rewards 30 years on
David Gough from Nairobi
As Kenya prepares to celebrate 35 years of independence next week, veterans of the guerrilla army who fought a brutal campaign against British colonial rule say that they have been rewarded with nothing but poverty and hardship, and have nothing to celebrate.
Hundreds of survivors of the Mau Mau Land Freedom Army, formed in the early 1950s to agitate for an end to white rule, complain that land reclaimed from white settlers and promised to the fighters by the leaders of the independence movement as a reward for their part in the struggle, was never delivered.
Former freedom fighter Nyaga Muriati (88) lives a life of extreme poverty on a small farm. “I gave everything to make this country free,” he said. “But what has this country given me since it became free?”
Muriati formed a circle by joining his thumb and forefinger together and lifted it towards the sky. “Nothing, my dear son,” he said in answer to his own question. “I have received nothing.”
A veteran of World War II, Muriati fought with the British in North Africa and in Burma. Five years after he left the army, the Mau Mau uprising began and he signed up to train volunteers. In 1954 he was arrested for his part in the uprising and spent four years in a detention camp.
“When I left the British Army, they gave me money and land, but after independence and despite the land we were promised, I was given nothing,” said Muriati.
“Whatever I have now is through my own hard work. When I look around me and see how Kenya is today, full of greed and corruption, I ask myself, `Is this what we fought for?'”
Ill-equipped to take on the might of the colonial forces, Mau Mau strategy was designed to intimidate white settlers and their African dependants, the latter bearing the brunt of the frequent raids the Mau Mau launched from their forest hide-outs.
Between 1952 and 1956, when the rebellion was at its peak, thousands of Africans considered sympathetic to British rule were brutally murdered. Suspected collaborators were decapitated and nailed to a tree, with messages of warning pinned to the headless corpses.
“It’s true that we were very violent. We killed thousands like that – sometimes we wiped out whole villages,” said Kahiu Itina, a former Mau Mau general and a member of Kenya’s largest Kikuyu tribe which made up the vast majority of volunteers in the rag-tag guerrilla army.
Only 32 white settlers were killed in five years, but the uprising spread panic among the settler community and did much to hasten the end of colonial rule.
According to surviving members of Kenya’s first government after independence, led by President Jomo Kenyatta, himself a Kikuyu, Mau Mau were not given land for fear that it would be perceived as tribal bias.
“There are more than 30 tribes in Kenya and the unity of Kenya was our foremost priority,” said Duncan Ndegwa, Kenyatta’s Cabinet secretary. “Kenyatta’s concern was that rewarding the Mau Mau would be seen as Kikuyus rewarding themselves.”
Jacob Njagi and his brother Josephat Mugo still sport the trademark Mau Mau dreadlocks, uncut for 46 years and now about 6m long. They live on a 2ha plot of land in Gicheche village. Wearing sandals made from old car tyres and trousers that have been repeatedly patched, they spend their time tending cattle.
When Kenya finally won independence in 1963, the brothers emerged from 11 years in the forest to be received as heroes by a new nation appreciative of the Mau Mau’s sacrifices and forgiving of its brutal excesses.
“Our status as heroes was short-lived,” said Mugo.
“We suffered terribly during the 11 years we spent in the forest. We slept in trees, wore clothes made from animal skins and never had enough to eat,” added Njagi. “When we were in the forest our leaders promised that we would receive the fruits of our sacrifice. We thought that an African government would solve our problems but we were wrong.”
Following independence, streets, airports, schools and stadiums were renamed after Kenya’s new leaders, but not a single monument stands to the Mau Mau. “We are pained by our poverty and the broken promises, but the greatest insult of all is that we are ignored,” said Mugo.