Editing Mau Mau rebellion (section)

==British reaction==
The British and international view was that Mau Mau was a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule.<ref name="Füredi 1989 4">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rTmL3ePiFRMC&dq=%22perverted+tribalism%22&pg=PA4 4]}}.</ref><ref name="Berman 1991 pp182-183">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|pp=182–183}}.</ref> The official British explanation of the revolt did not include the insights of agrarian and agricultural experts, of economists and historians, or even of Europeans who had spent a long period living amongst the Kikuyu such as [[Louis Leakey]]. Not for the first time,<ref name="Mahone 2006">{{Harvnb|Mahone|2006|p=241}}: "This article opens with a retelling of colonial accounts of the 'mania of 1911', which took place in the Kamba region of Kenya Colony. The story of this 'psychic epidemic' and others like it were recounted over the years as evidence depicting the predisposition of Africans to episodic mass hysteria."</ref> the British instead relied on the purported insights of the ethnopsychiatrist; with Mau Mau, it fell to [[J. C. Carothers]] to perform the desired analysis. This ethnopsychiatric analysis guided British psychological warfare, which painted Mau Mau as "an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism", and the later official study of the uprising, the Corfield Report.<ref name="McCulloch 2006 64to76">{{Harvnb|McCulloch|2006|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=FToFMwnBacQC&pg=PA64 64–76]}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carothers |first=J. C. |date=July 1947 |title=A Study of Mental Derangement in Africans, and an Attempt to Explain its Peculiarities, More Especially in Relation to the African Attitude to Life |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-mental-science/article/abs/study-of-mental-derangement-in-africans-and-an-attempt-to-explain-its-peculiarities-more-especially-in-relation-to-the-african-attitude-to-life/1E5DB8896931A8255D8A3DC7DA13BD26 |journal=Journal of Mental Science |language=en |volume=93 |issue=392 |pages=548–597 |doi=10.1192/bjp.93.392.548 |pmid=20273401 |issn=0368-315X |access-date=27 October 2023 |archive-date=27 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231027013000/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-mental-science/article/abs/study-of-mental-derangement-in-africans-and-an-attempt-to-explain-its-peculiarities-more-especially-in-relation-to-the-african-attitude-to-life/1E5DB8896931A8255D8A3DC7DA13BD26 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The psychological war became of critical importance to military and civilian leaders who tried to "emphasise that there was in effect a civil war, and that the struggle was not black versus white", attempting to isolate Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu from the rest of the colony's population and the world outside. In driving a wedge between Mau Mau and the Kikuyu generally, these propaganda efforts essentially played no role, though they could apparently claim an important contribution to the isolation of Mau Mau from the non-Kikuyu sections of the population.<ref name="Füredi 1994 119to121">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1994|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=e2vetUPTks4C&pg=PA119 119–121]}}.</ref>

By the mid-1960s, the view of Mau Mau as simply irrational activists was being challenged by memoirs of former members and leaders that portrayed Mau Mau as an essential, if radical, component of African nationalism in Kenya and by academic studies that analysed the movement as a modern and nationalist response to the unfairness and oppression of colonial domination.<ref name="Berman 1991 pp183-185">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|pp=183–185}}.</ref>

There continues to be vigorous debate within Kenyan society and among the academic community within and outside Kenya regarding the nature of Mau Mau and its aims, as well as the response to and effects of the uprising.<ref name="Clough 1998 p4">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jpbZEfiAPW0C&pg=PA4 4]}}.</ref><ref name="Branch 2009 p3">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805211/30905/excerpt/9780521130905_excerpt.pdf 3]}}.</ref> Nevertheless, partly because as many Kikuyu fought against Mau Mau on the side of the colonial government as joined them in rebellion,<ref name="Branch 2009 pxii"/> the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war,<ref name="Branch 2009 p3"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=4}}: "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and so-called 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."</ref> a characterisation that remains extremely unpopular in Kenya. In August 1952, Kenyatta told a Kikuyu audience "Mau Mau has spoiled the country...Let Mau Mau perish forever. All people should search for Mau Mau and kill it".<ref>John Reader, ''Africa: A Biography of the Continent'' (1997), p. 641.</ref><ref name="bbc_07042011"/>
Kenyatta described the conflict in his memoirs as a [[civil war]] rather than a rebellion.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=40402312|title=Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The "Mau Mau" Rebellion, 1952–1960 |last1=Newsinger|first1=John |journal=Science & Society|year=1981|volume=45 |issue=2|pages=159–185}}</ref> One reason that the revolt was largely limited to the Kikuyu people was, in part, that they had suffered the most as a result of the negative aspects of British colonialism.<ref name="Füredi 1989 4to5">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rTmL3ePiFRMC&pg=PA4 4–5]}}: "Since they were the most affected by the colonial system and the most educated about its ways, the Kikuyu emerged as the most politicized African community in Kenya."</ref><ref name="Berman 1991 p196">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=196}}: "The impact of colonial capitalism and the colonial state hit the Kikuyu with greater force and effect than any other of Kenya's peoples, setting off new processes of differentiation and class formation."</ref>

