LETTERS Myths about Kenya
Sir: Rupert Wright missed an opportunity when he wrote the article about Lord Delamere (`The Kennedys of Kenya', 11 April). Readers might have been interested to known that the Masai tribe were split in two, geographically, by the purchase of the Rift Valley by the Delamere syndicate at the beginning of the century. Because of pressure from the settlers led by the then Lord Delamere, the treaty which was agreed with the Masai to move out of the Rift Valley was not honoured in the particu- lar of giving the tribe a mile-wide corridor across the Rift to enable the two sections to keep in contact. It was then decided to move the Masai out of the Northern (Laikipia) area, which caused great angst (not least to my great-uncle, Arthur Collyer, who was DC to the northern clans and who felt they were being bamboozled). The chief, Laibon, advised them to do what the British wanted because he had been so impressed by their justice after a particular- ly bloody incident in the Rift Valley.
Our record in the African colonies is not all perfect. Nevertheless, often despite the undue pressures put on the British adminis- tration of Kenya by such people as the Delameres, we, the British, have much to be proud of when reviewing our involvement there. In the space of roughly three score years and ten, during which time there were two world wars and the worst world slump ever experienced, we handed over to our successors a vibrant, prosperous and safe nation with a solid foundation of integrity and justice. By concentrating on the flum- mery — as writers and film-makers about Kenya have so often done — people misun- derstand completely what happened in Africa when it was administered by us.
Veronica Bellers
Stoneacre, 31 Church Lane, Stathern, Leicestershire
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