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A model of Aguthi, a British detention camp in Kenya
HISTORIANS have digitally reconstructed Britain’s colonial-era Kenyan torture chambers to teach people about the crimes of empire.
The Museum of British Colonialism (MBC) showed 3D models on its website today, exposing the horror of two imperial detention camps in Kenya’s Central province, Aguthi and Mweru.
British colonial administrators in Kenya erected and operated both sites as part of a countrywide “pipeline” comprising more than 100 detention camps, works camps and emergency villages used to detain and control the native Kenyan population during the 1952-60 uprising against imperial rule.
Anyone who criticises those in power in Kenya risks their freedom or worse. The brutal abduction of Booker Omole marks a new escalation in a country sliding toward authoritarian rule, says MARC VANDEPITTE
A US air strike in north-west Nigeria, publicly framed as a Christmas act of counterterrorism, reveals a deeper shift in how power is exercised in Africa, argues RAIS NEZA BONEZA
ROGER McKENZIE argues that Western powers can see the beginning of the end in the rise of the global South — and racist reactions are kicking in