History of terrorism Kenyan Government considers the Mau Mau Uprising a key step towards Kenya's independence from British Imperial rule. The British were accused of using torture and mass executions as part of their efforts to suppress the Mau Mau, though the British forces did have strict orders not to mistreat Mau Mau terrorists. Founded in 1961, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) was the military wing of the African National Congress; it waged a guerrilla campaign against the South African apartheid regime and was responsible for many bombings. MK launched its first guerrilla attacks against government installations on 16 December 1961. The South African
Mau Mau Uprising series of major economic, military and penal initiatives. The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers (see "Operation Anvil" below); the enacting of major agrarian reform (the Swynnerton Plan); and the institution of a vast villagisation programme for more than a million rural Kikuyu (see below). In 2012, the UK government accepted that prisoners had suffered "torture and ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration". The harshness of the British response was inflated by two factors. First, the