HC Deb 05 June 1957 vol 571 cc1422-32

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr.Hughes-Young.]

11.31 p.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse (Wednesbury)

I wish to raise the case of Richard Achieng Oneko who is detained at the Takwa detention camp on Mageta Island, Kenya, under the Emergency Regulations. He has been imprisoned in Kenya since the end of 1952, more than four and a half years ago. Numerous appeals have been made to the Secretary of State for his release, but the Secretary of State has been unable to consider them.

I raise the matter tonight to plead with the Secretary of State to look more closely at the case and see that justice is done. I ask him to recognise that there is great concern in Kenya, and, indeed, in this country, about the number of detainees who are imprisoned without any charges being brought against them. There is great anxiety that the detainees should be released as soon as possible. The sooner Kenya can return to the normal rule of law the better it will be for that unhappy country which has been torn by Mau Mau terrorism and repression during the past five years.

By giving individual consideration to cases such as that of Achieng Oneko, the Secretary of State will show the humanity and sympathy which are so badly needed in the responsibilities which he exercises on behalf of us all in this country. He will be able to pave the way to greater confidence between all races in Kenya and help to eradicate the enmity and hate which have unfortunately existed.

Why do I raise this case? I raise it because I know Achieng Oneko well. I first met him in December, 1951, when he came to England. At that time he impressed all those he met with his intelligence and balanced approach to the political and economic problems of Kenya. I saw him frequently during the three months that he spent here. I entertained him in my own home and had long discussions with him on various problems, and generally formed a very high opinion of his character.

In August, 1952, some months after he had returned to Kenya, I went to Uganda with my family, and on the way I spent three days in Nairobi and saw a lot of Achieng Oneko again. I was again impressed by his balanced approach to the problems that Kenya was facing. It was with real amazement that a few weeks after I had seen him in Nairobi I heard that he had been arrested and that charges were to be brought against him as being an organiser of Mau Mau. I believe him to be utterly incapable of associating himself with the evils perpetrated by Mau Mau.

He was put on trial with Jomo Kenyatta at Kapenguria at the famous trial which took so many months. In February, 1953, I went to the trial as a character witness on his behalf. To quote from a newspaper account of the case, I said to the court: When I saw the charges, I was surprised and, in fact, alarmed, for I was convinced he could not be guilty of the charges brought against him. That is what I said at the time at Kapenguria, and I still believe it to be the case.

During the trial I was able to have another conversation with him, and despite the strain of the trial on him, his demeanour was quite good and I was able again to form a good opinion of him. The trial, as some of us in the House remember, dragged on for some months and eventually sentences were given in April, 1953. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Kenya in January, 1954, Achieng was acquitted of all the charges against him and, in his summing up, the judge referred to his good character. I should like the Under-Secretary to comment on the fact that, despite his acquittal, for three years Achieng has been denied his freedom and his wife and children are suffering as a result of his detention.

Another aspect of this case which is most serious and to which I should like the Under-Secretary to give some attention is the extreme pressure being brought on Achieng, in a variety of ways, to confess to crimes he did not commit. The rehabilitation officials in Kenya have even gone so far as to write to friends of Achieng in this country appealing to them to persuade Achieng to confess.

I want to quote from something written by Mr. Alfred Becker, who describes himself as being in charge of rehabilitation in the Lamu district in Kenya. The letter was written on 12th October, 1955, to someone in Scotland who is corresponding with Achieng. He said: I am the Rehabilitation Officer who is in charge of the camp, where Mr. Achieng stays.…I wonder if you as a friend of Mr. Achieng could influence him to change his attitude. There is no doubt in the mind of every official concerned with his case that he is deeply involved in the Mau Mau business. It is therefore pathetic to see how he struggles against all odds to gain his freedom by complete denial. His family suffers and lives in poverty. He would be well advised to put his duty towards his family above his imagined duty as a leader of a tribe. I am of course not in a position to make any promises or to enter any bargain. But it is my considered opinion that he cannot get released for a very long time to come unless he decides to make a full confession first. What possible right has an official in Kenya to assume the guilt of a man who has been acquitted of all charges by the highest court in Kenya? It is alien to all sense of justice and alien to common sense, and it shows the stupidity of the officials who have charge of these camps. Presumably those are the officials on whom the Secretary of State depends for advice before these detainees are released.

