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Books on
Rebellion in Kenya
Histories of the Hanged /
Imperial Reckoning
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Lynched Mau Mau Leader Dedan Kimathi
Honored with Statue in Nairobi -- His
Remains Have Yet To Be Found By Stephen Millies Field Marshal Dedan
Kimathi was executed on Feb. 18, 1957, by the British
occupiers of Kenya. Being captured with a loaded
revolver was enough to send this freedom fighter to the
gallows. Kimathi was hanged because he was a leader of
Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, demonized by the media as
the “Mau Mau.”
According to David
Anderson’s
Histories of the Hanged1,090 Africans were
hanged in the 1950s by Britain’s colonial regime in
Kenya. Just for supplying food to guerilla
fighters—labeled “consorting”—the colonialists sent 207
people to their deaths.
In her Pulitzer
Prize winning book
Imperial Reckoning Caroline
Elkins estimated that 300,000 Kenyans were thrown into
concentration camps.
Elkins and her
assistant Ms. Terry Wairimu, a researcher at the Kenyan
National Archives, interviewed 300 survivors. They heard
how Alsatian dogs mauled women inmates at the Athi River
camp and guards clubbed prisoners arriving at the
Manyani camp.
Six hundred
children were confined in Kamati camp alone. Almost none
survived. “Hard Core Mau Mau” supporters were selected
to bury the children. “They would be tied in bundles of
six babies,” recalled former inmate Helen Macharia. . .
. Over a million Kikuyu people were forced into 800
“emergency villages” built with their own slave labor. .
. .
Stealing the
land
In 1895, British
Queen Victoria declared a “protectorate” over Kenya and
Uganda. A few British settlers stole the best land. One
named Lord Delamere grabbed 160,000 acres.
Troops wielding
machine guns forced Africans into “native reserves” that
were modeled on U.S. Indian reservations. As in South
Africa under apartheid, Africans were forced to carry a
pass, known in Kenya as a “kipande.”
“We have stolen his
land,” declared the British explorer and land-grabber
Colonel Grogan. “Now it is time to steal his limbs.” The
colonial regime enforced compulsory labor from African
women and men. Ten thousand workers, many from India,
were killed or maimed building a 582-mile long railroad
from Mombasa to Lake Victoria.
“Illiterates with
the right attitude to manual labor are preferable to
products of the schools” declared a 1949 report written
by Anglican Bishop Leonard Beecher. Three high schools
at the time annually admitted 100 African students.
The average yearly
wage of 385,000 African workers in 1948 was $73. . . .
Kenyan
revolutionaries made preparations for armed struggle
against the oppressive colonial rule. Kenya’s colonial
Governor Evelyn Baring responded by declaring a state of
emergency on Oct. 20, 1952. The governor’s family
controlled Barings Bank, founded in 1762 by the slave
trader Francis Baring. . . .
Mau Mau fighters
stole weapons and ammunition. Blacksmiths made hundreds
of guns. Britain mobilized 55,000 soldiers and cops to
fight the Mau Mau. The Royal Air Force bombed guerrilla
strongholds in Aberdares Forest and Kirinyaga.
A posse led by Ian
Henderson finally captured Field Marshal Kimathi on Oct.
21, 1956. A notorious torturer of Mau Mau suspects,
Henderson’s cruelty couldn’t stop the revolution. Twenty
thousand Mau Mau guerrillas didn’t die in vain. Kenya
declared its independence on Dec. 12, 1963.
Africa remembers
its heroes. Kimathi’s execution is commemorated and
streets are named in his honor. A statue of Dedan
Kimathi was unveiled in Nairobi on Dec. 11, 2006.
In October 2006,
Mau Mau veterans filed a suit against the British
government for reparations, charging it with systematic
torture of Kenyan freedom fighters during the struggle
for independence. The fallen and wounded “Mau Mau” are
being avenged in Iraq and wherever else people are
fighting against imperialist occupation for land and
freedom.
Source: Stephen
Millies, "Kenyans honor liberation hero Dedan Kimathi."
Workers
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Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi Waciuri
was the head of the Mau Mau, a militant group that waged
a guerrilla war against the British colonial government
in Kenya. Kenya's independence from British rule is
largely attributed to the spirited fight the Mau Mau put
up under the stewardship of Dedan Kimathi. The Mau Mau
began as the Land and Freedom Army, a militant Kikuyu
army out to reclaim their land that had been stripped
from them by the colonialists. As its influence and
membership widened it became a major threat to the
colonialists.