Wunyabari O. Maloba regards the rise of the Mau Mau movement as "without doubt, one of the most important events in recent African history".<ref name="thomas1993">{{cite journal |last=Thomas |first=Beth |year=1993 |url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-ba.html |page=7 |title=Historian, Kenya native's book on Mau Mau revolt |journal=UpDate |volume=13 |issue=13 |access-date=28 May 2010 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225224617/http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-ba.html |url-status=live }}</ref> David Anderson, however, considers Maloba's and similar work to be the product of "swallowing too readily the propaganda of the Mau Mau war", noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic" earlier studies of Mau Mau.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators".{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} [[Caroline Elkins]]' 2005 study, ''[[Imperial Reckoning]]'', awarded the 2006 [[Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction]],<ref Name="Pulitzer">{{cite web  |title=Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction  |publisher=pulitzer.org  |url=http://www.pulitzer.org/  |access-date=2008-03-16  |archive-date=24 February 2008  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080224184433/http://www.pulitzer.org/  |url-status=live  }}</ref> was also controversial in that she was accused of presenting an equally binary portrayal of the conflict<ref name="Ogot 2005 502">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2005|p=502}}: "There was no reason and no restraint on both sides, although Elkins sees no atrocities on the part of Mau Mau."</ref> and of drawing questionable conclusions from limited census data, in particular her assertion that the victims of British punitive measures against the Kikuyu amounted to as many as 300,000 dead.<ref name="elstein">See in particular [[David Elstein]]'s angry letters:
* {{cite journal |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=11 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/letters |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=3 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191003091349/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/letters |url-status=live }}
* {{cite journal |title=The End of the Mau Mau |journal=The New York Review of Books |volume=52 |issue=11 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/the-end-of-the-mau-mau |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=27 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927224513/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/the-end-of-the-mau-mau/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite journal |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=14 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n14/letters |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=5 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170705055835/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n14/letters |url-status=live }}</ref> While Elstein regards the "requirement" for the "great majority of Kikuyu" to live inside 800 "fortified villages" as "serv[ing] the purpose of protection", Professor David Anderson (amongst others) regards the "compulsory resettlement" of "1,007,500 Kikuyu" inside what, for the "most" part, were "little more than concentration camps" as "punitive ... to punish Mau Mau sympathisers".<ref>See Elstein's [http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy "Daniel Goldhagen and Kenya: recycling fantasy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215172234/http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy |date=15 December 2018 }} and {{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=294}}.</ref>

{{Quote box
| quote = It is often assumed that in a conflict there are two sides in opposition to one another, and that a person who is not actively committed to one side must be supporting the other. During the course of a conflict, leaders on both sides will use this argument to gain active support from the "crowd". In reality, conflicts involving more than two persons usually have more than two sides, and if a resistance movement is to be successful, propaganda and politicization are essential.<ref name="Pirouet 1977 197">{{Harvnb|Pirouet|1977|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uZY3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA197 197]}}.</ref>
| source = —[[Louise Pirouet]]
| align = right
| width = 40%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

Broadly speaking, throughout Kikuyu history, there have been two traditions: ''moderate-conservative'' and ''radical''.<ref name="Clough 1998">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998}}.</ref> Despite the differences between them, there has been a continuous debate and dialogue between these traditions, leading to a great political awareness among the Kikuyu.<ref name="Clough 1998"/><ref name="Berman 1991 p197">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=197}}: "[D]eveloping conflicts ... in Kikuyu society were expressed in a vigorous internal debate."</ref> By 1950, these differences, and the impact of colonial rule, had given rise to three native Kenyan political blocs: ''conservative'', ''moderate nationalist'' and ''militant nationalist''.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=11–12}} It has also been argued that Mau Mau was not explicitly national, either intellectually or operationally.<ref name="Branch 2009 pxi" />

Bruce Berman argues that, "While Mau Mau was clearly not a tribal atavism seeking a return to the past, the answer to the question of 'was it nationalism?' must be yes and no."<ref name="Berman 1991 p199">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=199}}.</ref> As the Mau Mau rebellion wore on, the violence forced the spectrum of opinion within the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to polarise and harden into the two distinct camps of loyalist and Mau Mau.<ref name="Branch 2009 p1">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805211/30905/excerpt/9780521130905_excerpt.pdf 1]}}.</ref> This neat division between loyalists and Mau Mau was a product of the conflict, rather than a cause or catalyst of it, with the violence becoming less ambiguous over time,<ref name="Branch 2009 p2">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805211/30905/excerpt/9780521130905_excerpt.pdf 2]}}.</ref> in a similar manner to other situations.<ref name="Pirouet 1977 200">{{Harvnb|Pirouet|1977|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=uZY3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA200 200]}}.</ref><ref name="Kalyvas 2006">{{Harvnb|Kalyvas|2006}}.</ref>

===British reaction to the uprising===
{{quote box
| title =
| quote = Between 1952 and 1956, when the fighting was at its worst, the Kikuyu districts of Kenya became a police state in the very fullest sense of that term.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=5}}
| source = —David Anderson
| align = right
| width = 30%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}[[Philip Euen Mitchell|Philip Mitchell]] retired as Kenya's governor in summer 1952, having turned a blind eye to Mau Mau's increasing activity.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 31_32">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|pp=31–32}}.</ref> Through the summer of 1952, however, Colonial Secretary [[Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos|Oliver Lyttelton]] in London received a steady flow of reports from Acting Governor Henry Potter about the escalating seriousness of Mau Mau violence,<ref name="Elkins 2005 32">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=32}}.</ref> but it was not until the later part of 1953 that British politicians began to accept that the rebellion was going to take some time to deal with.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|p=4}}.</ref> At first, the British discounted the Mau Mau rebellion<ref name="French 2011 29">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&dq=%22in+both+kenya+and+cyprus+officials+at+least+initially+refused+to+accept+that+the+mau+mau+and+eoka+constituted+the+same+kind+of+serious+threat+that+the+mcp+posed+in+malaya%22&pg=PA29 29]}}.</ref> because of their own technical and military superiority, which encouraged hopes for a quick victory.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4"/>

