County to file case against UK

The County Government of Kericho is to register victims and descendants of the colonial-era brutality in preparation to file a compensation case against the British government at the London High Court in August.

Kericho Governor Paul Chepkwony told the Sunday Nation that his government’s lawyers were targeting at least 200,000 victims of the allegedly oppressive imperialist regime drawn from both Kericho and Bomet counties.

The governor, who was accompanied by County Attorney Gideon Mutai, said Nairobi lawyer Joel Kimutai Bosek will represent the two counties in the case they will jointly file demanding billions of shillings in compensation and an apology from Britain over alleged historical land injustices.

“The registration process will take one month and we will give priority to the three Kipsigis age sets of Nyongi, Maina and Chumo who are the oldest and who witnessed the massive human rights violations meted upon them by the colonial masters,” said Prof Chepkwony.

The registration drive will be launched at the Kericho Green Stadium on June 20 with only those who were born on or before December 12 1963, when Kenya attained independence, being given a chance to file their complaints against the British colonial administration.

FORCEFULLY EVICTED

Governor Chepkwony said the move will focus on members of the Kipsigis and Talai communities who he said were forcefully evicted from their ancestral lands by the British to pave way for the creation of the vast multinational tea estates, which now characterise Kericho County.

He alleged the two communities were subjected to untold human suffering through illegal and forceful acquisition of their ancestral land by the British colonial government in 1918 which rendered the residents as squatters.

In the motion tabled at the County Assembly and passed in August last year, the unpleasant historical event allegedly led to the displacement of many families in Chagaik, Cheymen, Chemosit and Mau areas in Kericho County. 

Through the case, the county government hopes to convince the judges who will hear the petition to compel the British Government to pay a huge sum of money to the victims, who were turned into squatters in their own country, thereby increasing poverty in the South Rift region.

Governor Chepkwony and the Kericho County Assembly, which passed a motion mandating the county government to pursue the case last year, also want an apology from United Kingdom’s royal family over the crimes allegedly committed in Kenya during the colonial period.