When on 8th May I asked the Secretary of State when Achieng would be released, he said that control over him was necessary in order to maintain law and order and that the case had been gone into by the Advisory Committee in Kenya. I sincerely hope that the Under-Secretary of State will not shelter behind that sort of excuse. Knowing Achieng as I do, I submit that giving him his freedom would in no way prejudice public order in Kenya. On the contrary, he would eventually be able to play a very useful part within his community and in the future of Kenya itself. On those grounds, and on grounds of common justice, I beg for his release.

11.40 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse), I know Achieng Oneko personally. I am even going to wait until the Minister has finished his conversation, because I want to make a very intimate and personal appeal to him. 1 want to tell him that I have known this man not just as a politician or as a man with whom I have had political discussions, but as a human being. I have known him in my own home; I have known him with my family, and I have known him in innumerable close human associations. I not only bear out what my hon. Friend has said about him, but I tell the Minister that everyone who met him either in London or in Kenya, in those personal associations, has exactly the same impression of Achieng as we have.

He is one of the gentlest men I have ever known. When I heard that he was to be tried for association with Mau Mau the whole thing was utterly incredible to me, as it was to all those who knew him. He went through long months of trial; he went to the Supreme Court, and the judge there dismissed the case against him and paid a tribute to his character, just as my hon. Friend and I have done this evening; he was released, but under the detention laws in Kenya he was immediately re-arrested, and he has been kept in detention ever since.

The information which my hon. Friend has given has been previously given by me in this House. From the Government Front Bench a repudiation has been made of the action of the authorities at that camp. But let us see the situation as a tribute to the character of the man himself. It is indicated to him that if he will confess his association with Mau Mau he will be released. He has never had any association with Mau Mau: he is not the kind of man who could touch Mau Mau or its atrocities or obscenities, and he declines to confess to something of which he has not been guilty.

I cannot speak of the effect upon me when I found that a British officer in that camp had actually written to a friend in this country urging her to encourage Achieng to confess for the sake of the wife and the children outside that detention camp, who were in hunger. I cannot imagine anything more indecent and cruel than to attempt to extort a confession from a man on the ground that because he is in detention his family is in hunger and in want. We who know this man know that he is not guilty. We say to the Minister this evening that he has no right to speak of democracy and liberty as British characteristics when he himself is guilty of this atrocious crime against the liberty of a man who is much better than he is himself. Yes. I have not the knowledge of the hon. Gentleman that I have of Achieng, but I know few people who are as fine in character as that man is, whom the Minister is responsible for keeping in detention after he was acquitted in the highest court and after the judge and other people had paid tribute to his character.

I say this to the hon. Gentleman. He has no right to condemn Communist countries for their dictatorship, for their totalitarianism, for their repudiation of liberty, when at this moment he is responsible for a good and innocent man being kept in prison for years on a charge on which the highest court in Kenya found him not guilty. I put that to the conscience of the hon. Gentleman, and I am speaking with a sincerity which has never been greater. I say that the least he can do is to ask the Government of Kenya to have an impartial investigation into this case again, because he is cruelly crucifying a man for a crime he never committed, a man whose character and ability might be of constructive value to the Kenya of the future.

11.47 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. John Profumo)

I fully recognise the depth of feeling on this and other matters of this sort experienced by some hon. Members. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) for raising this subject. It provides me with an opportunity of trying to correct certain misconceptions which, I think, are still current about the circumstances in which various people are detained in Kenya and to explain the necessity for their continued detention, notwithstanding an appreciable improvement in the emergency situation in the Colony in recent months. I know that hon. Members will view this improvement with considerable satisfaction.