The British army accepted the gravity of the uprising months before the politicians, but its appeals to London and Nairobi were ignored.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4"/> On 30 September 1952, [[Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale|Evelyn Baring]] arrived in Kenya to permanently take over from Potter; Baring was given no warning by Mitchell or the Colonial Office about the gathering maelstrom into which he was stepping.<ref name="Elkins 2005 32"/>

Aside from military operations against Mau Mau fighters in the forests, the British attempt to defeat the movement broadly came in two stages: the first, relatively limited in scope, came during the period in which they had still failed to accept the seriousness of the revolt; the second came afterwards. During the first stage, the British tried to decapitate the movement by declaring a State of Emergency before arresting 180 alleged Mau Mau leaders in [[Operation Jock Scott]] and subjecting six of them (the [[Kapenguria Six]]) to a [[show trial]]; the second stage began in earnest in 1954, when they undertook a series of major economic, military and penal initiatives.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers ( Operation Anvil); the enacting of major agrarian reform (the [[Swynnerton Plan]]); and the institution of a vast [[villagisation]] programme for more than a million rural Kikuyu. In 2012, the UK government accepted that prisoners had suffered "[[torture]] and ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration".<ref name="bbc-20120717">{{cite news | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18874040 | publisher=BBC News | title=Mau Mau case: UK government accepts abuse took place | date=17 July 2012 | access-date=20 June 2018 | archive-date=11 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811065408/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18874040 | url-status=live }}</ref>

The harshness of the British response was inflated by two factors. First, the settler government in Kenya was, even before the insurgency, probably the most openly racist one in the British empire, with the settlers' violent prejudice attended by an uncompromising determination to retain their grip on power<ref name="French 2011 72">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA72 72]}}.</ref> and half-submerged fears that, as a tiny minority, they could be overwhelmed by the indigenous population.<ref name="French 2011 55">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA55 55]}}.</ref> Its representatives were so keen on aggressive action that [[George Erskine]] referred to them as "the White Mau Mau".<ref name="French 2011 55"/> Second, the brutality of Mau Mau attacks on civilians made it easy for the movement's opponents—including native Kenyan and loyalist security forces—to adopt a totally dehumanised view of Mau Mau adherents.<ref name="French 2011 72"/>

Resistance to both the Mau Mau and the British response was illustrated by [[Ciokaraine M'Barungu]] who famously asked that the British colonial forces not destroy the food used by her villagers, since its destruction could potentially starve the entire region. Instead, she urged the colonial forces to guard the yams and bananas and stop the Mau Mau from killing any more residents.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Ciokaraine: The Story of the Female Meru Diviner|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ciokaraine-the-story-of-the-female-meru-diviner/TwLCrIdWF1WDJg|access-date=8 August 2020|website=Google Arts & Culture|language=en|archive-date=13 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813052356/https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ciokaraine-the-story-of-the-female-meru-diviner/TwLCrIdWF1WDJg|url-status=live}}</ref>

A variety of coercive techniques were initiated by the colonial authorities to punish and break Mau Mau's support: Baring ordered punitive communal-labour, collective fines and other collective punishments, and further confiscation of land and property.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wright |first1=Thomas J. |date=4 July 2022 |title='Constituencies of Control' – Collective Punishments in Kenya's Mau Mau Emergency, 1952–55 |journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=323–350 |doi=10.1080/03086534.2022.2093475|s2cid=250321705 |doi-access=free }}</ref> By early 1954, tens of thousands of head of livestock had been taken, and were allegedly never returned.<ref name="Elkins 2005 75">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=75}}: "According to Emergency regulations, the governor could issue Native Land Rights Confiscation Orders, whereby '[e]ach of the persons named in the schedule ... participated or aided in violent resistance against the forces of law and order' and therefore had his land confiscated".</ref> Detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels were finally released in April 2012.<ref name="BBC 2012 docs">{{cite news |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17734735 |last= Wallis |first= Holly |date= 18 April 2012 |title= British colonial files released following legal challenge |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 14 June 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120614083715/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17734735 |url-status= live }}</ref>

===State of emergency declared (October 1952)===
On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a [[state of emergency]]. Early the next morning, [[Operation Jock Scott]] was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of [[Jomo Kenyatta]] and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=62}}<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp35-36">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=35–36}}.</ref> Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped, since news of the impending operation was leaked. Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and [[Stanley Mathenge]] (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest armies), fled to the forests.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=63}}

