Editing Mau Mau rebellion (section)

===Villagisation programme===
{{quote box
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| quote = At the end of 1953, the Administration were faced with the serious problem of the concealment of terrorists and supply of food to them. This was widespread and, owing to the scattered nature of the homesteads, fear of detection was negligible; so, in the first instance, the inhabitants of those areas were made to build and live in concentrated villages. This first step had to be taken speedily, somewhat to the detriment of usual health measures and was definitely a punitive short-term measure.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp240-241">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=240–241}}.</ref>
| source = —District Commissioner of Nyeri
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}If military operations in the forests and Operation Anvil were the first two phases of Mau Mau's defeat, Erskine expressed the need and his desire for a third and final phase: cut off all the militants' support in the reserves.<ref name="French 2011 116to137">{{Harvnb|French|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA116 116–137]}}.</ref> The means to this terminal end was originally suggested by the man brought in by the colonial government to do an [[Cross-cultural psychiatry|ethnopsychiatric]] 'diagnosis' of the uprising, JC Carothers: he advocated a Kenyan version of the [[villagisation]] programmes that the British were [[Briggs Plan|already using in places like Malaya]].<ref name="McCulloch 2006 70">{{Harvnb|McCulloch|2006|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FToFMwnBacQC&pg=PA70 70]}}.</ref>

So it was that in June 1954, the War Council took the decision to undertake a full-scale forced-resettlement programme of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a and Embu Districts to cut off Mau Mau's supply lines.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp234-235">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=234–235}}. See also n.3 of p.&nbsp;235.</ref> Within eighteen months, 1,050,899 Kikuyu in the reserves were inside 804 villages consisting of some 230,000 huts.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p235">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=235}}. {{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=294}}, gives a slightly lower figure (1,007,500) for the number of individuals affected.</ref> The government termed them "protected villages", purportedly to be built along "the same lines as the villages in the North of England",<ref name="Elkins 2005 p240">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=240}}.</ref> though the term was actually a "euphemism for the fact that hundreds of thousands of civilians were corralled, often against their will, into settlements behind barbed-wire fences and watch towers."<ref name="French 2011 116"/>

While some of these villages were to protect loyalist Kikuyu, "most were little more than concentration camps to punish Mau Mau sympathizers."{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}} The villagisation programme was the ''[[coup de grâce]]'' for Mau Mau.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}} By the end of the following summer, Lieutenant General Lathbury no longer needed Lincoln bombers for raids because of a lack of targets,<ref name="Chappell 2011"/> and, by late 1955, Lathbury felt so sure of final victory that he reduced army forces to almost pre-Mau Mau levels.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 9to10">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|pp=9–10}}.</ref>

He noted, however, that the British should have "no illusions about the future. Mau Mau has not been cured: it has been suppressed. The thousands who have spent a long time in detention must have been embittered by it. Nationalism is still a very potent force and the African will pursue his aim by other means. Kenya is in for a very tricky political future."<ref name="Chappell 2011"/>

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| quote = Whilst they [the Kikuyu] could not be expected to take kindly at first to a departure from their traditional way of life, such as living in villages, they need and desire to be told just what to do.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p239">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=239}}.</ref>
| source = —Council of Kenya-Colony's Ministers, July 1954
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The government's public relations officer, Granville Roberts, presented villagisation as a good opportunity for rehabilitation, particularly of women and children, but it was, in fact, first and foremost designed to break Mau Mau and protect loyalist Kikuyu, a fact reflected in the extremely limited resources made available to the Rehabilitation and Community Development Department.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp236-237">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=236–237}}.</ref> Refusal to move could be punished with the destruction of property and livestock, and the roofs were usually ripped off of homes whose occupants demonstrated reluctance.<ref name="French 2011 120">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA120 120]}}.</ref> Villagisation also solved the practical and financial problems associated with a further, massive expansion of the Pipeline programme,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p238">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=238}}.</ref> and the removal of people from their land hugely assisted the enaction of Swynnerton Plan.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}}

The villages were surrounded by deep, spike-bottomed trenches and barbed wire, and the villagers themselves were watched over by members of the [[Kikuyu Home Guard]], often neighbours and relatives. In short, rewards or collective punishments such as curfews could be served much more readily after villagisation, and this quickly broke Mau Mau's passive wing.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=293}} Though there were degrees of difference between the villages,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p252">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=252}}.</ref> the overall conditions engendered by villagisation meant that, by early 1955, districts began reporting starvation and malnutrition.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp259-260">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=259–260}}.</ref> One provincial commissioner blamed child hunger on parents deliberately withholding food, saying the latter were aware of the "propaganda value of apparent malnutrition".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=260}}.</ref>{{quote box
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| quote = From the health point of view, I regard villagisation as being exceedingly dangerous and we are already starting to reap the benefits.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p263a">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=263}}.</ref>
| source = —Meru's District Commissioner, 6 November 1954,<br />four months after the institution of villagisation
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The Red Cross helped mitigate the food shortages, but even they were told to prioritise loyalist areas.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260"/> The Baring government's medical department issued reports about "the alarming number of deaths occurring amongst children in the 'punitive' villages", and the "political" prioritisation of Red Cross relief.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260"/>

One of the colony's ministers blamed the "bad spots" in Central Province on the mothers of the children for "not realis[ing] the great importance of proteins", and one former missionary reported that it "was terribly pitiful how many of the children and the older Kikuyu were dying. They were so emaciated and so very susceptible to any kind of disease that came along".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262"/> Of the 50,000 deaths which John Blacker attributed to the Emergency, half were children under the age of ten.<ref name="Blacker 2007"/>

The lack of food did not just affect the children, of course. The Overseas Branch of the British Red Cross commented on the "women who, from progressive undernourishment, had been unable to carry on with their work".<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp260-261">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=260–261}}.</ref>

Disease prevention was not helped by the colony's policy of returning sick detainees to receive treatment in the reserves,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p263b">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=263}}: "It is accepted policy that cases of pulmonary tuberculosis ... be returned to their reserve to avail themselves of the routine medical control and treatment within their areas". (The quote is of the colony's director of medical services).</ref> though the reserves' medical services were virtually non-existent, as Baring himself noted after a tour of some villages in June 1956.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp263-264">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=263–4}}: "The financial situation has now worsened. ... Schemes of medical help, however desirable and however high their medical priority, could not in [these] circumstances be approved". (The quote is of Baring).</ref> The policy of "villagization" did not officially end until around 1962, when Kenya gained its independence from British colonial rule. During the course of the Mau Mau Uprising, it is conservatively estimated that 1.5 million Kenyans were forcibly relocated into these fortified villages.{{sfn|Elkins|2005a|p={{page needed|date=October 2023}}}}<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/14155653 | website=Academia.edu | title=The prosecution of rape in wartime: Evidence from Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion, 1952-60 | last1=Weis | first1=Julianne | first2=David M. | last2=Anderson | access-date=4 May 2023 | archive-date=7 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230907202516/https://www.academia.edu/14155653 | url-status=live }}</ref> The government of an independent Kenya implementated a similar policy of forced villagization during the [[Shifta War]] in 1966 of ethnic [[Somalis]] in the [[North Eastern Province (Kenya)|North Eastern Province]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Whittaker |first=Hannah |title=Forced Villagization during the Shifta Conflict in Kenya, ca. 1963–1968 |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=45 |issue=3 |date=2012 |pages=343–364 |jstor=24393053}}</ref>