FOR LAND & FREEDOM
It is in the spirit of AFRICA OUR ONE COUNTRY that we paint this portrait of the stalwart Dedan Kimathi.
Born Wachiuri Kimathi on October 31, 1920 and baptized Dedan, he grew up in the Nyeri district of Kenya in a phase where waves of resistance against colonial rule were fast englfing the nation. Dedan Kimathi was executed on Feb 18 1957 by the British colonial authorities for his efforts as the head of the Kenya Land Freedom Army (KLFA) which is referred to as Mau Mau -- the movement that spearheaded the struggle that pushed the hand of England and culminated in the independence of Kenya in 1963.
By the time he'd become an adult, he'd shown remarkable intellectual capabilities and leadership qualities. He'd taught pupils; and worked for Shell, settler Europeans at the 'White Highlands', the Forestry department; and also been self-employed as a dealer in leathers.
After a brief stint in the Colonial army in 1941, he returned to his studies and after a while joined the independence movement. He was soon to become the Secretary of the Thompson Falls branch of the Kenya African Union (KAU). His activism brought him under the scrutiny of the colonial authorities especially when intentions of an armed struggle were not hidden.
A survey of the Nyandarua forest to assess it's suitability as an operational base was carried out by a team which included Kimathi. While they were away, prominent leaders of the KAU were arrested and a State of Emergency was declared in response to the current developments. When he returned, he learnt there was a prize of 500 to 1000 English pounds on his head as he had been implicated in a murder. He was arrested but was helped to escape by a sympethizer. Dedan Kimathi moved to the Nyandarua immediately. More Africans trooped to the forest through the months and indeed couple of years that followed.
The scattered armies fighting for the same cause agreed to blend their efforts as one army under one command. This new movement--the KLFA -- had tens of thousands of members stationed in the cities in the towns, on Mount Kirinyaga (Kenya) and the Nyandarua where Kimathi was based.
Besides keeping up the armed struggle as apressure strategy, he stuck to a program of inspiring and sharpening the focus of his audiences (comprising of warriors, sympathizers, skeptics and enemies) on his tours which also took him not just through the forest and the Kirinyaga camps, but to the towns and cities as well. At the first General Council Meeting in May 1953 where he was elected as the secretary to the World War II veteran, President Stanley Mathenge, the rules of conduct were clarified and Kimathiwith his total understanding of the importance of recorded information, detailed how records were to be kept by the commanders. He kept the minutes of meetings a diary in which he chronicled the day to day issues. Also, he wrote to the colonial authorities, friendly and unfriendly chiefs and had articles published in the newspapers. Part of an October 1953 article of his that was published in the Habiri za Dumia newspaper read '...Poverty can be stopped; but not by bombs and weapons.'
Predictably, the heat had been mounting steadily against the KLFA with heavy bombing raids in the Nyandarua and Kirinyaga, and swoops, forced evacuations and the random arbitrary arrests that come with a state of emergency in the cities. As expected, torture and death were the order of the day when suspected sympathizers and members fell into and death were the order of the day when suspected sympathizers and members fell into the hands of the police, home-guards or government soldiers.
For this reason, more people left the comfort of their homes for the forests and mountains.
When the going got extremely rough with veru little food and supply lines cut-off, plus the traumatic air-raids, many were those who succumbed to the offers of amnesty and 'a better life' by the authorities. This was more than a welcome answer to the colonial authorities' prayers. The KLFA had gotten their adversaries where it hurt the most. Settler business had been significantly disrupted and the government's finances were being unduly overstreached. Gathered intelligence pointed to one person--Dedan Waciuri Kimathi--whose capture or liquidation would mean an end to these troubles. It was acknowledged that it cost about 10,000 English pounds to kill one Mau Mau fighter. A million pounds was spent monthly due to this situation and this amounted in 1952 to a financial surplus of 1.5million pounds being spent on quelling the KFLA uprising. Substantial aid had to be sent in from England as it got more expensive with each passing year.
With the help of the former 'Mau Mau', several KLFA combatants, were captured or killed especially hrough '54, '55 and 1956. Desertions were rife as issues of low morale plagued even the closest associates of Kimathi. A full scale man-hunt for Kimathi was underway as the turncoats combed the Nyandarua accompanied by their European bosses and government forces. Finally, at dawn on Sunday October 21, 1956, he was spotted by a posse of these repented Mau Maus, one of whom got him with at least a bullet in the thigh. Kimathi was taken to the Nyeri Hospital where he was operated upon to have the bullet(s) removed. He was transfered to the Nyeri Prison hospital where he pulled through remarkably quickly. His trial at which he articulated the legitimacy of the cause for which he'd worked started November 11 and was over by the end of the month. A jury of blacks found him guilty; the ludge sentenced him to death. An appeal failed to overturn the verdict and Dedan was hanged at the Nairobi Prison on the 18th of February in the year 1957..
After 1963 when African rule came into effect, many began to appreciate his role in the attainment of self rule. Proposals of building a monument or statue in his honor were tabled in parliament. A decision to exhume his body from the Nairobi Prison and give it a fitting burial was arrived at. A school whose foundation was laid by Kenya's first president has been built.
His writings reveal a psyche that was passionate about the concept of Africa as one country. He wrote:
...Finally we should try to be concerned with and be interested inthe political struggle of the African continent because our lideration struggle is part and parcel of the great struggle of the African people against imperialism. Remember, because we dared to challenge the forces of colonialism with arms, most Africans are inspired by our example; we have their moral and political support.
Though the movement was termed as a Kikuyu organization, he was on a very different wave length. Fighters from the other nations within Kenya operated within the KLFA as one unit towards a single goal.
Accounts about him are of course not without controversy. He is reputed to have been very unforgiving with citizens regardless of ethnicity who sought to foil his efforts. This sent the wrong signal to those who couldn't comprehend the fullness of his vision right away. For this reason, there are many that would him with all that's evil.
Inspired by HAILE SELASSIE's impossible war against Italian invasion, and to some extent the pre-independence efforts of Kwame Nkruma, he forged ahead. But not only did he have to grapple with the problem of a debilitating lack of logistics. He had absolutely no precedent in the context of wrenching political power from a well resourced, entrenched occupier by force of arms. The armed struggles waged later in the Southern African territories however had the KLFA as a reference point.
Why would the 14 volumes of his subsequently translated, captured documents he originally wrote in Gikuyu, Kiswahili and English filed as'The Kimathi Papers' be kept from the public until the year 2013 (as is intended by those who possess them), even though the MI5 and the Public Records Office in London have copies of these documents that reveal the extent of inhumanity inflicted by the British forces on Africans and the whipping they took from the KLFA? Why do they keep from African's the inner thoughts of a true revolutionary son of Africa who really told it like it is?
Wachiuri Kimathi we salute you!!!.
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