The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces,{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=68}} and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p38">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=38}}.</ref> The violent and random nature of British tactics during the months after Jock Scott served merely to alienate ordinary Kikuyu and drive many of the wavering majority into Mau Mau's arms.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=69}} Three battalions of the [[King's African Rifles]] were recalled from Uganda, Tanganyika and Mauritius, giving the regiment five battalions in all in Kenya, a total of 3,000 native Kenyan troops.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=62}} To placate settler opinion, one [[battalion]] of British troops, from the [[Lancashire Fusiliers]], was also flown in from [[Egypt]] to Nairobi on the first day of Operation Jock Scott.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=62–63}} In November 1952, Baring requested assistance from the [[MI5|MI5 Security Service]]. For the next year, the Service's A.M. MacDonald would reorganise the Special Branch of the Kenya Police, promote collaboration with Special Branches in adjacent territories, and oversee coordination of all intelligence activity "to secure the intelligence Government requires".<ref>{{Harvnb|Andrew|2009|pp=456–457}}.<br />See also: {{Harvnb|Walton|2013|pp=236–286}}.</ref>{{quote box
| quote = Our sources have produced nothing to indicate that Kenyatta, or his associates in the UK, are directly involved in Mau Mau activities, or that Kenyatta is essential to Mau Mau as a leader, or that he is in a position to direct its activities.<ref name="Andrew 2009 p454">{{Harvnb|Andrew|2009|p=454}}. See also the relevant footnote, n.96 of p.&nbsp;454.</ref>
| source = —[[Percy Sillitoe]], Director General of [[MI5]]<br />Letter to Evelyn Baring, 9 January 1953
| align = right
| width = 41%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}In January 1953, six of the most prominent detainees from Jock Scott, including Kenyatta, were put [[Kapenguria Six|on trial]], primarily to justify the declaration of the Emergency to critics in London.{{sfn|Anderson|2005| p=63}}<ref name="Elkins 2005 p39">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=39}}.</ref> The trial itself was claimed to have featured a suborned lead defence-witness, a bribed judge, and other serious violations of the [[right to a fair trial]].{{citation needed|date = September 2022}}

Native Kenyan political activity was permitted to resume at the end of the military phase of the Emergency.<ref name="Berman 1991 189">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=189}}.</ref>

===Military operations===
[[File:Lieutenant General Sir George Erskine, Commander-in-Chief, East Africa (centre), observing operations against the Mau Mau.jpg|thumb|Lieutenant General Sir [[George Erskine]], Commander-in-Chief, [[East Africa Command]] (centre), observing operations against the Mau Mau]]
The onset of the Emergency led hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Mau Mau adherents to flee to the forests, where a decentralised leadership had already begun setting up platoons.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p37">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=37}}.</ref> The primary zones of Mau Mau military strength were the [[Aberdare Range|Aberdares]] and the forests around Mount Kenya, whilst a passive support-wing was fostered outside these areas.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp37-38">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=37–38}}.</ref> Militarily, the British defeated Mau Mau in four years (1952–1956)<ref name="Clough 1998 p25b">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=jpbZEfiAPW0C&pg=PA25 25]}}.</ref> using a more expansive version of "coercion through exemplary force".<ref name="French 2011 116">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA116 116]}}.</ref> In May 1953, the decision was made to send General [[George Erskine]] to oversee the restoration of order in the colony.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 83">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=83}}.</ref>

By September 1953, the British knew the leading personalities in Mau Mau, and the capture and 68 hour interrogation of [[General China]] on 15 January the following year provided a massive intelligence boost on the forest fighters.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98279887 |title=They Follow the Dug-Out General. |newspaper=[[The Sunday Mail (Brisbane)|Sunday Mail]] |location=Brisbane |date=19 April 1953 |access-date=17 November 2013 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18508452 |title=End May Be Near For The Mau Mau |newspaper=[[The Sunday Herald (Sydney)|The Sunday Herald]] |location=Sydney |date=30 August 1953 |access-date=17 November 2013 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023617/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18508452 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>[http://www.psywar.org/maumau.php "PSYOP of the Mau-Mau UprisingSGM"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426161001/https://www.psywar.org/maumau.php |date=26 April 2020 }} Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.) 4 January 2006, accessed 9 November 2013</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18413571 |title=Mau Mau General Surrenders |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |date=9 March 1954 |access-date=9 November 2013 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023618/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18413571 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="French 2011 32">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA32 32]}}.</ref><!-- In late 1953, security forces swept the Aberdare forest in Operation Blitz and captured and killed 125 guerrillas.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}--> Erskine's arrival did not immediately herald a fundamental change in strategy, thus the continual pressure on the gangs remained, but he created more mobile formations that delivered what he termed "special treatment" to an area. Once gangs had been driven out and eliminated, loyalist forces and police were then to take over the area, with military support brought in thereafter only to conduct any required pacification operations. After their successful dispersion and containment, Erskine went after the forest fighters' source of supplies, money and recruits, i.e. the native Kenyan population of Nairobi. This took the form of Operation Anvil, which commenced on 24 April 1954.<ref name="French 2011 116to117">{{Harvnb|French|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=cd6VtsGltmAC&pg=PA115 116–7]}}.</ref>

