The Interrogation Camp

Abstract

Any written work on the state of the emergency in Kenya could not be complete without a discussion of the interrogation experience where people were mercilessly tortured, roughly handled and inhumanly treated. It was during interrogation that innocent people were mistakenly or intentionally accused, sometimes because of personal differences, hatred or jealousy. Some malicious people would hide things like bullets or medicine or other unauthorised items under your chairs, in your house or in your garden and later report that you are a supporter of Mau Mau, saying that you collect guns and bullets for them or that you send medicine to the forest fighters. I knew of one nurse at Kenyatta National Hospital who had stolen penicillin hidden in her flat and later was reported as one of the drug transporters for the forest fighters. And when she confidently opened her flat for officials to search for the medicine, she was shocked to see a case of penicillin hidden in her house that she had never seen before. I knew this nurse well; she was so hurt that she committed suicide before she underwent the interrogation.