CHAOS IN KENYA
A new operation against the Mau Mau was launched on Tuesday. Almost the entire military force in Kenya is engaged in a sweep of the Aberdare forests, where most of the remaining gangs are said to be in hiding. But anyone inclined to think comfortably of this as the 'final large-scale military operation' should recall just how many times during the past two and a half years the end of the emergency has been prophesied to be round the next corner but one. Once it was said that the active members of Malt Mau had been reduced to a few hundreds. Now it is thought that there are several thousands still at large. The truth seems to be that nobody knows. Intelligence appears to be as faulty as ever, and it is incredible that at this late stage the new Commissioner of Police should find it necessary to say that there is an urgent need for the 'welding together of all anti-Mau Mau forces in controlled. co-ordinated action.' This is what was being called for in I952. For the present confusion the Colonial Government is much to blame—its action in sweeping the Kikuyu indiscriminately back to the reserves must have strengthened Mau Mau enormously. The criticisms delivered in Nairobi on Sunday by the Moderator of the Church of Scotland in East,Africa were well deserved. But there is confusion at all levels. The resignation of Colonel Young from the post of Commissioner of Police brought into the open the quarrel between the police and the administration. There may be good reasons in Kenya for keeping the police under political control, but it is hard to see how grave errors can be avoided so long as there is (in Colonel Young's words) 'a badly indexed mass of emergency legislation, constantly amended, with which the Supreme Court judges can hardly keep pace without the assistance of an excellent library service.' Now, to weaken whatever little confidence remains, comes the news that General Erskine is to be replaced. Are things in Kenya any better than they were a year ago? In some respects they seem to be worse.
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