At an eight-course state banquet in Nairobi on the first day of a state visit to Kenya King Charles tackled head on the controversy over the British colonial administration’s torture and suppression of Mau Mau suspects during the Emergency of 1952-60.
The 74-year-old monarch, who had faced calls from activists for a fulsome apology, did not quite go that far but his expression of regret made no bones about disowning the darkest legacy of Empire.
In a speech in front of 350 guests at State House, the presidential residence, he recalled his family’s visits to Kenya and the fact that his son Prince William chose to ask the then Kate Middleton to marry him while they were there in 2010.
“It is the intimacy of our shared history that has brought our people together,” he said.“However, we must also acknowledge the most painful times of our long and complex relationship.
“The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret. There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged, as you said at the United Nations, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that, there can be no excuse.
“In coming back to Kenya, it matters greatly to me that I should deepen my own understanding of these wrongs, and that I meet some of those whose lives and communities were so grievously affected.”
He and Queen Camilla, who wore a blue Anna Valentine tunic top with palazzo trousers, with a diamond elephant bracelet and a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace that belonged to her grandmother, were on the first major royal visit to the East African country since Britain in 2013 expressed “regret” for human rights abuses during the Mau Mau uprising and settled a High Court case, agreeing to pay £19.9 million in damages and legal costs to 5,228 elderly victims of torture and repression.
Earlier, the King and Queen honoured the Kenyan independence heroes once designated terrorists by Britain when they visited the new national museum in Nairobi.
They paid tribute to Mau Mau fighters and others who took part in the long struggle for Kenyan statehood under British colonial rule during a sneak preview tour of the Mashujaa Museum, which is due to open to the public early next year, shortly after the country celebrates its 60th anniversary of independence on December 12.
Charles and Camilla, 76, walked down the Tunnel of Martyrs,stopping at each panel to view descriptions of the independence struggle and those who fell fighting for it.
On their way into the museum they also acknowledged, with brief but respectful glances, statues of two independence fighters. They paid their respects to the statues of Mekatilili wa Menza – a feminist who led the Giriama people in a revolt against the colonial administration between 1912 and 1915 – and Dedan Kimathi, who led the Mau Mau armed military struggle against the British in the 1950s until his capture in 1956 and execution a year later.
Airforce Brigadier General Oswald Opiyo, who gave them their tour, said the King had been keen to learn about the Mau Mau Uprising.
He added that he he had found it very gracious that the King was interested in understanding “the history that the British colonial system did bring to bear on Africans. And then for him to be dignified, to hear it from our voice is (making us) very happy.”
He has faced calls from some activists and western academics to issue an apology and pay reparations for the torture of Mau Mau suspects done in his mother’s name during the Kenya Emergency from 1952 to1960.
But Kenyans and their media appear divided on whether such an apology is really necessary. Some have argued that it is humiliating to keep asking for an apology for something that happened when King Charles was a boy and that it is time to move on after 60 years of independence.
Neil Wigan, the UK High Commissioner to Nairobi, said those pressing for reparations and an apology for Britain’s treatment of the Mau Mau rebels in the 1950s were in a minority.
Mr Wigan said: “I’ve met quite a lot of people from the communities who were directly affected, and actually most of them are more focused on the future, about how we do things together. Most Kenyans are nothing but positive about the visit.
Both sides seemed keener on celebrating the present and forging closer ties for the future, with England’s Premier League football more interesting to ordinary Kenyans than colonial history.
At the start of the day the King and Queen were given a grand ceremonial welcome as President William Ruto and his wife and First Lady Rachel rolled out the red carpet at State House, their official residence at a parade by around 100 members of the military in scarlet uniforms.
Camilla, in a white Anna Valentine crepe silk dress and a diamond oyster brooch which had belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth, was carrying an umbrella, but luckily the rain that had persisted all morning stopped minutes before the couple’s arrival and was replaced with bright sunshine.
Later the royal couple planted two trees to mark their visit before going to the national monument and museum at Uhuru Gardens.
The King and Queen were told how a fig tree planted there to mark the moment Kenyan independence was declared was considered a shrine and a “memory” of the country’s turbulent history.
It marks the spot where, with Prince Philip watching on, the Union flag was lowered and the Kenyan flag raised for the first time on December 12, 1963. Uhuru, in Kiswahili, means “freedom”.
In the tough Eastlands district of Nairobi later, Queen Camilla listened to children reading and urged them to “explore the world” like they “do in books” as her husband met some young people who had never seen a full-length mirror or a hot shower before.
She and King Charles went to Eastlands Library and met separate groups of young people taking part in different projects to improve their life chances.
The King met a group of children from deprived rural areas taking part in a business simulation game, run by Charles’s charity Prince’s Trust International and designed to help them thinking about becoming entrepreneurs.
Some of them had never used a laptop before taking part in the project. Erna Grasz, chief executive of PTI’s partner charity, Asante Africa Foundation, said: “Three quarters of this group travelled 16 hours by bus from the furthest north of the country. They have never seen a full-length mirror.
“The first night they were here in Nairobi, they were being trained how to use a hot water spigot in the shower. They had never seen hot water coming out of the wall. This was the first time they have ever had a bed they did not have to share with family members.”
