Colour Bar (41 page)

Kenya was now dominated by the Mau Mau uprising, as Baring implemented his savage policy of confining the Kikuyu in protected villages and hunting down the Mau Mau soldiers in the forest. Under the 1952 State of Emergency, more than 20,000 Mau Mau rebels were killed in combat in the 1950s, while at least 150,000 Kikuyu spent some time behind the wire of a British detention camp and 1,090 Kikuyu went to the gallows for Mau Mau crimes; 32 white settlers died.
²
British colonial officials running the camps were responsible for appalling conditions, which involved deprivation of food, water and clothes and widespread torture that included castration.
³

Dedan Kimathi, a Mau Mau guerrilla fighter (who was executed by the colonial Government in 1957), regarded the exile of Seretse and of the Kabaka as consistent with the oppression of Kenyans by the British. ‘We, in Kenya,' he wrote to a supporter of the Kabaka in Entebbe, ‘are horrified and terrified that the British have seen fit to depose and exile our two great Kings, namely Seretse Khama and Kabaka Mutesa II.' What disturbed Kenyans the most, he added, was

the realisation that although these two great Kingdoms – Baganda and Tswana – existed before the coming of the European imperialists to our Continent, it is now clear that the primary aim of the British is to use all weapons to destroy them. This evil design is clear proof that the British don't want any other kingdom to exist except their own.

Kimathi pointed out that if the people of Uganda had detained Queen Elizabeth when she was visiting their country, the British would have used ‘blood and fire' to release her.
⁴

Fenner Brockway and some other activists, including Jennie Lee, decided that the time had come for a major anti-colonial campaign, which was based on a single principle: the right of colonized nations to self-determination. In April 1954, at a conference attended by about 350 delegates from organizations all over Britain, the Council for the Defence of Seretse Khama amalgamated with over 300 other organizations – ranging from the British branch of the Congress Against Imperialism, the Central Africa Committee, and the Kenya Committee – to form the Movement for Colonial Freedom. It was hoped that this amalgamation would bring an end to the many little councils and committees, each dealing with a single colonial issue.
Anti-colonial energy had been dispersed among rival groups, believed Brockway, and too much work was duplicated – the MCF offered a real opportunity for consolidation. Parliamentary committees were set up and much of the Movement's work concentrated on pressurizing MPs to raise colonial issues in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The British colonies of particular concern were Kenya, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Malaya, British Guiana, Uganda, the High Commission Territories, Somaliland, Tanganyika, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Zanzibar, Cyprus, and the islands of the West Indies.

The movement's manifesto stated its commitment to human equality, regardless of colour or race.
⁵
‘Wonderful! That is the only word to describe the advance of our Movement,' wrote Brockway in a fundraising letter. ‘I know you will give,' he wrote to supporters, ‘because you believe with us that “all persons are born equal in rights and human dignity”. It is the big issue of this century.'
⁶

Brockway's views differed from those of Arthur Creech Jones and Rita Hinden, colleagues in the Labour Party who were also involved in issues of colonial policy. Creech Jones and Hinden were leaders of the Fabian Colonial Bureau, which believed that colonies needed to ‘mature' under British guidance, before they were ready for self-government. The Movement for Colonial Freedom, however, put forward a wide-ranging critique of colonialism and maintained that Fabian ‘nation-building' could only start once the colonial relationship had been broken, through the grant of full and equal political rights. It aimed to challenge Ministers rather than lobby them privately, and to extend its influence beyond the small metropolitan audience reached by the Fabians. The Movement also wanted to develop relationships with the nationalists themselves – unlike the Fabians, who limited their links to liberals among the colonial administrators.
⁷

The General Secretary of the MCF was Douglas Rogers and the Assistant Secretary was Joseph Murumbi, the General Secretary of the Kenya African Union, currently in exile in the UK (later to become the Foreign Minister of newly independent Kenya, and then Vice-President). The Treasurer was Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Brockway's Parliamentary ally on the Labour Left. ‘Now,' wrote Wedgwood Benn
with satisfaction to a fellow member of the Movement, ‘we have a chance to be really effective!'
⁸

