(6 Jun 2013) SHOTLIST
1. Various of news conference by Mau Mau veterans association
2. Close of audience
3. Close of posters reading (English) "Victims of Torture of the colonial era. We told the truth and at last justice"
4. SOUNDBITE: (Kiswahili) Gitu wa Kahengeri, Secretary General of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association:
"They could have asked us if we thought the money was enough (however they didn't ask). This can never be enough, we were detained for 10 years, I was detained with my father for seven years who raised me, so 300-thousand Kenya shillings isn't enough for the suffering of my father or any other person who suffered during that time."
5. Pan right of news conference
6. SOUNDBITE: (Kiswahili) Gitu wa Kahengeri, Secretary General of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association:
"People say that what we have in hand is better then 10 in the bush. We agreed to this amount because we lodged our case in 2009 and until today no one has been called to testify in front of the courts, we have just been taken round and round with our applications trying to file our case. If they take us around for another 10 years then send us to ask for an appeal, then go around another 10 years, it may take us 30 more years. By then where will I be?"
7. Various of members of the Mau Mau veterans association
8. SOUNDBITE: (Kiswahili) Gitu wa Kahengeri, Secretary General of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association:
"Because they have acknowledged that they have tortured us and that statement alone without even getting the money, that statement by itself is enough."
9. Close and tilt up from participants to camera filming the news conference
10. Wide of members singing and dancing at the end of the news conference
STORYLINE
The wrinkled faces of the elderly Kenyans who gathered in a downtown Nairobi hotel registered gratitude, relief and joy as Britain's high commissioner said what many waited decades to hear: Britain is sorry.
Britain on Thursday said it "sincerely regrets" the acts of torture a British colonial government carried out against Kenyans fighting for liberation from colonial rule in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London insisted that an "expression of deep regret" was not the same thing as an apology, which would have legal implications.
But the victims of British abuses a half-century ago appeared satisfied, even jubilant.
Several thousand now-elderly Kenyans say they were beaten and sexually assaulted by officers acting for the British administration trying to suppress the "Mau Mau" rebellion, during which groups of Kenyans attacked British officials and white farmers who had settled in some of Kenya's most fertile lands.
Thursday's settlement will pay about 21.5 (m) million US dollars to the 5,200 Kenyans who were found to have been tortured, or about 4,100 US dollars per Kenyan
victim.
Another 9.25 (m) million US dollars goes to pay costs to the Kenyans' legal team.
According to Gitu wa Kahengeri, a diminutive veteran who led the Mau Mau victims no amount of compensation could cover for those who suffered, noting that he and his father were detained for 10 years.
"They could have asked us if we thought the money was enough (however they didn't ask). This can never be enough," he said.
But added; "Because they have acknowledged that they have tortured us and that statement alone without even getting the money, that statement by itself is enough."
The payouts, though low in Western terms, can still have an impact in Kenya, where per capita income is about 1,800 US dollars.
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