Adityagoel at 21:34, 5 April 2026

2026-04-05T21:34:29Z

New page

{{Short description|Kenyan lawyer and politician (1929–2020)}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{COI|date=June 2024}}
{{No footnotes|date=June 2024}}
}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Fitz de Souza
| image =
| caption =
| birth_name = Fitzval Remedios Santana Neville de Souza
| birth_date = 1929
| birth_place = [[Bombay]], [[British India]]
| death_place = [[London]], England
| alma_mater = [[London School of Economics]] ([[Ph.D.]])
| death_date = {{dda|2020|3|23|1929|df=y}}
| occupation = {{hlist|Lawyer|politician}}
| relatives = [[Aisha de Sequeira]] (daughter-in-law)
| children = 2, including [[Roy de Souza|Roy]]
}}

'''Fitzval Remedios Santana Neville de Souza''' (1929 – 23 March 2020),<ref name=":0">{{cite web|last=Fernandes|first=Cyprian|date=29 March 2020|title=RIP Dr Fitzval de Souza|url=https://www.heraldgoa.in/Review/RIP-Dr-Fitzval-de-Souza-/158757|access-date=19 October 2020|website=[[OHeraldo]]}}</ref> better known as '''F.R.S. de Souza''' or '''Fitz de Souza''', was a Kenyan lawyer and politician who was an important figure in the campaign for independence for [[Kenya]], a member of the Kenyan parliament in the 1960s and [[Deputy Speaker]] for several years. He helped provide a legal defence for those accused of [[Mau Mau rebellion|Mau Mau]] activities including the [[Kapenguria Six]], and he was one of the people involved in the [[Lancaster House Conferences (Kenya)|Lancaster House conference]]s held to draw up a constitutional framework for Kenyan independence.

==Early life==
{{Moresources | section|date=February 2024}}
Born to a [[Goa]]n family in [[Bombay]], de Souza lived in [[Zanzibar]] before settling in Kenya in 1942. Fitz de Souza took a first degree in England and trained as a [[barrister]] at [[Lincoln's Inn]].
As a young man in 1952 he joined a team of lawyers from various [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] countries, including the British barrister [[Denis Nowell Pritt]] and other lawyers educated in England but not born there, defending Kenyans accused of [[Mau Mau rebellion|Mau Mau]] activities by the British colonial administration, in a series of trials including that of [[Jomo Kenyatta]].

==Life in Kenya==
Feelings in the country were running high, with some settlers of European ancestry disrupting any legal process for people they considered assassins, while other people in Kenya were convinced of bad faith amongst those involved in the all-white British prosecution. In this atmosphere, de Souza and an [[Asian people|Asian]] colleague faced implied allegations of 'encouraging' defendants to criticise police witnesses, but judges at the [[East African Court of Appeal]] supported them, praising their assistance to the court.

For part of the 1950s, Fitz de Souza was studying for a PhD at the [[London School of Economics]] and was politically active both there and in Kenya. His doctoral thesis was on "Indian Political Organization in East Africa" (1959). He knew Kenyatta and was a major figure in the movement towards an independent Kenya. He has been described during this period both as a "freedom fighter"<ref>[http://meaindia.nic.in/pressbriefing/2004/01/08pb01.htm Press Briefing by Indian Ministry for External Affairs]</ref> and as someone "organiz[ing] Africans and Asians against the colour bar".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://moia.gov.in/shared/sublinkimages/432.htm |title=Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs biographical sketch |access-date=26 July 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060522054908/http://moia.gov.in/shared/sublinkimages/432.htm |archive-date=22 May 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In the early 1960s he was a legal adviser at the Lancaster House conferences in London where Kenyatta and the Kenyans worked with the UK [[Secretary of State for the Colonies|Colonial Secretary]], [[Reginald Maudling]], and his team to develop a constitution for the country. In 2001, de Souza told the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission why he felt the Lancaster House Constitution had been a good constitutional framework, and expressed his disagreement with some subsequent changes, especially the re-introduction of detention without trial. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has described him as making "a principled exit from public life in the 70s".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://moia.gov.in/shared/sublinkimages/432.htm |title=MOIA biographical sketch |access-date=26 July 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060522054908/http://moia.gov.in/shared/sublinkimages/432.htm |archive-date=22 May 2006 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

De Souza was an elected member of the Kenyan Parliament even before full independence in 1963, and Deputy Speaker of the Lower House from June 1963. He left this post in 1970, spent many years in private practice, before becoming semi-retired. He was married with four grown-up children.

In 2004, he was given a ''Pravasi Bharatiya Samman'' award alongside other people honoured for their "outstanding contribution to the understanding of the Indian civilisation and for advancing India's cause abroad"<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040118213028/http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/09/stories/2004010904691100.htm ''The Hindu'' online edition], 8 January 2004.</ref> at a conference opened by the Indian prime minister and organised with the aim of "bringing together the Indian [[Diaspora]] and leveraging the potential offered by the Global Indian Family".<ref>[http://www.indemb.no/IndianEmbassy/IEpionorway.html News story] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716032505/http://www.indemb.no/IndianEmbassy/IEpionorway.html |date=16 July 2006 }}, indemb.no. Accessed 28 February 2024.</ref>

2005 brought a different kind of publicity when a [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning book written by [[Caroline Elkins]], an associate professor at [[Harvard]], quoted a "respected attorney in [[Nairobi]]",<ref>Elkins, p. 87</ref> de Souza, as believing that at least one hundred thousand [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]] disappeared at the time of Mau Mau, in "a form of ethnic cleansing on the part of the British government".<ref>Elkins, page 89</ref> These figures have been challenged by John Darwin, a fellow of [[Nuffield College, Oxford|Nuffield College]], and lecturer on the History of the British Commonwealth at the [[University of Oxford]].<ref>''The Times Higher Education Supplement'', 30 September 2005.</ref>

In December 2006, Commissioner for Non-Resident Indian affairs (Government of Goa) Eduardo Faleiro announced that de Souza would be one of the eight persons to be honoured during the Global Goans Convention. It was held from 3–5 January 2007. The awards, for the first time, were being given to "eminent non-resident Goans and persons of Goan origin."

==Personal life==
De Souza and his wife Romola had two sons (including cancer researcher [[Roy de Souza]]) and two daughters. He died on 23 March 2020 in London.<ref name=":0" />

==References==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060414161046/http://www.parliament.go.ke/history.php History of the Parliament of Kenya]
*Caroline Elkins, ''[[Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya]]'' (Owl Books, paperback edition, 2005)
*David Anderson, ''Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire'' (2005)
*[http://www.kenyaconstitution.org/docs/03d002.htm FRS de Souza, ''Building on the Lancaster House Experience''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060718181302/http://www.kenyaconstitution.org/docs/03d002.htm |date=18 July 2006 }}: presented to the 'Constitution of Kenya Review Commission Workshop' in September 2001
*[http://coombs.anu.edu.au/Biblio/biblio_sasiadiaspora.html#D Bibliography of the South Asian Diaspora and East Africa]{{Dead link|date=September 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}
<references/>

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Souza, Fitz Remedios Santana de}}
[[Category:1929 births]]
[[Category:2020 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to Kenya]]
[[Category:Kenyan politicians of Indian descent]]
[[Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics]]
[[Category:Kenyan people of Goan descent]]
[[Category:Members of the National Assembly (Kenya)]]
[[Category:Kenyan people of Indian descent]]

Fitz de Souza - Revision history

Adityagoel at 21:34, 5 April 2026