MAU MAU OATH CEREMONY

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27410, 24 July 1954, Page 7

MAU MAU OATH CEREMONY

AFRICANS ARRESTED AT AIRPORT

(Rec. 7.30 p.m.) NAIROBI, July 22. Royal Air Force police today arrested 16 Africans whom they surprised at a Mau Mau oath-taking ceremony at Nairobi’s main civil airport. The police were patrolling, the perimeter of the airfield when they heard rustling noises from some bushes. They approached cautiously and saw the ceremony in progress in a clearing. Sixteen natives were captured, but the police said probably the same number got* away. The patrol found Mau Mau oath-taking paraphernalia. A message from London says that the Colonial Secretary (Mr Oliver Lyttelton) said in the House of Commons tonight that the Mau Mau terrorism in Kenya was now well under contr<*‘l cannot say when the shooting war will end, but we are right on top of this problem,” he said. Meanwhile, the Government was pushing on with development all over Kenya and among the great majority of the population not affected by the Mau Mau. . . Mr Lyttelton, who was speaking in the debate on Kenya initiated by the Opposition, said he was heartened by the beginning made by the new Council of Ministers and the new constitutional arrangements. Every day that passed knitted the multi-racial Government closer together, he said.