Kenya’s Talai Clan Petitions Prince William Over Land Eviction

A group of more than 100,000 Kenyans from the Talai clan has written to Prince William to seek an apology, and his support for reparations for human rights abuses they say they suffered during the British colonial settlement.

The letter, says the British government has declined to engage with the clan’s representatives and they’re therefore reaching out to the prince “because Kenya is special to him”.

The Talai say the British government has declined to recognise the suffering of its members during the colonial era.

A UN inquiry determined last year that gross human rights violations were committed particularly against the clan, including unlawful killing, sexual violence, torture, and arbitrary detention and displacement.

Five UN Special Rapporteurs then wrote to the British government regarding public apologies, reparations and remedy.

In response, the UK said it had already issued a public apology and settlement in 2013 of claims made by Kenyans who lived through the emergency period and the Mau Mau insurgency, from 1952 to 1963 when Kenya gained independence.

The Talai however insist that the case the British government referred to in its response is a separate case.

The clan says its members were forcefully evicted from fertile land in the highlands of the Rift Valley to pave the way for tea plantations, some of which still exist and are owned by UK-based multinationals.

The Talai held a leadership role among the Kipsigis ethnic group in Kenya and led the resistance against European settlement.

To quash it, every member of the Talai clan was forcefully moved to detention in a tse-tse fly and mosquito infested valley near present day Lake Victoria.