Two tribes in Kenya have filed a law case against the United Kingdom at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over alleged abuses in the final decades of British colonial rule.
According to BBC, the Kenyan tribes – the Talai and Kipsigis demanded £168 billion and an apology for crimes linked to a ‘land grab’ in Kericho, a western area of Kenya which grows tea for some of the world’s biggest producers.
British colonial administrators are reported to have overseen the forced eviction of the clans from fertile ancestral lands to make way for plantations.
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The Talai claimed they were compelled to dwell in a nearby valley infested with mosquitos and tse-tse flies as punishment for resisting, which lead to deaths, miscarriages and colossal loss of livestock.
The people said they returned to the area after Kenya gained independence in 1963 but were unable to reclaim them from the tea companies, forcing them to live alongside the plantations as squatters.
“Today, some of the world’s most prosperous tea companies, like Unilever, Williamson Tea, Finlay’s and Lipton, occupy and farm these lands and continue to use them to generate considerable profits, ” the tribes said in court filings.
A lawyer representing them, Joel Kimutai Bosek, said on Tuesday: “The UK Government has ducked and dived, and sadly avoided every possible avenue of redress. We have no choice but to proceed to court for our clients so that history can be righted.”
The tribes have also accused the British army and colonial officials of unlawful killing, rape, torture and imprisonment, although these allegations will not be the focus of the lawsuit.
The claims were raised before the United Nations in 2019 in a complaint which gained more than 100,000 signatures from Kenyan victims and their descendants.
After a two-year probe, a UN panel found that more than half a million people suffered human rights violations during the British rule.
It expressed “serious concern” over the UK’s failure to properly apologise or acknowledge the role its officials played in the abuse.
The British government said it had apologised and agreed in 2013 to compensate Kenyans who had been tortured during the Mau Mau uprising against colonial rule in the 1950s.
But the Talai and Kipsigis have repeatedly pointed out their allegations are different and span decades before the rebellion.
Judges at the European Court of Human Rights are now deciding whether their case can be heard before the court.
