State corruption, the Boer War and “rule 303"

State corruption, the Boer War and “rule 303"

The court-martial of six officers of the Bushveldt Carbineers, if known at all is known for the court-martial of Breaker Morant. A sad case of oligarchy ruling and throwing the “servants” down the well.

Between July and September 1901, a Lieutenant Harry Morant had incited the co-accused, Lts Handcock, Witton and others under his command to murder some twenty people, including the Boer commando Visser, a group of eight Boer POWs, Boer civilian adults and children, and the German missionary Heese. Acquitted of killing Heese, Morant was sentenced to death on the other two charges and executed within days of sentencing. Their death warrants were personally signed by Lord Kitchener.

Now why is that important?

The irregular unit under Morant was carrying out the direct orders of a superior officer the orders of Lord Kitchener himself. The loyal servants of the bloody Queen have for over 100 years continued the suppression of the original trial records, how convenient.

"Was it like this?" fiercely answered Morant. "No; it was not quite so handsome. As to rules and regulations, we had no Red Book, and knew nothing about them. We were out fighting the Boers, not sitting comfortably behind barb-wire entanglements; we got them and shot them under Rule 303,”

- Harry "Breaker” Morant on following Lord Kitchener's order to "take no prisoners”.

Kitchener was the bastard responsible for the first known modern concentration camps and the scorched earth policy, devised to force the Boer commandos to submit. I was not the Germans but the British responsible for the first modern concentration camps (the first to use the term) and civilian executions (ethnic cleansing). The policies are often found to be the modification of the brutal policies of William Tecumseh Sherman, well studied by British Officers.

A commander of Kitchener's lofty position to take the blame for the actions of a few supposed renegade Australians made such an outcome unthinkable for the British. Interesting because later the British would continue to cover for Kitchener's well known incompetence and corruption including fraudulent war supplies purchases from US war profiteers of WWI.

A defense for this was crafted by defense but the British withheld crucial evidence about the "no prisoners” order. The British military also transferred important Army witnesses including Hall out of the country before they could testify. The coverup was so blatant and court martial procedures so seriously flawed that to this day the trial is considered an example of "a kangaroo court” so egregious that Stalin’s Great Purge was necessary to overshadow the corruption. Australian jurist Geoffrey Robertson described the trial as:

"... a particularly pernicious example of using legal proceedings against lower ranks as a means of covering up the guilt of senior officers and of Kitchener himself, who gave or approved their unlawful 'shoot to kill' order”.

The British held thousands of Boer women and children in the first ever concentration camps. The British forced the Boers to surrender as they starved their women and children - only for the Boers to return to their torched farms without many of their murdered family.

The Anglo-Boer Wars could be the most important forgotten example of oppression and fighting for homeland and freedom in existence.

Reports after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers of whom 24,074 were children under 16 had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration camps. Over fifty percent of the Boer child population was killed in the british concentration camps. The death rate for british concentration camp prisoners was near thirty five percent. It was not only the Boer population imprisoned in the camps but a large number of native blacks were also placed into dismal concentration camps with a death ratio of about 12%.