Of course, we have had from time to time a number of Parliamentary Questions about the matter and my right hon. Friend and I have explained the attitude of the Kenya Government. But the limited time available at Question Time has made it rather difficult to give a detailed and comprehensive explanation of the Government's policy on this question.

Mr. Richard Achieng Oneko is one of about 26,000 people who, up to the present, remain in detention out of a total of 65,000 whose freedom of action has had to be restricted in the course of the emergency. He is not a Kikuyu but a Luo. He is one of a group of more prominent detainees who played some part in public life before the emergency. These men are all detained, not because of this prominence, but because the Governor considers—and this is the point —that control over them is necessary for the maintenance of public order.

Their detention is not designed to stifle trade union or legitimate political activities, nor is their release delayed—I do not think this was suggested—for this purpose. Oneko held high office in the Kenya African Union, which was proscribed in June, 1953, for its deep involvement in Mau Mau. He was General Secretary from August to October, 1952, when he was arrested and sent for trial with Jomo Kenyatta and others on a charge of assisting in the management of the Mau Mau organisation. He was convicted at Kapenguria in April, 1953, after a full trial, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour.

As the hon. Member has already mentioned, he was acquitted on appeal to the Supreme Court, but on acquittal he was detained on authority of a Detention Order made by the Governor under Emergency Regulation 2 (1), which authorises such action whenever the Governor is satisfied that it is necessary for the purpose of maintaining public order.

Hon. Members have suggested that the detention of this man, on the ground that it is a measure necessary in the context of defeating the Mau Mau conspiracy, is unjustified since he was acquitted on appeal in the courts of helping to organise Mau Mau. The hon. Member for Wednesbury asked my Department for a copy of the Supreme Court's judgment on this appeal. I am afraid that I have not had time to obtain one for him from Kenya. The three copies we had in London went to the lawyers when the case of his codefendants went to the Privy Council, and I have not been able to recover them. I have, however, one passage from the Supreme Court's judgment at my disposal. In it the court state that, although they were allowing his appeal, they were satisfied that he was a Mau Mau sympathiser. I think this part is important enough for me to read the actual words. It said: We have grave doubts that the evidence establishes with sufficient certitude"— that is, with the certitude which is necessary to satisfy a court operating with the high standards of proof required by British justice— that Achieng was a member of Mau Mau although we are satisfied.… that he was sympathetic to Mau Mau. Whatever else may have been said at that time, those are the actual words that were used. In any event, acquittal on appeal of the charge of helping Mau Mau is not any reason why, because his liberty of action is regarded by the Governor of Kenya as a threat to public safety, a man should not continue to be detained.

The hon. Member implied that the reasons for detaining Oneko were flimsy. While I appreciate the sincerity of what he said, I would point out that this is a matter whose merits cannot be decided at this distance even by those who know the individuals concerned. The Governor and his Advisory Committee have all the facts at their disposal locally, including a close knowledge of the state of law and order, and are fully satisfied of the need for his detention. It is not as if these people were ogres who liked nothing better than to keep men in prison. This is shown by their release of 45,663 people already.

One cannot speak of the circumstances in which a man is put into detention or released from it, except against the background of the general security position in the Colony. Although there has been a marked improvement in the emergency situation in recent months and a number of emergency regulations have been relaxed or revoked, and in particular the death penalty has been removed for all emergency offences, the emergency cannot—I have said this in the House before —yet be considered over. There must be no relaxation of effort to remove the remaining threat to the safety and future of all sections of the community in Kenya.

It has also been suggested that the Advisory Committee is little more than a rubber stamp for the unquestioned decisions of the Executive. That really is wrong. The appeal procedure of the Committee is extremely important. In order to get the facts straight, I had better deal with them a little further.