Sufficient funds were raised – through membership, cultural events and appeals, as well as affiliations with organizations ranging from the Fire Brigades' Union to constituency Labour parties – to pay for modest offices on Regent's Park Road in London, a small staff, the publication of a bi-monthly journal, campaign material, and private and public meetings. The Movement was sponsored by up to 100 MPs and it had an individual membership of about 1,000; its regional, national and international affiliations brought the total number of people involved up to about 3 million.
⁹
For the first time, the issue of imperialism and the future of British colonies, especially in Africa, was being pushed high up the national and colonial agenda.
¹⁰

The MCF had many different committees, including the Southern Africa Protectorates Committee, which carried on the campaign to end the exile of Seretse Khama; Monica Whately, who had been the Chairman of the Campaign Committee, was appointed Chairman of this Committee too. Seretse and Ruth were grateful for the efforts made on their behalf. But they also continued to search for other ways to negotiate a return to Bechuanaland. One Labour MP complained that he had seen Seretse in the House of Commons having interviews with representatives of each of the political parties, which he regarded as unscrupulous.
¹¹
But Seretse's bitter experience at the hands of both the Labour Party
and
the Conservative Party had taught him not to put his faith in any particular political colour.

On 17 May 1954, Seretse once again proposed to the Government that he renounce the Chieftainship of the Bangwato and be allowed to take his family home. He and Rathcreedan met with John Foster and senior officials at the CRO. If he resigned his claim to the Chieftainship, he suggested, and undertook to go round the Reserve to persuade the Bangwato to accept his resignation, would the Government allow him to return? But the answer was no. The first objective, said Foster, must be the establishment of a new Chief: ‘The programme… might be first the renunciation of the Chieftainship by Seretse, the establishment of a new Chief, short visits and then finally his return.' But it would not be possible, he added, to give any guarantee of a return or to say how long the process might take. Foster asked Seretse
to make a statement of renunciation on these terms. But Seretse refused. He objected that the guarantee would be all on his side, and none on the Government's.
¹²

In Bechuanaland, Rasebolai had been installed as native authority and he was living in the house of the Kgosi, by the Kgotla in Serowe – the house which had been burnt down in anger against Tshekedi in 1950, and had now been rebuilt.
¹³
He was vested with all the powers of a Chief that depended on Government proclamation; and of those powers that were traditional, he assumed what he could. He and Batho had selected a number of subordinates to carry out his rule.
¹⁴

The Bangwato were miserable and adopted a policy of non-cooperation, just as they had done in 1950, although they continued to pay tax.
¹⁵
Despite their loyalty to the British monarchy, there was barely any celebration of the Coronation of Elizabeth II on 20 June 1953. ‘Only 30 tribesmen turned up at Serowe,' reported Fraenkel to Rathcreedan. ‘In spite of there being many pots of cooked meats and invitations extended to people walking in the street to participate,' he added, ‘they refused to do so saying they were not vultures.' No disrespect was intended to the Queen, explained Fraenkel – it was simply a protest at the imposition of Rasebolai upon them.
¹⁶
At the end of a sports event in Serowe to celebrate the Coronation, the District Commissioner called on the schoolchildren to give a vote of thanks to the Native Authority and his committee. But the children responded with shouts of disapproval.
¹⁷
‘As a result of the unfair treatment of the tribe by Government,' reported a letter to London, ‘the Coronation day was characterised by a gloomy atmosphere around Serowe and the whole Reserve in general.'
¹⁸

The Administration was edgy and nervous about its ability to control the Reserve, relying heavily on intelligence reports. The ‘Relationship between European and African' was a regular item in these reports and was described in June 1954 as ‘good except for Mahalapye where once again Lenyeletse and Theo Tamoucha have indicated their anti-European feelings': ‘They attempted to sit in chairs reserved for Europeans at a circus on the 10th. They were heard to say that there was no colour bar and that their money was [as] good as that of Europeans.'
¹⁹
Leading members of the Bangwato who remained
adamantly loyal to Seretse were regarded with deep suspicion by the Administration. George Winstanley, a junior British official, who had recently arrived in the Protectorate, noticed that their names ‘figured largely in the various intelligence reports that landed on our desks'. On each of these pages were the words, in deep red, ‘UK Eyes Only'. ‘I thought this was very curious,' wrote Winstanley later, ‘seeing that many of the senior officials who compiled and read them had been born in South Africa.'
²⁰