====Operation Anvil====
{{main|Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising)}}
[[File:Patrol Kenya.jpg|thumb|British Army patrol crossing a stream carrying [[FN FAL]] rifle (1st and 2nd soldiers from right); [[Sten]] Mk5 (3rd soldier); and the [[Jungle carbine|Lee–Enfield No. 5]] (4th and 5th soldiers)<ref>{{cite book |first=Bob |last=Cashner |title=The FN FAL Battle Rifle |location=Oxford, UK |publisher=[[Osprey Publishing]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-78096-903-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpDvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23 |page=15 |access-date=4 March 2019 |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023657/https://books.google.com/books?id=qpDvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
By 1954, Nairobi was regarded as the nerve centre of Mau Mau operations.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p124">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=124}}: "There was an unusual consensus in the ranks of both the military and Baring's civilian government that the colony's capital was the nerve center for Mau Mau operations. Nearly three-quarters of the city's African male population of sixty thousand were Kikuyu, and most of these men, along with some twenty thousand Kikuyu women and children accompanying them, were allegedly 'active or passive supporters of Mau Mau'."</ref> The insurgents in the highlands of the Aberdares and Mt Kenya were being supplied provisions and weapons by supporters in Nairobi via couriers.<ref name=henderson1958manhunt>{{Harvnb|Henderson|Goodhart|1958|p=14}}: "In the first months of the emergency the Mau Mau discipline was so strong that a terrorist in the forest who gave his money to a courier could be almost certain of getting what he wanted from any shop in Nairobi."</ref> Anvil was the ambitious attempt to eliminate Mau Mau's presence within Nairobi in one fell swoop. 25,000 members of British security forces under the control of General George Erskine were deployed as Nairobi was sealed off and underwent a sector-by-sector purge. All native Kenyans were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures. Those who were not Kikuyu, Embu or Meru were released; those who were remained in detention for screening.{{efn|During the Emergency, ''screening'' was the term used by colonial authorities to mean the interrogation of a Mau Mau suspect. The alleged member or sympathiser of Mau Mau would be interrogated in order to obtain an admission of guilt—specifically, a confession that they had taken the Mau Mau oath—as well as for intelligence.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p63">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=63}}.</ref>}}

Whilst the operation itself was conducted by Europeans, most suspected members of Mau Mau were picked out of groups of the Kikuyu-Embu-Meru detainees by a native Kenyan informer. Male suspects were then taken off for further screening, primarily at Langata Screening Camp, whilst women and children were readied for 'repatriation' to the reserves (many of those slated for deportation had never set foot in the reserves before). Anvil lasted for two weeks, after which the capital had been cleared of all but certifiably loyal Kikuyu; 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp121-125">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=121–125}}.</ref>

====Air power====
For an extended period of time, the chief British weapon against the forest fighters was air power. Between June 1953 and October 1955, the RAF provided a significant contribution to the conflict—and, indeed, had to, for the army was preoccupied with providing security in the reserves until January 1955, and it was the only service capable of both psychologically influencing and inflicting considerable casualties on the Mau Mau fighters operating in the dense forests. Lack of timely and accurate intelligence meant bombing was rather haphazard, but almost 900 insurgents had been killed or wounded by air attacks by June 1954, and it did cause forest gangs to disband, lower their morale, and induce their pronounced relocation from the forests to the reserves.<ref name="Chappell 2011">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011}}.</ref>

At first armed [[North American Harvard|Harvard]] training aircraft were used, for direct ground support and also some camp interdiction. As the campaign developed, [[Avro Lincoln]] heavy bombers were deployed, flying missions in Kenya from 18 November 1953 to 28 July 1955, dropping nearly 6&nbsp;million bombs.<ref name="Chappell 2011 68">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011|p=68}}.</ref><ref name="Edgerton 1989 86+quote">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=86}}: "Before the Emergency ended, the [[RAF]] dropped the amazing total of 50,000 tons of bombs on the forests and fired over 2&nbsp;million rounds from machine guns during strafing runs. It is not known how many humans or animals were killed."</ref> They and other aircraft, such as blimps, were also deployed for reconnaissance, as well as in the [[propaganda|propaganda war]], conducting large-scale leaflet-drops.<ref name="Chappell 2011 67">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011|p=67}}.</ref> A flight of [[de Havilland Vampire]] jets flew in from [[Aden]], but were used for only ten days of operations. Some light aircraft of the Police Air Wing also provided support.<ref>Smith, J. T. ''Mau Mau! A Case study in Colonial Air Power'' [[Air Enthusiast]] 64 July–August 1996 pp. 65–71</ref>

After the [[Lari massacre]] for example, British planes dropped leaflets showing graphic pictures of the Kikuyu women and children who had been hacked to death. Unlike the rather indiscriminate activities of British ground forces, the use of air power was more restrained (though there is disagreement<ref name="Edgerton 1989 86">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=86}}.</ref> on this point), and air attacks were initially permitted only in the forests. Operation Mushroom extended bombing beyond the forest limits in May 1954, and Churchill consented to its continuation in January 1955.<ref name="Chappell 2011"/>

===Swynnerton Plan===
{{main|Swynnerton Plan}}
Baring knew the massive deportations to the already-overcrowded reserves could only make things worse. Refusing to give more land to the Kikuyu in the reserves, which could have been seen as a concession to Mau Mau, Baring turned instead in 1953 to Roger Swynnerton, Kenya's assistant director of agriculture.<ref name="Anderson 1988 I">{{Harvnb|Anderson|1988}}: "The Swynnerton Plan was among the most comprehensive of all the post-war colonial development programmes implemented in British Africa. Largely framed prior to the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952, but not implemented until two years later, this development is central to the story of Kenya's decolonization".</ref><ref name="Elkins 2005 p127">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=127}}.</ref> The primary goal of the Swynnerton Plan was the creation of family holdings large enough to keep families self-sufficient in food and to enable them to practise alternate husbandry, which would generate a cash income.<ref name="Ogot 1995 48">{{Harvnb|Ogot|1995|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=AmFVjigwkxwC&pg=PA48 48]}}.</ref>

