[Biggest
Islamic
web site in the
U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily
shared by editorial committee.
Responses (positive or negative) up to 250 words are welcome.
Names will be withheld on request.
--------------------------------------------
MASAI
WOMEN
IN KENYA HAVE FACED RAPE BY BRITISH
TROOPS for 20 YEARS
[With thanks to Br. Omar in Virginia. Br. Omar
wonders what the British
troops may be doing in their dealings with
Iraqi
women in war time, when they did
this in peace time Kenya.]
[Editor's notes:
[The British paper,
The Guardian
,
has published a
report on the rapes
committed by British troops stationed in Kenya.
These rapes are occurring EVEN
WITHOUT A WAR. The paper quotes some of the women
who have finally come forward. We
excerpt below only the statistical aspect of the
report.]
[It appears that Kenya has continued to be
colonized by the British even
after "independence." As recent incidents
indicated,
Israel
too has a heavy
presence in Kenya.]
"Over 200 Masai women in this area can tell
stories of rapes that are
supported by some independent evidence; sometimes
police or medical records, more
often the testimony of their chiefs. And hundreds
more women from the Samburu
tribe around Archers Post, another training area
in northern Kenya, have also
come forward with similar stories.
Martyn Day, a matter-of-fact solicitor, remembers
when the women first
approached him with their shocking claims. He was
in Dol Dol handling another
breakthrough case; the community's demand for
reparation for the harm caused by
unexploded bombs left on their land by the
British army. "About half a dozen women
came up to me in September 2001," Day remembers,
"They said, 'Look, we have
also been injured by the British army.' To be
honest, at that time I was
slightly dismissive of them - I had so much on my
plate with the bomb cases and I
thought it would just be a couple of cases and
damn difficult to prove
anything."
Last summer, Day won a grand victory on the bomb
cases, when the Ministry of
Defence agreed to pay ££4.5m in compensation to
those injured and bereaved by
the army's unexploded ordnance. "Then the women
came back to me," Day says.
"This time we had a meeting and 85 women turned
up. I said, 'OK, I'm sure you've
got real grievances, but it will be impossible to
move on this without
evidence.' But when I came back last December,
they had obtained documentary
evidence, medical records and so on. I was really
impressed."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-05-28 Wed 18:15ct