In regards to Britain’s colonial past, King Charles has voiced his “greatest sorrow and deepest regret.”
During a state visit to Kenya, the King expressed his apologies to the people of Kenya for Britain’s “abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence” during the Colonial era.
He declared that British “wrongdoings” in the East African nation, especially those directed against the Mau Mau revolt, had “no excuse.”
Speaking at a state banquet in Nairobi on Tuesday night, King Charles told the Kenyan President and 350 guests: ‘It is the intimacy of our shared history that has brought our people together. However, we must also acknowledge the most painful times of our long and complex relationship.
‘The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret. There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged, as you said at the United Nations, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that, there can be no excuse.’
Charles continued: ‘In coming back to Kenya, it matters greatly to me that I should deepen my own understanding of these wrongs, and that I meet some of those whose lives and communities were so grievously affected.
‘None of this can change the past. But by addressing our history with honesty and openness we can, perhaps, demonstrate the strength of our friendship today. And, in so doing, we can, I hope, continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead.’
Because it is against British government policy to do so, the King refrained from making a direct apology, which entails greater legal liability.
President Ruto delivered an even more forceful speech at the same time that he made his remarks, hinting at potential future demands for restitution.
He said Britain and Kenya could not ‘live in denial of history’ and highlighted the ‘displacement, dispossession and disenfranchisement of native Africans, paving the way for a brutal colonialism’.
The president made it clear that he believed the £20 million that Britain had already given out in compensation to victims of torture and repression was insufficient and called British attempts to crush the Kenyan people’s fight for independence “monstrous in its cruelty.”
‘While there have been efforts to atone for the death, injury and suffering inflicted on Kenyan Africans by the colonial government, much remains to be done in order to achieve full reparations,’ he said.
He praised the King for his ‘visionary leadership’ on the issue, saying: ‘Your exemplary courage and readiness to shed light on uncomfortable truths that reside in the darker regions of our shared experience are….commendable.
‘This is a highly encouraging first step, under your leadership, to deliver progress beyond tentative and equivocal half measures of past years.
‘We are therefore confident that, under your visionary leadership, the Kenya-United Kingdom relations will continue to prosper for the benefit of our two countries and peoples. ‘