Rasebolai was firmly backed by the District Commissioner, Bruce Rutherford, who had taken over from Batho in September 1954. Rutherford was also a harsh, unfeeling man and the people of the Reserve complained that they were unfairly treated. Although the customary fine for killing an eland or giraffe was one ox, a man was fined eighteen head of cattle, two horses and his rifle for shooting an eland. People were being flogged for minor misdemeanours, and fined or imprisoned for not turning up to meetings. Members of the Zionist Church – which had been forbidden by Khama III from operating in the Reserve – were arrested and imprisoned for two weeks. During their imprisonment they were forced to work without payment and were ordered to carry water with their hands tied to poles; they were also made to sleep sitting up. In addition, people objected that they were denied their right to free speech in the Kgotla and to hold meetings; they were not even allowed to meet their legal advisers.
²¹
Rasebolai was demanding unpaid labour in the Kgotla, which was considered unjust.
²²

On 8 September 1955, the last of the men imprisoned for the riot of 1 June were finally released, triggering another clampdown by the Native Authority. In November 1955, Peto Sekgoma complained to the Commander of the Police that a man who had visited him had been tied by a trek chain to lion traps for some days and that he had also been flogged – simply because he had gone with Peto over the border to South Africa, to buy goods for his shop. He complained, too, that women and children were being flogged in the Kgotla in public.
²³
A copy of this letter found its way to the desk of Fenner Brockway, who immediately called for an investigation.
²⁴
The CRO duly made inquiries and were given some background to the com-plaints – though no denials. Where there were no tribal lock-ups, it
was explained, it was necessary to tether people to poles and lion traps; the women who had been flogged were prostitutes.
²⁵
The CRO dismissed the allegations about the flogging of women in public, on the grounds that they were ‘general and therefore unworthy of attention'. But on 7 August 1956, Martin Wray, who had by now replaced Forbes MacKenzie as the Resident Commissioner of Bechuanaland, telephoned the CRO in London to report that he had ‘found to his horror that the stories about the flogging of women in the Kgotla are indeed true'.
²⁶

Bechuanaland was visited in 1955 by John Hatch, the Labour Party's Commonwealth officer. He was sent to find out the opinions of the Tribe, so that the party could carry out its commitment to a review of the case after five years. The Bangwato found it hard to take seriously yet another investigation into their opinion, which they thought was bound to be overlooked. As a letter handed to Mr Hatch in Francistown pointed out, the attitude of the Tribe had already been given on several occasions to the British Government:

1. The Commission of Enquiry,

2. Mr Gordon Walker,

3. The Three Observers,

4. The Bamangwato Delegation, and you are the fifth.
²⁷

But, polite and courteous as always, they answered the questions that were put to them. Many of the older men had tears in their eyes as they explained that everyone was waiting for Seretse to return. Rasebolai and his advisers, too, said that they still regarded Seretse as the rightful Kgosi and wanted him to return. In fact, said Hatch, Rasebolai had told him that his own position with the people was weakened whenever the Government suggested that he was replacing Seretse.
²⁸

Hatch came back to the UK with no doubts – the Bangwato would never appoint anyone as an alternative Kgosi to Seretse. He also returned with a strong distaste for the racial attitudes and the discrimination he had seen in the Protectorate. Officially, there was no colour bar and the separate entrances for Africans had been removed from the post offices, but an unofficial apartheid still operated. In shops, the whites walked behind the counters to be served, while
Africans remained on the outside. The schools and healthcare facilities were segregated according to colour – and the services provided for whites were immeasurably superior to those for blacks.
²⁹
Hatch had discovered that an African with the same responsibility and doing the same job, was paid on a lower scale than a European.
³⁰
He discovered, too, that in the hospitals there were no African Sisters: ‘what concerned me most was not the absence of African sisters, but the apparent absence of intention or desire by European Matrons to encourage their African nurses to the point of becoming efficient Sisters'.
³¹