Kenya cowboy : a police officer's account of the Mau Mau Emergency / Peter Hewitt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hewitt, Peter, 1928-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hewitt, Peter, 1928-.

Hewitt, Peter.

Police.

Colonial administrators.

Kenya--History--Mau Mau Emergency, 1952-1960--Personal narratives.

Kenya.

History.

Colonial administrators--Kenya--Biography.

Police--Kenya--Biography.

Genre:

Personal narratives.

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

352 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map, portraits ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Johannesburg, South Africa : 30° South Publishers, 2008.

Summary:

Forty-five years after its jubilant attainment of Uhuru, Kenya could, until recently, claim with some justification to have matured as an independent sovereign republic. While the transition from a British colony to an independent state was not as creditable as many might have wished, Kenya, nevertheless, did not suffer the degree of disintegration and chaos that was so much in evidence in many of her sister countries.

Today, Kenya's descent into the slimy pit of corruption, malfeasance and nepotism continues apace. Could it, however, be otherwise? It remains to be seen, with the inter-tribal violence and anti-Kikuyu, anti-KANU fury growing more ominous by the day, whether Kenya's emergent combatant minority tribes will be able to persuade their political leaders to espouse some long-overdue constitutional reforms.

In this stylish, first-hand account, Peter Hewitt, through the window of his own experiences as a Kenyan police officer during the Emergency of the fifties, examines the causes and effects of Mau Mau's bloody reign of terror-savagery and horror without equal in modern times-and how the Land Freedom Armies of Mau Mau, wholly evil, were ultimately and comprehensively destroyed.

Contents:

Map of Kenya and the White Highlands 8

Chapter 1 Jambo bwana! Fully attested 22

Chapter 2 'Kenya Cowboys' under training 34

Chapter 3 Vulnerable settlers on a fertile plateau 49

Chapter 4 Salus populi in the White Highlands 76

Chapter 5 Is that gun really necessary, bwana? 99

Chapter 6 How to eliminate elusive 'micks' 106

Chapter 7 The tempo quickens: the massacre at Lari and the sack of a police station 130

Chapter 8 From running battles at dusk to simple assassination 143

Chapter 9 Oathing-to make savages out of insurgents 163

Chapter 10 Legal slaughter or excusable homicide? 187

Chapter 11 The penalty for being a Kikuyu and the folly of employing one 207

Chapter 12 Exploitation of traitors to hasten the turning of the tide 228

Chapter 13 'Kenya Cowboys' vs Mau Mau rustlers 251

Chapter 14 Operation Bullrush: the waning moon of Mau Mau over a papyrus swamp 265

Chapter 15 The dreadful cost in life and money: for what? Land? 289

Appendix I 'Your turn may come'-a directive published by the Department of Information, Nakuru, for the Provincial Emergency Committee 321

Appendix II Letter of appreciation: the Carnelly Raid 326

Appendix III Message to all officers of the Army, Police and the Security Forces 327

Appendix IV Ill-treatment of persons in Police custody 329

Appendix V Operational Intelligence Summary 332

Appendix VI 'Saving' 338

Appendix VII Operational Intelligence Summary 342

Appendix VIII An excerpt from of F.D. Corfield's official report for the Kenya government: The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau 346

Appendix IX Declaration of a State of Emergency 348

Appendix X Emergency statistics up to the end of 1956 351

Appendix XI British military units that served in Kenya during the Mau Mau emergency 352.

Notes:

First ed. Avon Books, 1999 ; Second ed. Covos Day Books, 2001.

ISBN:

9781920143237

1920143238

OCLC:

223851486

Publisher Number:

99943126480