HC Deb 16 June 1958 vol 589 cc853-64

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

11.39 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

This debate arises out of a letter published in the Observer on Sunday, 8th June. The editor of the paper obviously thought the letter important as he gave a whole column to it on the centre page of the paper and pushed all other letters on to another page. The letter started with the words: We, political prisoners of Lokitaung, are desirous … The first question I wish to ask my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary is: are the five gentlemen who appended their names to the letter political prisoners? Are they detainees under the Mau Mau regulations or people responsible for the whole organisation of Mau Mau who have been sentenced, have appealed and had their appeal rejected? In other words, can they be defined as political prisoners?

The letter goes on to list a number of complaints. Some of these complaints are probably similar to those which might be listed by any convict in any prison who could get the publicity of world coverage through one of the main British newspapers. They complain that they have no visitors. They complain that they are not visited by prison visitors or by the visiting committee.

Some days after this the Government of Kenya announced in the Legislative Assembly a reply to these complaints, and that was repeated by my right hon. Friend in reply to a question from me in cols. 26 to 28 of HANSARD of 11th June. The Kenya Government pointed out that the prison is about 600 miles from where the prisoners live and that, therefore, they are not likely to get many visitors, and, indeed, that no request for permission for visiting has been made. They say that the prisoners have been visited by justices and by senior officers of the Prisons Department. The next question I want to ask is: how often during the past eighteen months has this prison been visited by senior officers of the Prisons Department or judicial officers of the Kenya Government?

They complain of a delay with mail, which is answered by the Kenya Government saying that if the prisoners did what they were told and put their address "c/o H.M. Prison Headquarters, Nairobi," where the letters are censored, it would prevent letters from being sent from the writer to the Lokitaung prison, then sent all the way back to Nairobi for censoring and then sent back to the prison. They complain about food and about illness, and the reply was that a balanced ration was available, that there is a resident medical officer in the camp and that there has been no serious illness.

The complaints with which I have dealt are those which, as I said earlier, one would probably get from any convict in any prison if one gave him publicity to publish his grouses. The serious complaints are: first, that they have been beaten. The words were: We have been beaten in the most brutal manner. Secondly, they complain that for five months they were kept on a ration of four gallons of water a day, which in that climate would be intolerable, and that in April the ration was cut down to two gallons. They say that some time in April they were told to draw their water out of a well which was entirely insanitary while the six Europeans in the camp continued to use the good well.

The Kenya Government pointed out that there had been rationing because there was a drought, but denied that any person in the camp was treated any differently from any other and said that the ration was about ten gallons a day.

I will read the leading sentence from the concluding paragraphs of the letter which appeared in the Observer on 8th June: It now appears to us that it is the intention of the Kenya Government to starve us to death, and to this we say we are prepared to fight for our human rights up to the end and we shall never give up our national struggle, for which we would gladly sacrifice even our very lives. The final paragraph begins: We consider this the most brutal and inhuman treatment even compared to the Nazi concentration camp. This letter contains direct accusations against the Kenya Government and against the District Commissioner, who is referred to in the letter by name—Mr. C. L. Ryland.

I want to ask my right hon. Friend several questions in this respect. Does he consider and does his Department consider that this letter is a genuine letter from Lokitaung Prison? The Observer, in a further article last Sunday, said that the letter it received was neatly written on air letter form, dated 27th April and post-marked Nairobi, 29th May. I understand that some hon. Members have received similar letters. Is it a fact that convicts can send up to 15 letters out of this prison without that being known?

What steps were taken by the newspaper to check with the Colonial Office the accusations in this letter? After all, they were very serious accusations. There was a direct accusation against the Kenya Government and the district officer concerned. I feel that if Dartmoor convicts got together and wrote a letter attacking the Governor of Dartmoor and the Government, any paper, before it published that letter, would take great care to find out whether there was some basis for the accusations. Why should there be a different standard for Kenya?

Finally, on this point, may I ask my right hon. Friend what he can do to clear the name of the district officer, who is now being defamed in the Press. He is a man who is doing a most difficult job in an extremely unpleasant part of the world, as those who know the Northern Province of Kenya will testify. What can he do to clear, indeed, the good name of the Civil Service throughout the Commonwealth? Surely, they must be protected from this form of attack, particularly if it is proved to be based on untruths.

