The Queen's Bench Division on the High Court of England and Wales ruled Oct. 5 that three elderly Kenyans can sue the British government for torture they suffered while in detention under the British colonial administration in the 1950s. Judge Richard McCombe ruled that the three Kenyans could claim damages against the British government for the harm they sustained at the hands of their captors during the Mau Mau uprising. The three claimants, who were not in court to hear the ruling, seek apologies from Britain and reparations in the form of welfare benefit funding for other Kenyan victims of colonial torture.

A string of bombings rocked Somalia's port of Kismayo Oct. 3, killing two civilians and injuring many more—five days after the city was taken from al-Shabaab rebels by a combined force of African Union and Somali government troops. The taking of the city followed a two-month siege, culminating in a Kenyan-led amphibious assault, dubbed Operation Sledgehammer. Al-Shabaab leader Abdiaziz Abu Musab stated that his agents had carried out the bombings, boasting that they would continue their fight "until doomsday." He called the withdrawal from Kismayo a "tactical retreat." Kismayo was the last city controlled by al-Shaabaab, but the group and allied Islamist militias still control a broad swath of Somalia's south. The official government has achieved a shaky control over Mogadishu, but the rest of the country (outside the autonomous Somaliland and Puntland regions in the north) is controlled by local militia—some backed by Kenyan or Ethiopian forces, some nominally loyal to the government, and more aligned with al-Shabaab. (Mareeg, Garowe Online, Oct. 3; PRI, Sept. 26)

We are heartened to learn that President Obama is staying away from the funeral of Ethiopia's late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose death was announced last week, instead sending a comparatively low-level delegation led by the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. (Nazret, Sept. 2) This may indicate a long-overdue distancing of Washington from Meles' odious regime, which we fear may change little with his passing. Meles, who ruled (either as president or prime minister) since 1991, made himself very useful to Washington, "renditioning" terror suspects for brutal "interrogations" in his prisons, and even now providing a military proxy force in Somalia. After Ethiopia invaded Somalia in 2006 (with a US "green light," and probably military advisors), Meles' forces were shortly accused of war crimes by international human rights groups. (NYT, Aug. 16, 2007) Yet this now gets virtually no play in the overwhelmingly and sickeningly favorable media coverage of his legacy—contrary to Julius Ceasar, the evil Meles did is being interred with his bones.

Another one to file under "Orwell would shit." From BBC News, Aug. 30:

Workers arrested at South Africa's Marikana mine have been charged in court with the murder of 34 of their colleagues shot by police.

A judge for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Aug. 28 awarded $21 million to seven Somalis in a lawsuit against former Somali prime minister  Mohamed Ali Samantar. The lawsuit, which started in 2004 and made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, alleges Samantar was responsible for the killing and torture of members of the Isaaq clan in Somalia throughout the 1980s under former dictator Siad Barre. The Somalis bringing the lawsuit, some of whom fled to the US and some of whom stayed in Somalia, were represented by the Center for Justice and Accountability. They claim to have been subjected to torture or potential executions at the hands of the Barre regime and brought the lawsuit under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991. The judgement included $2 million in punitive damages and $1 million in compensatory damages to the individual plaintiffs. Samantar's lawyers say they will appeal the ruling. The question of whether Samantar was improperly denied immunity is already on appeal.

The African Union is calling for a speedy investigation into the ethnic violence in southeast Kenya's Tana River District (Coast province) that has so far claimed 50 lives. The outbreak began Aug. 22, when some 100 members of the Pokomo people raided Reketa village, inhabited by members of the Orma group. Among those hacked to death were 31 women, 11 children and eight men. The attack was apparently prompted when members of the pastoral Orma strayed into lands claimed by Pokomo farmers. While Pokomo accuse the Orma of allowing livestock to encroach onto their farms and destroy their crops, the Orma complain that Pokomo farmlands encroach on their traditional grazing lands on the banks of the Tana River, and prevent herders from using the river to water their cattle. (Xinhua, Capital FM, Nairobi, via AllAfrica, The Star, Nairobi, Aug. 23; CBC, IRIN, Aug. 22)

Even as a measure of stability at last comes to Mogadishu, a push by UN-backed African Union troops on the last bastion of Somalia's al-Shabab insurgency has already added to the country's civilian casualties, and there are fears that more may lie ahead as air, ground and naval operations in the strategic city escalate. The latest, and most senior, person to raise the alarm over the actions of the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF), which officially operate under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), was UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden. "I am deeply concerned by recent reports of civilian casualties in Kismayo caused by naval gunfire and airstrikes," Bowden said in a statement issued on Aug. 14. "As fighting for control of the town appears imminent, I reiterate my call for all parties to the conflict to make every effort to minimize the impact of conflict on civilians and to allow full humanitarian access to all people in need," he said.

The International Criminal Court on Aug. 17 received requests to investigate Rwandan President Paul Kagame for backing armed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Rwandan and Congolese advocacy groups opposed to Kagame's rule have alleged that the Rwandan leader is guilty of war crimes for helping to create and arm rebel groups in eastern DRC including M23, which has been conducting a mutiny in North Kivu province under the leadership of a particularly notorious group of human rights violators. The calls for an ICC investigation follow the release of a UN report last month detailing investigations since late 2011 that revealed substantial evidence that the Rwandan government helped create the rebel groups and supplied them with weapons, armor and recruits, including children. In June UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay estimated that the armed conflict between the DRC government and the M23 movement has displaced around 218,000 people from their homes since April, specifically mentioning five M23 leaders and describing them as the "worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the DRC, or in the world for that matter."