Around 1,000 files have disappeared while ‘on loan’ to the government. This sort of accident is happening too often for comfort
Members of the Devon Regiment help police search homes in Karoibangi during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
The National Archives are home to more than 11m documents, many of them covering the most disturbing periods of Britain’s colonial past. The uncomfortable truths revealed in previously classified government files have proved invaluable to those seeking to understand this country’s history or to expose past injustices.
It is deeply concerning, therefore, to discover that about 1,000 files have gone missing after being removed by civil servants. Officially, the archives describe them as “misplaced while on loan to a government department”.
The files, each containing dozens of pages, cover subjects such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the British colonial administration in Palestine, tests on polio vaccines and territorial disputes between the UK and Argentina. It is unclear whether duplicates exist.
Continue reading
It is definitely not just files about the UK’s colonial past that are missing but these are very concerning. History is written by the victors but we now have the means of telling the truth – as long as the files exist in the place they are supposed to be.
No comments:
Post a Comment