Operation Legacy: When Britain burned the paper trail of its imperial crimes

Britain tries to maintain the myth that it was more benign than other imperial powers. It managed this largely by hiding the evidence of what it did.

It could claim that there had been no “elimination” of political enemies by British forces in Malaya or torture at concentration camps in Kenya because there were no records.

The project to fillet the records as British forces withdrew was known as Operation Legacy. In most colonies a three person committee was set up to oversee the process.

What was not clear until the latest release of documents was the degree to which documents were burned rather than hidden in secret archives.

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