Le Comite international de la Croix-Rouge et le soulevement des Mau-Mau au Kenya, 1952-1959

In: Relations internationales: revue trimestrielle d'histoire, Heft 133, S. 91-110

Abstract

The ICRC had been concerned by the situation in Kenya since 1952, but the British Red Cross & the British authorities did not allow the Committee to play its traditional role in an area where it had no automatic right to intervene. The British Red Cross actually did what it could to prevent the intervention of the Committee in a field it considered as its own, & where it did not tolerate competitors in the humanitarian field. The initial aim of the ICRC to visit Mau-Mau detainees was finally achieved, once in 1957 & once in 1959. Nevertheless, the ICRC had a major moral responsibility for the kind of argument that it developed against an intervention in Kenya, in contradiction with the universality principle of the Red Cross. Adapted from the source document.