Operation Legacy

So we had to have the Mau Mau High Court case, um, bringing to attention the detention camps and the torture that was deployed against Mau Mau rebels in Kenya before the existence of this whole hidden archive was revealed.

And we now know about Operation Legacy, actually, you know, given that, that name, which was to preserve the reputation of the British Empire, uh, after decolonization by destroying difficult documents, uncomfortable documents or by removing them back and secreting them.

Uh, I, I'm actually talking to you from Cyprus, which was another case where there was a, a military, there was a, an uprising against British rule, and it, it ended up becoming a, a, a rather violent conflict, although it's a, you know, a small island.

This was one of those cases which I think was incredibly important.

Um, and to give you one particular instance, it took, uh, the high court case by Mau Mau veterans-

Mm.

-um, to, uh, take the British government to court for the torture that they'd been subjected to during the suppression of one of these late colonial wars in, in Kenya to reveal the existence of an entire hidden archive, um, and to reveal the existence of Operation Legacy.

This was actually an operation undertaken by the British state to wipe the slate clean at the end of empire and to leave a legacy, um, in which the empire was seen as legitimate.

So when you continue to not discuss the crimes perpetrated by empire, you're sort of propagating a selective memory.

This is Operation Legacy.

Operation Legacy, yeah.

It's the systematic destruction of documents.

We don't tend to destroy documents when you know that what you've done is fantastic.