Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

Great and pertinent questions.

Ideally, the Freedom of Information Act should impose a duty to keep better records.

Ayo

I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 27 Apr 2012, at 21:16, "Anunoby, Ogugua" <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

"What have we done with our own records since the British departed?"

 

oan

 

I say, what in Nigeria doing today and everyday about record keeping?

 

oa

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of odigwe nwaokocha
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 9:35 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

 

Why are we shouting over what the British did and did not do with colonial records? Let it be clear to all that the British were a colonial power in Africa. They did not leave Britain to all corners of the globe to benefit the natives. They had their own designs and destroying records of their activities may well have fitted into that. What have we done with our own records since the British departed? Narrowing this to Nigeria, who has set eyes on the Supreme Military Council debate that preceded Decree 34 of I966? Was it burnt by the British or carted away to London?

 

Odigwe A. Nwaokocha
Department of History and International Studies
University of Benin
Benin City, Nigeria.

---

From: Esther Eghobamien <eeghobam@yahoo.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

 

Hello,   Is this Dr. Lawal, Dental Surgeon and former staff of FCDA?   --- On Wed, 4/18/12, Kunle Lawal <kunlelawal02@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Kunle Lawal <kunlelawal02@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Cc: "Kunle lawal" <kunlelawal02@yahoo.com> Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 8:56 PM 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 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.    For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue    For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html    To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-         unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

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