How George Washington Fleeced the Nation by Phil Mason

Author:Phil Mason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2011-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Britain in Denial

In the face of mounting criticism, the Government maintained that the camps were well run and designed to induce the enemy to surrender. But Parliamentary campaigners produced startling figures. Death rates by July were running at an annual rate of 12 per cent. The allegation, broadly true, that the Government was waging war on women and children was an incendiary one. The Government replied in what to modern ears sounds a familiar lament. The policy had been forced on them by the actions of the guerrillas. They were ultimately responsible for their hardship. Some of the families had been helping the enemy; but others had been abandoned by their men folk. Either way, the argument ran, women and children could not be left out on the veld to starve.

In a House of Commons debate, the Government Minister responsible denied ‘altogether’ that not enough had been done ‘to make these camps sanitary and to preserve human life’. He also denied that conditions were deteriorating. In fact, it was the opposite, ‘so far from going from bad to worse, [conditions] have been steadily ameliorating’.

By August 1901, there were nearly 95,000 housed in camps, and deaths were increasing exponentially – 550 in May, 782 in June, 1,675 in July. By October, the Boer camp population was over 111,000, with deaths running at over 3,000 a month – described as being of ‘plague’ proportions. Expressed as annual rates, this amounted to a 35 per cent death rate for all inmates. But for children, rates were even higher, nearing (and surpassing in Transvaal province) 60 per cent. In the worst camp of all, Mafeking, the October rates represented an annual death rate of 173 per cent. If judged by modern standards, it would be difficult to avoid labels of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

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