Ex-colonies use British

legacy to stifle dissent

The Empire's apparatus of oppression is still in place - and in action

 RAYMOND WHITAKER
 Saturday 22 July 1995 23:02 BST
The Independent Online
WHAT do the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, the Kenyan dissident Koigi
wa Wamwere, innumerable Palestinians and the Governor of Hong Kong
have in common?
They have all discovered how many draconian powers Britain
has bequeathed to its former colonies.

The rule of law, Westminster-style democracy and strict

standards in public life are often seen as among the important
legacies of the British Empire. But across the world regulations
drawn up by past colonial administrators are still being used,
sometimes decades after independence, to prosecute government
opponents, detain them without trial, prohibit demonstrations
and shut down newspapers.

Earlier this month Koigi wa Wamwere called for a repeal of

Kenyan colonial- era laws, which he said were used to block
democracy. The former MP, who faces the death sentence if he
is found guilty of taking part in an armed raid on a police station
in 1993, said vague statutes such as the Chiefs' Authority Act
and the Public Order Act allowed the government to define what
constituted a threat to state security and public order.
"Government should not use the law to punish critics," he said.

In Palestine as in Kenya, Britain drew up emergency laws which

were made all the more drastic by the intensity of the
independence struggle. The system of administrative detentions
created in the 1940s is still routinely used in Israel's occupied
territories. "Israel has two systems of law - one for Israelis and
one for the Palestinians. The latter is based on the British
emergency regulations," said one expert. "This is felt to lend it
respectability."

Although many governments have extended the powers they

inherited, the framework of laws governing security, public
order and the declaration of a state of emergency remains
recognisably British in most of the 51 Commonwealth nations.
Peter Slinn, a constitutional lawyer at London University's
School of Oriental and African Studies, said independence
constitutions nearly always preserved all existing laws and
ordinances, no matter how arbitrarily they had come into
existence.
"It is very popular in certain circles to say the former colonies
were all given democracy and turned into dictatorships," said Dr
Slinn, "but colonial administrations were very authoritarian,
with no check on their powers apart from rather tenuous
legislative supervision at home." When Lord Soames was sent to
Zimbabwe in December 1979 to prepare the country for
independence, his first act was to legitimise all the laws passed
by the rebel Smith regime, including the notorious Law and
Order Maintenance Act. Since independence the same law has
been used by President Robert Mugabe against his opponents.

In Zambia, a state of emergency was declared shortly before

independence in 1964. It remained in force for another 27 years
as Kenneth Kaunda used his inherited powers to suppress
opposition. When he finally held an election, he lost.

Because of its historical role, Britain has been at a disadvantage

when complaining about human rights abuses in many parts of
the world. Indira Gandhi was quick to point out that the powers
she used to declare emergency rule in India in 1975 dated from
the Raj. When Ms Nasrin's attacks on hidebound Islamic society
outraged Muslim fundamentalists, the Bangladeshi government
charged her under a colonial-era law with "offending religious
feelings".
In Pakistan, the authorities have made virtually no changes to
the administrative system set up by the British to deal with the
wild tribes of the North- west frontier. Instead of attempting to
impose an alien legal system on the tribesmen, the Raj gave
local officials almost unlimited discretionary powers. These
remain in force, as a Pakistani journalist discovered a couple of
years ago. A local district commissioner jailed him under a
regulation entitling him to hold a suspect for life. It took a
political uproar in Islamabad before the government ordered the
journalist's release.

Peter Lyon, of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at London

University, said that although Malaysia and Singapore were
vociferous in keeping Western values at bay, both countries had
made extensive use of the more authoritarian side of their
colonial legacy, in the form of emergency powers.

"Once a former colony becomes independent," said Dr Lyon, "it

is up to the state how much to preserve. It is no longer
convincing to blame the former colonial power for abuses."

In Hong Kong, with less than two years to go before the

handover to China, Chris Patten's administration is hastily
scrapping potentially oppressive legislation. Emergency
regulations brought in during the riots of the 1960s are to be
abolished, along with about 30 other laws. The Chinese want the
colony to preserve its all-encompassing Official Secrets Act, but
it is being replaced with a more liberal information regime.

Hong Kong's statute book will remain full of loopholes which

could be exploited by the Chinese, according to one liberal
critic. While petty restrictions on demonstrations have been
lifted, permission is still required to hold large protests, "and the
largest demonstrations in Hong Kong in recent years have been
to commemorate the Tiananmen massacre". Britain is also
refusing to touch the Independent Commission Against
Corruption, which has powers to intercept mail and telephone
calls, stage raids and hold suspects for longer than other
agencies. "Just imagine what the Chinese could do with it," said
the critic.

"Hong Kong people trust the British to be fair, despite all kinds
of draconian statutes on the books. They don't trust the Chinese
to behave the same way."

When Britain lost the will to enforce authoritarian coloniallaws,

the age of Empire came to an end. Unhappily for its former
subjects, many of its successors seem determined to keep its
worst aspects alive.