Kitchener's contribution to racial hatred

Experts are agreed on the fact that Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Commanding in Chief of the British forces during the Anglo Boer War and the person responsible for concentration camps, contributed greatly to the racial hatred which caused immense divisions in South Africa.

A BBC documentary programme revealed that he told blatant lies over scandalous practices during the war.

The programme Kitchener, the Empire's Flawed Hero which formed part of a BBC series titled Reputations, attracted much attention over hints that Kitchener had homosexual tendencies.

A preview revealed that the speculations were based on the fact that he had never married, appointed unmarried men as his batsmen or grooms and that he collected porcelain and made flower arrangements.

He was also partial to interior decoration and liked making table arrangements, a refined art during the Victorian era. However, historians taking part in the programme pointed out that there was no evidence for these conjectures.

They point to the dualities in his character possibly originating from his sadistic father and gentle mother and that these qualities were similarly reflected in his own life. Sir Thomas Pakenham refers to a tame swallow Kitchener cosseted. When the swallow escaped, Kitchener is said to have found this more upsetting than anything else which happened during the war.

Pakenham pointed to the latest South African research which suggest that as many as 30 000 blacks had been detained in British concentration camps and that Kitchener used them as labourers - his attitude reflected in his words: "Let the kaffirs do the rest."

Pakenham maintains that conditions in black concentration camps were even worse than those in white camps which claimed the lives of 26 000 women and children, also revealing the shocking fact that they received no rations.

Until Kitchener resorted to the practice, it had been an unwritten agreement that nobody would involve blacks or coloured people in the war - that it was a white man's war - Pakenham contends.

The late Judge M T Steyn refers to him in the programme as a man who had claws instead of nails, and author Dot Serfontein said his decision to arm blacks had fomented racial hatred.