This letter has been received with wide-spread interest in this country, and, of course, much more so in Africa itself. On the Monday after its publication, I received a letter from a constituent. It is very short, and I should like to read it to the House. It says: Dear Major Wall, May I draw your attention to the following letter, cutting enclosed, in this morning's Observer. As you will see, the letter is undated, but already the men have been without water for four days. It seems that swift and decisive action is necessary. I quote that to show the impact that a letter printed in a paper like the Observer makes on people as they think that it is true, and, therefore, think that the accusations against the district officer and the Kenya Government are also true—

Mr. James Johnson (Rugby)

Is it not a fact that the Government of Kenya instituted an inquiry into this letter before it was published in the Observer?

Mr. Wall

My right hon. Friend will no doubt deal with that. My information is that this letter was published, and given widespread publicity. Most hon. Members received a circular letter from the Movement for Colonial Freedom of which the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) is the chairman—and, as I see from the letterhead, Canon Collins is the treasurer.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East) rose—

Mr. Wall

I would like to finish my sentence. May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the responsible gentlemen concerned—a Member of this House and a Minister of the established Church—troubled to check these facts with the Colonial Office or with any other Government Department—

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

The hon. Gentleman has referred to me, so perhaps I may make a comment. May I tell him that I received a copy of this letter nearly a fortnight before it appeared in the columns of the Observer? I then attempted to find out whether it was an authentic letter—I took no step to publish it at all—by communicating with Nairobi. Subsequently to that, I received a letter signed by these persons, and coming from the prison. Only then did I take any action at all, and I took the correct action of referring it to the Minister and asking him to make an investigation. All the circular asks is that we should have an impartial and independent inquiry into these charges.

Mr. Wall

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has cleared up that point, because I warned him that I would make it. My question to my right hon. Friend has been answered. The hon. Gentleman says that he took up this matter with the Colonial Office—

Mr. Brockway rose—

Mr. Wall

Perhaps I could leave that to my right hon. Friend, when he replies.

Mr. Brockway

In case there is any misunderstand ing—

Mr. Wall

That is what I wanted to find out—whether the hon. Member for Eton and Slough did, in fact, take the trouble to check all these matters with the Colonial Office. He has said that he did, and my right hon. Friend will no doubt give his side in due course—

Mr. Callaghan

May I ask the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Wall

I know that my right hon. Friend wants as much time as possible to clear up these points, which are extremely important, and I should like to give him sufficient time.

Mr. Callaghan

The hon. Gentleman says that it is not his information that the Government of Kenya were warned of these allegations, but, in his answer on 11th June, the Colonial Secretary said: Because certain allegations regarding conditions in a prison in the Northern Province, which accommodates a few Mau Mau convicts, have been given fairly widespread publicity …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1958; Vol. 589, c. 26.] The hon. and gallant Gentleman really should read the answers he gets.

Mr. Wall

I think that the hon. Gentleman is getting rather muddled about what I said. I asked my right hon. Friend whether the Observer had gone to the Colonial Office and said "We have received this letter. Can you tell us whether these allegations are likely to be true, as we want to publish them?" I also asked whether the hon. Member for Eton and Slough had taken similar action, and he told us he did, so that has already cleared up one point.

It is the job of the Government of Kenya to clear up these matters themselves. If we cannot let our colleagues there look after these things it shows that we place very little trust in the multiracial Government of that country. May I thank my right hon. Friend for coming here to answer this debate personally, because I believe that it has stirred up enormous interest here and in Kenya. It is vitally important to get this matter straight. It is my belief that those who so often take a delight in trying to show that men who are our kith and kin, and perfectly normal people in this country, behave, as the letter says, like Nazis when they find themselves in Africa, have based their assumption on a document which is full of falsehoods, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will join with the Kenya Government in rebutting these disgraceful allegations.

11.51 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) for raising this subject and giving me an opportunity to answer his questions.

If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and others are indignant because I rise so soon I would remind them that on all these occasions, as a rule, I do my utmost to cut short my remarks to enable the widest number of hon. Members to take part in the debate. But there has been such misrepresentation on this matter, and so many short speeches by way of intervention, that I do not think it is unreasonable that the few minutes that remain should be taken up by me in defending the honour of the Administration of Kenya and of individual officers in particular, and in reminding the great organs of the public Press of the generally accepted rule in this House that hon. Members make themselves responsible for the accuracy of information that they disseminate. If this is true of hon. Members here, I cannot think why it should not also be true of national newspapers.

The letter referred to appeared in the Observer on 8th June. The Chief Secretary of Kenya made a statement in Kenya on 11th June, and I gave a Written Answer to a Question in HANSARD on 11th June. I first heard of the letter from the prison at the end of May, when I was approached by a responsible newspaper, which asked for the comments of my Department, before they published this particular letter. No doubt in doing that they lost a journalistic scoop, but they retained the respect of their readers.

