transfer of power in Africa, this "revelation" should not be surprising. As I had noted in my book Britain and The Transfer of Power in Nigeria: 1945-1960, (Lagos, LASU Press, 2001) many valuable files "are restricted or destroyed under statutes. For instance, between 1954 and 1959, the regional governors in Nigeria were encouraged by the Colonial Office to send "chatty reports" mainly on socio-political developments as well as on personalities in their regions. But these governors, in spite of their cooperation in this regard, also demanded that their returns should be destroyed after they might have been digested. One of them wrote "... As you will see some of the comment is "hot" and I should not like them to get too wide a circulation. I would be most grateful therefore, if after you read it you burn it". Elsewhere, in the northern region of Nigeria, Sir Brian Sharwood Smith (the colonial governor) pleaded that his "chatty reports" and other series to T.B. Williamson in the Colonial Office on his (Sir Brian's) appraisal of the politicians and political situation should not be filed and were in fact to be (N.F.F.= Not For Filing) destroyed after Sharwood-Smith's retirement. The bonfire theory was alive after all!!!
It will be interesting to see what else is left of the destroyed documents by the end of 2013 when the rest of the fortunate documents reach the P.R.O., if they do not get submerged in the ... God knows what .
--- On Wed, 18/4/12, Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com> wrote:
From: Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes
To: "USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, 18 April, 2012, 10:10
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site,
go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed-records-colonial-crimes
Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes
Review finds thousands of papers detailing shameful acts were culled,
while others were kept secret illegally
Ian Cobain, Owen Bowcott and Richard Norton-Taylor
Wednesday April 18 2012
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed-records-colonial-crimes
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 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/
21/mau-mau-torture-kenyans-compensation" title="]. The Foreign Office
promised to release [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/
ldhansrd/text/110405-wms0001.htm" title="] 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 [http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/30/world/an-old-cia-
plot-casts-a-long-shadow.html" title="] 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 former 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.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2012
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