On detention, every detainee is informed of his right of appeal to the Governor against his detention. These appeals are heard by an advisory committee under the chairmanship of a judge of the Supreme Court. It considers the evidence on which the man was detained, examines him on it and advises the Governor whether or not the man should be released. The Advisory Committee has received appeals from 2,476 people and has already heard 2,231 cases, and 1.058 of these have been released on the advice of the Committee. Richard Achieng Oneko's was one such appeal, which was considered in 1954 but was rejected.

The high number of releases shows that this Committee is doing an independent job and trying to do its job with every justice. It has not been influenced by the Government or, of course, by the Governor. I make this plain because the hon. Member seemed to feel that there was a chance of an innocent man failing to make out his case before the Advisory Committee and then finding that release was barred unless he underwent rehabilitation.

I should like to deal now with the question of rehabilitation. This, of course, includes voluntary confession of past associations with Mau Mau. I must make it plain that confession is not the test by which detainees are released or not released. Confession, of course, is psychologically important in the rehabilitation process in the case of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru tribes, with their customs and psychology, and to average people of that sort confession is really essential since without it a man does not consider he has purged himself of the Mau Mau oath.

Both hon. Members mentioned the question of Dr. Becker writing a letter. I ought to mention this, because it has some relevance and importance. It was an idea of his that he should write a letter to a lady who knew Oneko to see whether that lady could persuade this man to confess. Owing to a misunderstanding, the letter which this doctor drafted was actually posted to Mrs. Klopper. After investigation the Governor was satisfied that Dr. Becker's suggestion that he should write to the lady was because of a sincere desire to help Oneko himself. The letter was not sent with the authority of the Kenya Government but by a sheer mistake. Following the investigation, Dr. Becker was transferred to another district. It is not the policy of the Kenya Government to stimulate confessions. Such a practice, in fact, is entirely against the established policy, which is that a confession to have any effect must, of course, be entirely voluntary. I am sorry to have to digress on that point, but I know that both hon. Members felt it important, and I want to make plain that this is not the sort of thing which happens and it was not done with the permission of the Government of Kenya.

The Kenya Government made a statement last November in which it was made clear that Mau Mau sympathisers, who can only be made good citizens again over a period of years, will not he allowed to return to freedom to endanger the peace and security of their country. I cannot say now whether Oneko would be among the number whose freedom would have to be restricted in this way, but I think there is general agreement that the country's progress to normal cannot be allowed to suffer a serious check by freeing these men indiscriminately.

Perhaps I can summarise our attitude to this case. Richard Achieng Oneko is held in detention for the same reason as the remaining 26,000 men whom the Governor considers it necessary to control in the interests of public order. Both hon. Members have said it is quite ridiculous to think this man could constitute a threat to public order. I can only repeat that, whatever they may feel—and I want hon. Members to understand that both the Secretary of State and I have looked at all the facts of this case and many others that are open to us here most carefully—we do not feel that we could in any way question the rights of the Governor or the way in which the Governor is interpreting the emergency regulations. These decisions must be left to the people on the spot. We really must trust them to carry out their responsibility, and the Secretary of State and I have absolutely no reason to believe that that is not being done in the highest possible way.

Oneko has had the same opportunity as others to make his case to the Advisory Committee, but that Committee did not feel able to recommend his release to the Governor. I have tried to point out how that Committee is impartial. It would be rash, I think, for those of us in London to contest the decision which the Governor, in the light of all the local circumstances, has seen fit to take. In my view, the ventilation of this case only shows good cause for the support given by my right hon. Friend to the great humanity and practical wisdom of Sir Evelyn Baring. Thanks to it the Colony is rapidly returning to normal and so many thousands of ex-detainees are able again to make a useful and peaceful contribution to the progress of their land.

could not expect that an answer of this sort would satisfy the hon. Members opposite, but at least I want them to know that it has satisfied my right hon. Friend and myself and that we shall continue to watch these and all other cases, realising that the Governor and all his officials are doing a splendid job and one which, I think, this House ought to recognise perhaps more than it has in the past.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twelve o'clock.