British were terrorists

DEAR EDITOR — The letter by Pauline Morris (Anglo-Boer war myth, Letters, October 1), refers.

It is indeed necessary to debate issues concerning the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer War.

My grandparents were in the Bethulie and Aliwal North camps as children, and they could never shake off the horror that they experienced. They went from healthy homes with everything they needed to situations of star- vation and extreme thirst (children were sometimes deprived of water for a full day).

Their suffering motivated me to translate the stories of some of the survivors of those camps. I also point out how the children experienced the symptoms due to lack of food when they would slowly starve to death. I called the book British Terrorism against Boer Civilians, because the actions of the British soldiers meet the criteria for terrorism.

The symptoms of fear and starva- tion are discussed, as well as the psyche of the soldiers that would, for example, force children to sleep in the mud or deny women the use of toilets. Years spent in the Middle East enabled me to show the difference between the actions of the US in building up Middle East societies after the discovery of oil, versus the ways in which Britain destroyed the Boer republics by means of the concentration camps.

The movie, Die Wonderwerker, points out that some people “were never the same again”; that some parents were too traumatised to look after their children, and had to farm them out to strangers. With more research in epigenetics, possible damage to future generations should also be considered. I would suggest descendants of survivors of those camps be consulted, before it is too late.

It is indeed time to discuss the damage the camps did to the psyche of the Boer people. But, I would urge Ms Morris to visit the camps, and to talk to us — not to strangers who had no family in those camps.