Colonial Mysteries
It will have come as no surprise to observers of the situation in Kenya to hear from Mr. Blundell, chief European represen. tative on the Governor's Council, that a new drive is being planned against the Mau Mau. Coming just after the recrudes- cence of terrorism in the Nyeri district, this announcement falls into the usual pattern of events in the colony. This pattern is cyclic: a ' drive ' against the terrorists is carried out, com- muniqués state that the Mau Mau have suffered severe losses, and, after a few weeks and a few more outrages, it is announced that the enemy strength has been underestimated and that new operations are being planned. The restoring of order thus appears a little like the weaving of Penelope's web—a process which is almost impossible to understand from a distance— and even the few hard facts which emerge from this welter of conflicting evidence seem to lend themselves to several different interpretations. For instance, Mr. Blundell has stated that the Mau Mau have suffered very heavy casualties (he puts the figure of Mau Mau dead at about five thousand since the beginning of the emergency). But if this is so it must equally be the case that terrorist recruitment is sufficient to replace these losses. More information is needed for any judgement to be passed on the military situation in the colony, but the absence of such information is in itself disquieting. As in the case of the Uganda crisis, totally different stories of what is happening are circulating, a phenomenon which is perhaps due to the common factor in both cases : the Colonial Office. And it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the affairs of both these colonies are more tangled than the authorities care to admit.
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