The Mau Mau movement sprung from
Central Kenya, home of the populous Kikuyu community.
The movement, even though heavily Kikuyu, enjoyed
nationwide support as it forced the colonialists to pay
attention to Kenyan demands. The Mau Mau was outlawed in
1952, amid rising tensions in the Kenya political scene.
The banning also saw a massive round-up of Kenyan
political leaders, including Kenya's first President,
Jomo Kenyatta.
On February 18, 1957, Dedan Kimathi
was executed by the colonialists at the notorious Kamiti
Maximum Prison, where his remains are still believed to
be buried in an unmarked grave. This has been a very
contentious issue among Kenyans, and indeed other
prominent African nationalists like President Nelson
Mandela, who believe that Kimathi is a legendary figure
and should be accorded a state burial with full rights.
Such requests have fallen on deaf ears for reasons
nobody can/or will ever comprehend. In fact, on
President Mandela's last visit to Kenya in 1990, he
almost caused a major embarrassment to President Moi's
administration when he inquired about the whereabouts of
Kimathi's widow.
Source:
Kenya740--Dedan
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Dedan Kimathi was
born on October 31, 1920 in Tetu location in the North
Tetu Division of Nyeri District. He used the surname of
Wachiuri, his mother’s former husband who had died some
years before his birth. Wachiuri had three wives and so
it was a large family. Kimathi had two brothers (Wambararia
and Wagura) and two sisters.
There are many
stories about his legendary pranks as a child but it is
impossible to say how many are true and how many are
mythical and have grown with the legend. At the age of
fifteen he became a pupil at Karunaini Primary School in
Tetu and excelled at English and poetry.
To raise money for
his school fees he established a small night class
where, every evening, he taught other youngsters
whatever he had learnt during the day. In exchange he
took money or paraffin or soap, which he then sold at
Ihururu Market.
Three years later
he became a pupil at a more advanced school, Wandumbi,
on the Tetu/Thegenge borders. This time the fees came
from the seeds of Grevillia Robusta which he collected
in the Aberdares and for which the Forestry Department
was paying a cent a tin.
On September 17,
1938 he was circumcised at the Ihururu Dispensary. In
1939 he got his kipande from the DC’s office and got his
first job with the Forestry Department. Leaving there
under a cloud he met and impressed a teacher called
Eliud Mugo from Mathira Division. Eliud, blind in one
eye and later to become a notoriously oppressive Chief
in lriaini Location during the Emergency, arranged for
Kimathi to enroll at the Tumutumu CSM School. He stayed
there for two years, save for a three-month break in
1941 when he joined the army. He finally left Tumutumu
in February 1944, being unable to pay fees arrears.
Over the next five
years he tried different ways of earning a living,
becoming a school teacher, a clerk with first a dairy
and then a timber firm, and a trader. In January 1949 he
got a job, but not for long, as a teacher at his old
school Karinaini.
But wherever he
went and whatever he did Kimathi became a welcome and
popular figure with his fellow Kikuyus on his travels.
He had a powerful and attractive personality and he
began to involve himself in the politics of the day, and
also of the night.
Initially he was
just one of the stewards at the mass rallies held by
Kenyatta and other politicians. However, he speedily
graduated and became the chief organiser. He was elected
secretary of the Ol Kalou and Thomson’s Falls branch of
the Kenya African Union (KAU) on June 2, 1952. It is
widely accepted that he was already planning a more
proactive and aggressive strategy than the Muhimu
Central Committee with whom he had long forged links.
Four months later
he was involved in organising a mass oathing ceremony on
the banks of the Gura River, which was attended by
thousands of Kikuyus. Nderi Wang’ombe, the Nyeri
District Senior Chief, got wind of what was happening.
Fatally, Nderi decided to intervene and he was killed by
the frenzied crowd. Kimathi became a marked man and
shortly afterwards he was arrested by Chief Muhoya’s
Tribal Police at a friend’s house.
At the Chief’s
Camp, he did a deal with the guards and disappeared in
the night to the Aberdares. He was now 32 years old and
entering the most important four years of his life.