I sent this letter off at once to the Governor of Kenya, but he had, in fact, long before the letter was published, already begun a thorough investigation. The reason for this was as follows: he had had made to him a preliminary report on 16th May about the closing of the main water point in this prison on 25th April. From this preliminary report he realised there was some misapprehension among the prisoners—the convicts at this prison; they are not detainees—about the precise circumstances of the closing of the main water supply.

So, on 22nd May, the Governor decided to institute an inquiry into the matter by a senior administrative officer. Shortly afterwards, however, a copy of the letter was sent to the Governor by the editor of a vernacular newspaper in Kenya. In view of the allegations in this letter, the Governor extended the inquiry to cover all matters raised in the letter, and the existing administration and other arrangements in the prison.

The investigating officer, who holds first-class magisterial powers, is the Under-Secretary in the Kenya Ministry of Defence. He visited Lokitaung at the end of May and was preparing his report when the letter was published in the Observer in London. In other words, the fact that some prisoners had complaints was brought to the Governor's notice on 16th May, through the general chain of administrative responsibility, by the officers responsible for administering the prison.

The Governor felt that there should be an investigation into the situation by the senior officer of the central Government well versed in the problems of prison management, but not himself responsible for prison administration, and I would stress that point. The letter which reached the Governor from a local paper some days later caused him to direct that that inquiry should cover in detail all the allegations made.

After the publication of the statement by the Chief Secretary of Kenya and of my Answer in the House of Commons, the line of attack on this matter appears to have changed. The letters that come in, inspired no doubt by the original letter in the Observer and one other source of equal irresponsibility in this matter, do not assume that the charges are true, but they take it for granted that an inquiry of this kind is not an adequate inquiry. They are saying, no doubt, that perhaps the charges are not true. But they are saying, "How could you believe the word of the Government of Kenya?"

These sorts of charges are lightly made by people who are constantly urging me in this House to extend the number of recruits into the Colonial Service and to paint, as I am entitled to paint, and glory in painting, the Colonial Service as a career which fine men ought to be glad to follow. Yet they are prepared to take it for granted that inquiries by men of this kind cannot be relied upon. I indignantly repudiate this line of attack.

An administrative officer, proud of his service and anxious that the truth should always prevail, without which there can be no real pride in the service, is charged with an inquiry. He comes to certain definite conclusions. Had he come to any other conclusions, or had he the least shadow of doubt in his mind that there was a case for a judicial inquiry, he would have been the first to recommend the Governor that such an inquiry should be held. But he showed—and I am convinced that he showed conclusively—that there was not a shred of evidence to justify a judicial inquiry.

My hon. Friend asked me whether these are political prisoners and, as one hon. Member suggested earlier last week at Question Time, whether they are detainees. They are not. They are convicts convicted after the ordinary processes of law, four of them convicted of assisting in the management and being members of an unlawful society, Mau Mau, deeply dyed in that monstrous movement and with responsibility for innocent lives on their hands, and the fifth one convicted of the then capital offence of consorting with persons illegally possessing firearms, but in prison now, because of his age, instead of being executed as he would have been at the time.

There are five main allegations in this spurious document. The first is unspecified brutal beatings; the second is inadequate rations; the third is shortage of water and a discriminatory system of rationing under which Europeans had some privileges denied to Africans; the fourth is shortage of proper medical attention; and the fifth is refusal of visits by their relatives and the absence of official visitors. These allegations were all fully disproved by the inquiry and the results were summarised in the statement made in the Kenya Legislative Council and my own Parliamentary Answer.

My hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice has asked whether there is any truth in the allegations. The only true facts are as follows. The convicts are held at Lokitaung, which is some hundreds of miles from Kikuyuland. Turkana is a closed district, and nobody may enter or leave it without a pass. It is true that all letters are censored and that only one letter may be sent or received each month; but that is ordinary prison administration and applies to prisoners of all races, whatever their offence. At Lokitaung this year there was a water shortage, and it affected people of all races.

The other allegations are simply false, or are so exaggerated as to amount to complete misrepresentation. For example, prisoners said that they had suffered for five years from brutal beatings. The facts are that, on investigation, one said that he had been struck once by a prison warder, but he gave no specific details, and it might be added that there is a regular medical inspection at least once a week. This revealed so signs of ill-treatment over the period of imprisonment.

The prisoners also said that their rations were inadequate, and that they were kept without vegetables or fruit and were, therefore, prone to deficiency diseases and losing their eyesight. What are the facts? They have a medically controlled and balanced diet, including meat and elements specially designed to guard against deficiency. They eat vegetables grown in the prison area, and their general health is certified as good. One convict had to have surgical treatment for an eye disease, and one other may require spectacles. He will get them if the medical officer says that they are required.

