KERICHO, Kenya--In a roadside cafe in Kenya's majestic highlands, Elly Sigilai cradled a steaming mug of tea and recalled how 17 relatives died after British colonialists ousted them in 1934 to plant tea on their family land.
The 79-year-old is one of hundreds of elderly Kenyans seeking to sue the British government for alleged displacement and torture by its colonial predecessor, in a case that could encourage other former colonies to press similar claims.
"Those on this list died from malaria and sleeping sickness," said Sigilai, a neatly folded piece of paper in his hand naming the dead in his family, including two brothers and a sister. "They were sent to a valley infested by tsetse flies to die."
Survivors and their descendants hope to win "significant" compensation from Britain's High Court and the return of swathes of land, largely owned by international tea companies, said George Tarus, a legal advisor to the government of Nandi County in Kenya's North Rift region, which is financing the case. "We became beggars in our own land," Sigilai said, removing a faded baseball cap and putting it on the table by his tea.
"We love it," he said of the commodity which is grown in and around Kericho, 260 kms (162 miles) northwest of Kenya's capital. "But it has brought a lot of misery to my community."
Around 200 people have already come forward with evidence to support the case, Tarus said. "All land within Nandi belongs to the county and we want it all to be given back to us," he said.
Kenya's 47 counties manage leaseholds on their land. A British foreign office spokeswoman declined to comment on the legal proceedings.
The case could be politically important for millions of voters ahead of Kenya's elections in August, with some politicians already starting to stoke tensions over land. More than 1,200 Kenyans were killed following a disputed 2007 poll, largely in the Rift Valley where resentment over the loss of land during the colonial era still festers. Much of the land vacated when the British left Kenya in 1963 after 43 years was sold to the political elite who could afford to buy it, rather than returned to its original owners.
Kenya was one of Britain's most important colonies with hundreds of settlers moving into the best agricultural land to grow tea, coffee and tobacco, forcing Africans into reserves and employing them as cooks, guards and gardeners. The British displaced hundreds of Nandi and Kipsigis families - sub-tribes of Kenya's third largest ethnic group, the Kalenjin - from the Rift Valley highlands for tea plantations.
"They have to pay for what they did to us," said Moses Mosonet, 83, a Nandi, his eyes coated with a milky veneer.
