Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes

[Jan Klimkowski]

Thousands of documents detailing some of the most shameful acts and crimes committed during the final years of the British empire were systematically destroyed to prevent them falling into the hands of post-independence governments, an official review has concluded.Those papers that survived the purge were flown discreetly to Britain where they were hidden for 50 years in a secret Foreign Office archive, beyond the reach of historians and members of the public, and in breach of legal obligations for them to be transferred into the public domain.The archive came to light last year when a group of Kenyans detained and allegedly tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion won the right to sue the British government. The Foreign Office promised to release the 8,800 files from 37 former colonies held at the highly-secure government communications centre at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire.The historian appointed to oversee the review and transfer, Tony Badger, master of Clare College, Cambridge, says the discovery of the archive put the Foreign Office in an "embarrassing, scandalous" position. "These documents should have been in the public archives in the 1980s,"

This demonstrates why Official History, especially involving an Authorized Historian being given Unique Access to an otherwise Secret Archive must NEVER be trusted.

All those Professors getting access to secret intelligence service files and writing patriotic histories about our brave spooks, whose occasional wacky moments included exploding cigars and poisoned elephants, come immediately to mind.