Kenya killing puts British colonialism on trial
A descendant of Kenya’s first white settlers, whose freewheeling ways inspired the book “White Mischief”, has been charged with murder for the second time in 13 months in a case that has exposed deep resentment about British colonialism in East Africa.
Thomas Cholmondeley pleaded not guilty yesterday to killing a black Kenyan he suspected of poaching on his 100,000-acre property in Kenya’s fertile Rift Valley – a region once dubbed “Happy Valley” because of the decadent lifestyles of its colonial settlers.
When asked to answer to the charge of murder, Cholmondeley replied in court: “Not true.”
Cholmondeley, a 38-year-old Kenyan, could face the death penalty if convicted in the case. He carries a rifle for safety, as is common in rural Africa amid fears of violent crime.
Cholmondeley’s lawyer, Fred Ojiambo, said his client fired in self-defence in both shooting cases.
“In this case the lies are being orchestrated to make him look like the guy who shoots Africans for sport,” Ojiambo said. He added that the victim in the latest case set several dogs on Cholmondeley after the man was caught poaching an impala.
Cholmondeley was aiming for the dogs – not 37-year-old Robert Njoya Wambugu, who was shot in the back and died en route to a hospital, Ojiambo said.
Last year, a murder case against Cholmondeley was dropped after high-level government intervention, enraging Kenyans who say he received special treatment because of he’s an heir to Britain’s Lord Delamere. Cholmondeley said he mistook an undercover game warden for a robber that time.
The cases have exposed deep tensions about the British presence in Kenya, with many citizens resentful that the most precious land was taken over by the British government during colonial times.
After independence in 1963, many departing settlers transferred land to Africans, with Britain underwriting some of the costs.
Some settlers, including Cholmondeley’s family, kept their land and became Kenyan citizens. But now, an increasing number of Kenyans are saying the land simply doesn’t belong to whites. Kenya's minister for immigration has even raised the unlikely prospect of deportation.
“We are aware of some white settlers and investors who are oppressing our people, and very soon we are going to act by deporting them,” Gideon Konchellah said.
Wambugu’s niece, 20-year-old Eunice Wangui, who lives in an area that borders Delamere Farm in Naivasha, said jail wasn’t good enough for Cholmondeley.
“I want him to be killed,” she said.
The case has received such intense media scrutiny because of Cholmondeley’s aristocratic heritage and his grandfather’s place in Kenyan lore. The fourth baron Delamere was married to Diana Broughton, whose lover was shot in the head on the outskirts of Nairobi in the 1940s.
Broughton’s first husband was tried for murder and acquitted, an episode that inspired the book “White Mischief” which also was made into a film. The book highlighted the free-spending – and often alcoholic – ways of much of the early colonial set in Kenya.
Will Knocker, a friend of Cholmondeley who was in court yesterday, said the family’s history is playing a part in the legal troubles.
“There’s a lot of background that deals with white ownership of land in Kenya,” he said. “Nothing good ever came of the colonial legacy in Kenya.”