What is the sum total of their ill-health? They pictured themselves as all being deprived of water, and restricted first to four gallons a day and then two gallons, and then none at all. For five months they had been unable to bathe. They said that they were directed to a polluted well, all clean water being reserved only for Europeans.

What are the facts? Up to this year there was no shortage of water, but this year there was a drought. Like all other persons of whatever race or colour at this remote station, the convicts were rationed to about 10 gallons each a day, the amount which, in fact, they had used before rationing was imposed. When the rains started, the officer in charge closed the normal water point for six days for maintenance and repair.

During this period, everyone, European or African, who required water to supplement rain water was directed to draw it from a well which had been polluted, but which had recently been cleaned, repaired, and certainly was fit for human use. When the usual well was reopened, the rationing ended and the convicts, like everyone else, could draw the water they required. The prison has been regularly inspected; it has a medical officer residing within a hundred yards, and he visits the prisoners once a week. The convicts are in good health, and their allegations are unfounded.

My hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice also asked how many times senior officers visited the prison. The answer is that during the last eighteen months visiting justices have made seven visits to Lokitaung. In the same period, the prison has been visited by senior prison officers on nine occasions, in addition to regular monthly visits by the Prison Officer in charge of Lodwar Detention Camp, who visited it regularly between January, 1957, and April, 1958, and other senior officers have visited Lokitaung on four occasions. Dr. Anderson, of the Africa Inland Mission, and Bishop Obadiah Kariuki, accompanied by the Prisons Department chaplain, visited Lokitaung Prison early in April and also in July, 1957. Furthermore, the visiting committee which went to Lodwar Detention Camp took the opportunity to visit Lokitaung Prison on two occasions in 1957.

My hon. Friend asked me whether any attempt had been made by the Observer to check the accuracy of these charges before they were made. The answer, as far as my Department is concerned, is that no attempt of any kind was made to check up on the accuracy of these charges, and the facts were given wide publicity. A body which calls itself the Movement for Colonial Freedom also circularised all Members of Parliament and made no inquiries in its capacity as that body from my Department. These untrue stories—

Mr. Brockway

On a point of order. That letter was sent out by the organisation of which I am chairman. I sent the document to the right hon. Gentleman and asked him to make an investigation.

Mr. Speaker

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

These untrue stories have been spread throughout the country and had been taken as true by many people who are rightly concerned for the good name of our administrators.

I deeply resent the irresponsible way in which these false charges have been disseminated. I hope that the true facts will receive full publicity so as to redress the injustice done by these utterly unwarranted allegations against Mr. Ryland, the district officer of Lokitaung, and the Government of Kenya.

Drawing from this encouragement, if encouragement it can be called, many people are now saying of the League of Colonial Freedom and of similar bodies that there should now be a general inquiry into all Kenya prisons. They are relying on the short memories of some of our fellow citizens. An inquiry was held when there had been rather similar charges late in 1955 into the prisons and camps.

The inquiry was carried out by Mr. Heaton, a member of my Advisory Committee on the Treatment of Offenders, who found that the morale and discipline of the prison staff were good and the inmates well fed, well clothed and well housed. The report, which was a full vindication of the Kenya prison service, was published as a White Paper by the Kenya Government and a copy was placed in the Library of the House of Commons.

It is significant that the charges dry up as soon as the truth is known, except in the minds of those people who are constantly pleading the need to do justice to the Africans, totally ignoring the need to do justice to people of our own race under very great strain.

A further inquiry was made in 1957 by a delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which was given full opportunity to see every prison and camp in Kenya in which Mau Mau were held, wherever it wished to go. Although the delegation did not go to Lokitaung, it inspected no fewer than 52 prisons and camps, including a comparable establishment at Lodwar, in the same district of the Northern Province. The delegation recorded in a published statement its considered opinion that all had been done, and was being done, to respect the accepted international principles concerning the custody of detainees and convicts. In view of this, I see no reason whatever, especially since these allegations are untrue, to hold another general inquiry into conditions in Kenya prisons.

I would like the conclusion from what I have said tonight and what, I feel, is the general sense of the country to go from here to our fellow citizens and people of all races in Kenya who are attempting to build up a non-racial society in East Africa; that we trust the Administration of Kenya, that when mistakes have been made they have been the first to see that they are thoroughly ventilated and that grievances are removed, and that we refuse to regard irresponsibility as truth.

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at nine minutes past Twelve o'clock.