As the colonial forces were preparing to leave Kenya, in the days leading up to its independence from Britain in 1963, they were given one last order.
Before they left, they took with them crates upon crates of files; the contents of which painted a gruesome picture of the violence and torture they’d inflicted on Kenya’s resistance movement, the Mau Mau.
For decades afterwards, the British government denied the files existed and hid them from the world.
But as a result of the determination of Mau Mau survivors, the truth was eventually forced out.
“They’re trying to control a narrative, they’re trying to control a perception of how they’re seen,” Kenyan historian Chao Tayiana said.
“There was torture, there was violence and this took place on a mass scale.”
Hellbound and Down 