"An estimated 90,000 Kenyans were slaughtered in the Kikuyu uprising while just over a thousand were hanged on a portable gibbet. Some 160,000 were detained in internment camps where torture was routine.
"One of Britain’s victims was US President Barack Obama’s paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, who was arrested in 1949, and tortured by having pins inserted under his fingernails."
Kitson brought to Belfast his experiences in Kenya, fighting the Kikuyu Land and Freedom Army (exotically dubbed the “Mau Mau” by the British) in the early 1950s where he honed a practice of using “turned” or “converted” rebels into “counter-gangs”.
"The battle of the Bogside was an important catalyst for change, triggering a determined British government intervention that ended the unionist monopoly on power. But it also marked the beginning of 30 years of violent conflict that would claim the lives of more than 3,600 people and bring untold suffering."
If you really, really wanted to reignite #theTroubles without firing a shot, a very good way would be to tell Irish Nationalists and Republicans that, actually, a border poll will now require the support of a majority PLUS 10 or 20% more of the votes.
It would be a breach of the Good Friday Agreement and it would show that the English will not permit democratic constitutional change. It would smack of the gerrymandering that led us here.
The British army was first deployed on the streets in the North of Ireland on 14th August 1969, marking the beginning of ‘Operation Banner'. It lasted until 31 July 2007 and was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed. 1,441 serving British military personnel died in Operation Banner.
The Battle of the Bogside took place from 12 to 14 August 1969 in Derry. As the annual Apprentice Boys parade passed close to the Bogside area serious rioting erupted. The RUC, using armoured cars and water cannons, entered the Bogside, in an attempt to end the rioting. The RUC were closely followed and supported by a loyalist crowd. 1/2
The residents of the Bogside forced the police and the loyalists back out of the area.It sparked widespread violence elsewhere in Northern Ireland, led to the deployment of British troops, and is often seen as the beginning of the Troubles. 2/2
Operation Demetrius began on 9th August 1971. It involved the mass arrest and internment of people without trial. Soldiers launched dawn raids throughout Northern Ireland and arrested 342, sparking four days of violence in which 20 civilians, two IRA members and two British soldiers were killed. Due to faulty and out-of-date intelligence, many of those arrested were no longer involved in republican militancy or never had links with the IRA.
So, I was looking for this #WoodyGuthrie photo, and I stumbled across this article, a thoughtful, reflective piece about #TheTroubles and #RemembrancePoppies and, in general, the vagaries and vicissitudes of history.