The projected costs of the [[Swynnerton Plan]] were too high for the cash-strapped colonial government, so Baring tweaked repatriation and augmented the Swynnerton Plan with plans for a massive expansion of the Pipeline coupled with a system of work camps to make use of detainee labour. All Kikuyu employed for public works projects would now be employed on Swynnerton's poor-relief programmes, as would many detainees in the work camps.<ref name="Anderson 1988 II">{{Harvnb|Anderson|1988}}.</ref><ref name="Elkins 2005 pp128-129">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=128–129}}.</ref>

===Detention programme===
{{further|List of British Detention Camps during the Mau Mau Uprising}}
{{quote box
| title =
| quote = It would be difficult to argue that the colonial government envisioned its own version of a gulag when the Emergency first started. Colonial officials in Kenya and Britain all believed that Mau Mau would be over in less than three months.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p125">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=125}}.</ref>
| source = —Caroline Elkins
| align = right
| width = 35%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}When the mass deportations of Kikuyu to the reserves began in 1953, Baring and Erskine ordered all Mau Mau suspects to be screened. Of the scores of screening camps which sprang up, only fifteen were officially sanctioned by the colonial government. Larger detention camps were divided into compounds. The screening centres were staffed by settlers who had been appointed temporary district-officers by Baring.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp62-90">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=62–90}}.</ref>
<!--Christopher Todd, the first settler given such an appointment, had a major role in devising the screening strategy. Todd explained that the settlers had decided to "take the law into their own hands" when they didn't feel enough was done by the colonial government to combat the Mau Mau threat; the colonial government's response to settler vigilantism was to encourage settlers to join the government's Kenya Police Reserve—once part of the official security apparatus, the settlers would gain legal protection.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp62-90"/>-->

Thomas Askwith, the official tasked with designing the British 'detention and rehabilitation' programme during the summer and autumn of 1953, termed his system the ''Pipeline''.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p109">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=109}}.</ref> The British did not initially conceive of rehabilitating Mau Mau suspects through brute force and other ill-treatment—Askwith's final plan, submitted to Baring in October 1953, was intended as "a complete blueprint for winning the war against Mau Mau using socioeconomic and civic reform".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p108">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=108}}.</ref> What developed, however, has been described as a British [[gulag]].{{efn|The term ''gulag'' is used by David Anderson and Caroline Elkins. For Anderson, see his 2005 ''Histories of the Hanged'', p.&nbsp;7: "Virtually every one of the acquitted men ... would spend the next several years in the notorious detention camps of the Kenyan gulag"; for Elkins, see the UK edition of her 2005 book, ''Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya''.}}

The Pipeline operated a white-grey-black classification system: 'whites' were co-operative detainees, and were repatriated back to the reserves; 'greys' had been oathed but were reasonably compliant, and were moved down the Pipeline to works camps in their local districts before release; and 'blacks' were the 'hard core' of Mau Mau. These were moved up the Pipeline to special detention camps. Thus a detainee's position in Pipeline was a straightforward reflection of how cooperative the Pipeline personnel deemed her or him to be. Cooperation was itself defined in terms of a detainee's readiness to confess their Mau Mau oath. Detainees were screened and re-screened for confessions and intelligence, then re-classified accordingly.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p136">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=136}}.</ref>

{{quote box
| title =
| quote = [T]here is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the [Nazi] concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.
<ref name="guardian_11042011">{{cite news |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=11 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry |author=Editorial |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |access-date=14 April 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930033329/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —''Guardian'' Editorial, 11 April 2011
| align = right
| width = 40%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

A detainee's journey between two locations along the Pipeline could sometimes last days. During transit, there was frequently little or no food and water provided, and seldom any sanitation. Once in camp, talking was forbidden outside the detainees' accommodation huts, though improvised communication was rife. Such communication included propaganda and disinformation, which went by such names as the ''Kinongo Times'', designed to encourage fellow detainees not to give up hope and so to minimise the number of those who confessed their oath and cooperated with camp authorities. Forced labour was performed by detainees on projects like the thirty-seven-mile-long South Yatta irrigation furrow.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91"/> Family outside and other considerations led many detainees to confess.<ref name="Peterson 2008 75_76,89,91">{{Harvnb|Peterson|2008|pp=75–76, 89, 91}}: "Some detainees, worried that the substance of their lives was draining away, thought their primary duty lay with their families. They therefore confessed to British officers, and sought an early release from detention. Other detainees refused to accept the British demand that they sully other people's reputations by naming those whom they knew to be involved in Mau Mau. This 'hard core' kept their mouths closed, and languished for years in detention. The battle behind the wire was not fought over detainees' loyalty to a Mau Mau movement. Detainees' intellectual and moral concerns were always close to home. ... British officials thought that those who confessed had broken their allegiance to Mau Mau. But what moved detainees to confess was not their broken loyalty to Mau Mau, but their devotion to their families. British officials played on this devotion to hasten a confession. ... The battle behind the wire was not fought between patriotic hard-core Mau Mau and weak-kneed, wavering, broken men who confessed. ... Both hard core and soft core had their families in mind."</ref>