By the end of it he
had been, at the least, a crucial factor in forcing the
British Government to reassert its right to dictate the
pace of constitutional change in Kenya. British Colonial
Secretaries henceforth used this right rapidly too
dismantle the white settlers’ political power in Kenya,
some more ruthlessly than others.
Source: "The making
of a freedom hero." Sunday Standard, Kenya, 17th Feb.
2002 (Misterseed)
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Dedan Kimathi
(October 31, 1920 – February 18, 1957) was . . . . born
in Thenge Village Tetu division, Nyeri District. At the
age of fifteen, he joined the local primary school,
Karuna-ini, where he perfected his English skills. He
would later use those language skills to write
extensively before and during the uprising. He was a
Debate Club member in his school. He was deeply
religious and carried a Bible regularly. He worked for
the forest department collecting tree seeds to help him
foot his school bill. He later joined Tumutumu CSM
School for his secondary learning, but dropped out for
lack of funds. . . . Notable was his enlisting with the
army to fight in the Second World War in 1941. However,
in 1944, he was expelled for misconduct. In 1946, he
became a member of the Kenya African Union.
In 1949, he started
teaching at his old school, but left the job within two
years. . . . He became radically political in 1950. He
involved himself with the Mau Mau, and later that year
administered the oath of the Mau Mau, making him a
marked man. He joined Forty Group, the militant wing of
the defunct Kikuyu Central Association in 1951. He was
elected as a local branch secretary of KAU in Ol' Kalou
and Thomson's Falls area in 1952. He was briefly
arrested in that same year, but escaped with the help of
local police. This marked the beginning of his violent
uprising. He formed Kenya Defence Council to co-ordinate
all forest fighters in 1953.
In 1956, he was
finally arrested with one of his wives, Wambui. He was
sentenced to death by a court presided by Chief Justice
Sir Kenneth O'Connor, while he was in a hospital bed at
the General Hospital Nyeri. In the early morning of
February 18, 1957 he was executed by the colonial
government. Kimathi was buried in a mass grave and to
this day the British government objects to his reburial
as it felt (and continues to feel) that he was a
terrorist. He is, however, viewed by many Kenyans
especially from his tribe as a national hero. Many towns
in Kenya have a building or street named after him.
The play "Trial of Dedan Kimathi"
was written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (the brother of a Mau
Mau member) and provides a detailed account of Kimathi.
Source:
Answers
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Revelations by
contemporaries of Dedan Kimathi, the Kenyan hero who led
the Mau Mau rebellion against the British colonial
regime and was eventually hanged, indicate that his
remains were buried at Nairobi’s Langata Cemetery and
not at the Kamiti Maximum Prison as is widely believed.
He was buried in
his own grave, not in a mass one, as has been assumed
all along, they say.
In the light of
these revelations, it is being asked whether the
government has deliberately kept the public in the dark
about the location of Kimathi’s grave in the face of
persistent demands for the reburial of the remains with
full national honour.
On November 29,
Assistant Minister in the Office of the President
William Ruto told Parliament that the Commissioner of
Prisons "ought to know, by law, where the graves of all
the convicts who have been hanged are."
He was answering a
question by Adolf Muchiri of the Democratic Party
regarding the release of Dedan Kimathi's remains as well
as those of other executed convicts for reburial by
their relatives.
On November 14, a
similar question was asked by the same MP. Assistant
Minister for Home Affairs Wycliff Osundwa answered that
the remains of Dedan Kimathi "will not be released from
Kamiti Maximum Prison," adding that the law prohibited
the exhumation of a prisoner’s body for reburial.
The debate
continues, with the front bench advising the relatives
of Dedan Kimathi and others to petition President Daniel
arap Moi.
Kimathi was hanged
in the early hours of February 18, 1957, after being
tried and convicted under the Emergency Regulations
promulgated by the colonial government.
Chief Justice Sir
Kenneth O’Connor, who presided over the trial of Kimathi,
found the Mau Mau leader guilty of possession of a
revolver and six rounds of ammunition, an offence that
carried a death sentence, and consequently sentenced him
to hang. . . .
Source:
Joseph Karimi,
"Dedan Kimathi was
buried at Lang'ata."
Nation Audio * * *
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* * updated
8 October 2007 |
