KENYA—ANOTHER VIEW
SIR,—Scores and blood money 'have apparently shocked public opinion. But why should this be so as there is nothing new in either ?
During the last war all will remember the scores of the Battle of Britain, the Jolly Rogers flown by submarines, and the kills or bombs painted on aircraft. Why, therefore, be so shocked that units doing a difficult job should wish to have the highest score of enemy killed ? No one seemed to mind this spirit in 1939-45.
There is surely nothing new in the payment of blood money. From time immemorial rebels and outlaws have had a price on their heads, What difference is there morally between the Kenya Government's offer of £500 for Dedan Kimathi, the terrorist leader, and a Company Commander's 5s. paid to a mercenary Askari for an anonymous Mau Mau rebel killed when bearing arms against the State ?
No one condones excesses, but many of the reports on Kenya in the popular Press are grotesque exaggerations, and those lapses of a few, which inevitably occur in any war, are used to besmirch the Armed Forces as a whole who are doing a difficult job well.
Things in Kenya are difficult enough with- out the British public, on incomplete and often inaccurate information, passing judg- ment on matters of which perhaps they know little.—Yours faithfully,
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