During the first year after Operation Anvil, colonial authorities had little success in forcing detainees to co-operate. Camps and compounds were overcrowded, forced-labour systems were not yet perfected, screening teams were not fully coordinated, and the use of torture was not yet systematised.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p178">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=178}}.</ref> This failure was partly due to the lack of manpower and resources, as well as the vast numbers of detainees. Officials could scarcely process them all, let alone get them to confess their oaths. Assessing the situation in the summer of 1955, Alan Lennox-Boyd wrote of his "fear that the net figure of detainees may still be rising. If so the outlook is grim."<ref name="Elkins 2005 p178"/> Black markets flourished during this period, with the native Kenyan guards helping to facilitate trading. It was possible for detainees to bribe guards in order to obtain items or stay punishment.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=154–191}}.</ref>

{{quote box
| title =
| quote = [T]he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants.<ref name="times_13042011a">{{cite news |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=13 April 2011 |title=Taking on the Boss: The quiet whistleblowers on events in Kenya deserve praise |author=Editorial |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/taking-on-the-boss-vhtsstk98f0 |access-date=13 April 2011 |archive-date=4 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004210454/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article2982973.ece |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —Letter from Police Commissioner Arthur Young to Governor Evelyn Baring, 22 November 1954
| align = right
| width = 35%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

==== Interrogations and confessions ====
By late 1955, however, the Pipeline had become a fully operational, well-organised system. Guards were regularly shifted around the Pipeline too in order to prevent relationships developing with detainees and so undercut the black markets, and inducements and punishments became better at discouraging fraternising with the enemy.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=179–191}}.</ref> The grinding nature of the improved detention and interrogation regimen began to produce results. Most detainees confessed, and the system produced ever greater numbers of spies and informers within the camps, while others switched sides in a more open, official fashion, leaving detention behind to take an active role in interrogations, even sometimes administering beatings.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>

The most famous example of side-switching was Peter Muigai Kenyatta—Jomo Kenyatta's son—who, after confessing, joined screeners at Athi River Camp, later travelling throughout the Pipeline to assist in interrogations.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p148">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=148}}. It is debatable whether Peter Kenyatta was sympathetic to Mau Mau in the first place and therefore whether he truly switched sides.</ref> Suspected informers and spies within a camp were treated in the time-honoured Mau Mau fashion: the preferred method of execution was strangulation then mutilation: "It was just like in the days before our detention", explained one Mau Mau member later. "We did not have our own jails to hold an informant in, so we would strangle him and then cut his tongue out." The end of 1955 also saw screeners being given a freer hand in interrogation, and harsher conditions than straightforward confession were imposed on detainees before they were deemed 'cooperative' and eligible for final release.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>

{{quote box
| title =
| quote = In a half-circle against the reed walls of the enclosure stand eight young, African women. There's neither hate nor apprehension in their gaze. It's like a talk in the headmistress's study; a headmistress who is firm but kindly.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |author=Mike Thompson |title=Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top' |work=Today |publisher=BBC |date=7 April 2011 |access-date=12 May 2011 |at=00:40–00:54 |archive-date=10 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410213759/http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —A contemporary BBC-description of screening
| align = right
| width = 29%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

While oathing, for practical reasons, within the Pipeline was reduced to an absolute minimum, as many new initiates as possible were oathed. A newcomer who refused to take the oath often faced the same fate as a recalcitrant outside the camps: they were murdered. "The detainees would strangle them with their blankets or, using blades fashioned from the corrugated-iron roofs of some of the barracks, would slit their throats", writes Elkins.<ref name="Elkins 2005 176to77">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=176–177}}.</ref> The camp authorities' preferred method of capital punishment was public hanging. Commandants were told to clamp down hard on intra-camp oathing, with several commandants hanging anyone suspected of administering oaths.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>

Even as the Pipeline became more sophisticated, detainees still organised themselves within it, setting up committees and selecting leaders for their camps, as well as deciding on their own "rules to live by". Perhaps the most famous compound leader was [[Josiah Mwangi Kariuki]]. Punishments for violating the "rules to live by" could be severe.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91"/>

European missionaries and native Kenyan Christians played their part by visiting camps to evangelise and encourage compliance with the colonial authorities, providing intelligence, and sometimes even assisting in interrogation. Detainees regarded such preachers with nothing but contempt.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp171-177">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=171–177}}.</ref>

{{quote box
| title =
| quote = The number of cases of pulmonary tuberculosis which is being disclosed in Prison and Detention Camps is causing some embarrassment.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p144">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=144}}.</ref>
| source = —Memorandum to Commissioner of Prisons John 'Taxi' Lewis<br />
from Kenya's Director of Medical Services, 18 May 1954
| align = right
| width = 38%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

The lack of decent sanitation in the camps meant that epidemics of diseases such as [[typhoid]], [[dysentery]] and [[tuberculosis]] swept through them. Detainees would also develop vitamin deficiencies, for example [[scurvy]], due to the poor rations provided. Official medical reports detailing the shortcomings of the camps and their recommendations were ignored, and the conditions being endured by detainees were lied about and denied.<ref name="Elkins C5">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|loc=Chapter&nbsp;5: The Birth of Britain's Gulag}}.</ref><ref name="Curtis 2003 pp316-333">{{Harvnb|Curtis|2003|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SvRhIh5sbWAC&pg=PA316 316–333]}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |author1=Ian Cobain |author2=Peter Walker |newspaper=The Guardian |date=11 April 2011 |title=Secret memo gave guidelines on abuse of Mau Mau in 1950s |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-high-court-foreign-office-documents |access-date=13 April 2011 |quote=Baring informed Lennox-Boyd that eight European officers were facing accusations of a series of murders, beatings and shootings. They included: "One District Officer, murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African." Despite receiving such clear briefings, Lennox-Boyd repeatedly denied that the abuses were happening, and publicly denounced those colonial officials who came forward to complain. |archive-date=12 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110412173711/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-high-court-foreign-office-documents |url-status=live }}</ref> A British rehabilitation officer found in 1954 that detainees from Manyani were in "shocking health", many of them suffering from malnutrition,<ref name="Peterson 2008 p84">{{Harvnb|Peterson|2008|p=84}}.</ref> while Langata and GilGil were eventually closed in April 1955<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=262}}.</ref> because, as the colonial government put it, "they were unfit to hold Kikuyu ... for medical epidemiological reasons".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262"/>

While the Pipeline was primarily designed for adult males, a few thousand women and young girls were detained at an all-women camp at Kamiti, as well as a number of unaccompanied young children. Dozens of babies<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp151-152">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=151–2}}.</ref> were born to women in captivity: "We really do need these cloths for the children as it is impossible to keep them clean and tidy while dressed in dirty pieces of sacking and blanket", wrote one colonial officer.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p227">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=227}}.</ref> Wamumu Camp was set up solely for all the unaccompanied boys in the Pipeline, though hundreds, maybe thousands, of boys moved around the adult parts of the Pipeline.

====Works camps====
{{quote box
| title =
| quote = Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment and flogging—all in violation of the United Nations [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]].<ref name="Curtis 2003 p327">{{Harvnb|Curtis|2003|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=SvRhIh5sbWAC&pg=PA327 327]}}.</ref>
| source = —One colonial officer's description of British works camps
| align = right
| width = 35%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}There were originally two types of works camps envisioned by Baring: the first type were based in Kikuyu districts with the stated purpose of achieving the Swynnerton Plan; the second were punitive camps, designed for the 30,000 Mau Mau suspects who were deemed unfit to return to the reserves. These [[forced-labour camp]]s provided a much needed source of labour to continue the colony's infrastructure development.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p153">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=153}}.</ref>

Colonial officers also saw the second sort of works camps as a way of ensuring that any confession was legitimate and as a final opportunity to extract intelligence. Probably the worst works camp to have been sent to was the one run out of Embakasi Prison, for Embakasi was responsible for the [[Jomo Kenyatta International Airport|Embakasi Airport]], the construction of which was demanded to be finished before the Emergency came to an end. The airport was a massive project with an unquenchable thirst for labour, and the time pressures ensured the detainees' forced labour was especially hard.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>

===Villagisation programme===
{{quote box
| title =
| 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
| align = right
| width = 43%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| 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"/>

{{quote box
| title =
| 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
| align = right
| width = 35%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

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
| title =
| 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
| align = right
| width = 42%
| fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue
| style =
| title_bg =
| title_fnt =
| tstyle = text-align: left;
| qalign = right
| qstyle = text-align: left;
| quoted = yes
| salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}

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>

===Political and social concessions by the British===
Kenyans were granted nearly<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gadsden|first=Fay|date=October 1980|title=The African Press in Kenya, 1945–1952|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0021853700018727/type/journal_article|journal=The Journal of African History|language=en|volume=21|issue=4|pages=515–535|doi=10.1017/S0021853700018727|s2cid=154367771|issn=0021-8537|access-date=28 May 2020|archive-date=9 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023624/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/african-press-in-kenya-19451952/B05D64CF5762CA345A1148260FE0A833|url-status=live}}</ref> all of the demands made by the KAU in 1951.

<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Kenyan Emergency surrender pass January 1955.jpg|thumb|'Surrender pass' airdropped to Mau Mau activists as a result of Evelyn Baring's offer of an amnesty on 18 January 1955.]] -->On 18 January 1955, the Governor-General of Kenya, [[Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale|Evelyn Baring]], offered an amnesty to Mau Mau activists. The offer was that they would not face prosecution for previous offences, but might still be detained. European settlers were appalled at the leniency of the offer. On 10 June 1955 with no response forthcoming, the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau was revoked.

In June 1956, a programme of land reform increased the land holdings of the Kikuyu.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Pinckney|first1=Thomas C.|last2=Kimuyu|first2=Peter K.|date=1 April 1994|title=Land Tenure Reform in East Africa: Good, Bad or Unimportant?1|journal=Journal of African Economies|language=en|volume=3|issue=1|pages=1–28|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.jae.a036794|issn=0963-8024}}</ref> This was coupled with a relaxation of the ban on native Kenyans growing coffee, a primary cash crop.<ref name=":0" />

In the cities the colonial authorities decided to dispel tensions by raising urban wages, thereby strengthening the hand of moderate union organisations like the KFRTU. By 1956, the British had granted direct election of native Kenyan members of the Legislative Assembly, followed shortly thereafter by an increase in the number of local seats to fourteen. A Parliamentary conference in January 1960 indicated that the British would accept "one person—one vote" majority rule.