#dedankimathi

A martyr to most, and a cannibalistic barbaric terrorist to some. Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi a man who was once Britain’s most feared and revered enemy within the borders of Kenya is still at war with the West even beyond his grave.

Regardless of how you might perceive him and his revolution, one can’t deny that Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi played a key role in Kenya’s liberation and independence as a prominent leader of the Aberdares Mau Mau rebellion. 

The self proclaimed Knight Commander of The African Hemisphere and Lord of the Southern Hemisphere still remains incarcerated in an unidentified grave inside a compound of the Kimati maximum security prison 68 years later after he was executed for treason and atrocious murders.

Born in the Thege Village of the Nyeri district in 1920, Dedan was raised by his mother after his father died before his was born. As young boy he developed a passion for the English language and this transpired in his writing and poetry. In 1940 he joined the British Army set to fight in WW2, but was soon to be dismissed a month later due to drunkenness and misconduct, one would even conclude that this was a deliberate move by him. 

He then went on to take up various other jobs after that, at first he became a farm worker like most of the oppressed Kikuyu people. While working on the farm he accidentally chopped off the middle finger of his left hand with a panga, soon after that he left the farm to pursue other means of living. 

Little is known about what prompted him to join the Mau Mau rebellion aside from being a Kikuyu clansman but some speculate that something transpired while he was a farm worker which triggered hate for the colonialist. In 1947 while working in Ol Kalou as a primary school teacher he befriended members of the Kenya African Union (KAU). In no time Dedan was significantly involved in the organisation and due to the articulation of his vision for his people and assertiveness he won the hearts of his counterparts and in 1950 was elected as the local branch secretary of (KAU) in the region of Ol Kalou, which was under the control of the militant Mau Mau supporters. 

The Mau Mau were a rebellion and secret society of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) a party formed by Kikuyu tribesmen in 1952 to drive out European settlers and the British out of Kenya. The Kikuyu who were the most populous and educated tribe, were once a flourishing tribe before the British colonialists took control of Kenya. Soon after the British confiscated their fertile land and used them as cheap wage laborers, most of the tribe became the poorest people among Kenyan tribes.

The word Mau Mau is said to be an anagram of Uma Uma, which means “Get Out, Get Out!”: and was used as a military secret code by the tribesmen of the (KLFA). When Dedan Kimathi was arrested in 1952 for being vocal about the injustices of the British government he raised the oppressors eyebrows for that was their first of many of encounters with them, however he never served time as he managed to escape through the help of local police, but his records remained in the hands of the British and now they knew exactly who he was.

In 1953 now a prominent figure in KAU and within the Field Marshal Dedan formed a new division within the movement called the Kenya Defense Council (KDC), which marked the beginning of a violent uprising which he and his battalion of Kikuyu forest fighters took to the British. The Mau Mau now became a brute force that went on a bloody rampage to get it’s point across.

This was not the first time the natives of Kenya fought against the British for their land and independence in 1885 the Kikuyu opposition took to the helm but were brutally killed by the British troops who had far more advance weaponry compared to the spears and pangas possessed by the natives.

Then there was the Nandi Resistance that took place between 1895 to 1906 this was a military conflict between the Kalejin of the Nandi tribe and the British, the Nandi was lead by Koitalel Arap Samoei who was later killed by his own army and son for agreeing on truce with the British to end the battle. A lot of other revolts emerged as the struggle for land and independence grew, the Giriama Uprising was also born in 1913 to 1914 and later the Women’s revolt against the forced labor in Murunga followed by the Kallou Affray in 1950. 

The war for Kenya’s independence had been ongoing for decades but the British and other European settlers remained victorious in all encounters, and were yet to face tough resistance from natives. When the Mau Mau started its attacks Dedan Kimathi was now in charge of the initiation rituals and oaths among the rebellion, The rituals were deeply entrenched in the Kikuyu’s initiation rituals. It is said that they would cut the throat of goat and mix its blood with some of the initiate's as well as of the liturgy of 7 whom were also taking the oath and they would be made to drink it. 

Their oath with would be taken along with vows being chanted out loud” may I be struck down if I refuse to be bring the head of a white man that I have been asked for, may I be struck down if my mates decide to do something and I refuse to obey.... “ The first Mau Mau operations were targeted at fellow Kenyans who collaborated with British colony, their first ever victim was a Kikuyu chief who did not agree with the rebellion because he benefited from the colony. 

A large number of brutal attacks and massacres followed after that, first against their fellow natives who were part of the British army and the Home Guard police force, the killings then escalated to white farmers who brutally were also bruttaly hacked with pangas and mutilated. The Mau Mau went on a nationwide rampage butchering anybody who opposed their revolution. In 1952 the British declared the fight against the Mau Mau an open war, they used natives for intelligence and deployed troops from the Kings African Rifles, a group of African soldiers from Uganda and neighboring countries who were trained by the British, Idi Amin Dada who later became Uganda’s president was also a part of this black army fighting on behalf of the colonialist. 

Due to frustration the British rule arrested some 120 nationalist leaders on speculation of being involved with the Mau Mau, who had no aid from nobody mind you not even the Communists. Jomo Kenyatta was one of the leaders arrested in this raid and would spend the next 9 years of his life in prison. The British even went as far as suspending civil liberties in Kenya and placed close to 450 000 Kikuyu in concentration camps where thousands were tortured and sexually assaulted during screenings to extract information of the Mau Mau insurgency.

Although some were part of the Mau Mau most of the people in those camps were just unfortunate to be Kikuyu and had nothing to do with the insurgency. Detainees in these camps suffered major atrocities in the hands of the British,some where burnt alive others ears were sliced off and so forth. Among the detainees who suffered at these camps was Hussein Onyango Obama, the grandfather of U.S president Barack Obama. It is said that British soldiers forced pins through his fingernails and anus, his testicles were squeezed between two metal rods and was tortured daily.

The Mau Mau were now fighting a loosing battle although some white settlers where now leaving Kenya in fear of the lives as Kimathi and his men closed in on them. The British also intensified their hunt for the Mau Mau but more especially their radical leader Dedan Kimathi, they even put a bounty of 500 euros on his head. 

A once very religious man who carried a bible on him where ever he went, Dedan was now moving from village to village through the forests of Kenya in fear of being caught or killed by the government. His battalion was also depreciating, once an army of 120 000 now stood only 15 000 men beside him.

On the morning of October 21 1956 an officer named Ndiringa Mau of the colonial Home Guard became both a hero and villain in Kenya. The Mau Mau now out numbered had to move quietly with their operations in the forest where they couldn’t be easily spotted. The hunt for Dedan became more intense, and the Home Guard and the British army got a tip off with regards to the whereabouts of Dedan and his troops, they were hiding deep in the heart of the Aberdare Forest. As the British armed forces were patrolling the forest they decide to split into two groups, one group went east of the Chaina River and the other west towards the road..

At 6:30 am, on that morning of October 21st just ten days before Dedan Kimathi’s 36th birthday, the then young Ndiringa caught a glimpse of a man attempting to cross the road, he called out to the man but he started running and took off into the forest. Ndiringa ran after him and started shooting at him after a couple of misses he finally shot him on the thigh, when he approached the wounded man he asked him who he was and to his surprise it was Dedan Kimathi. 

Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi was then placed under arrest and sentenced to death by an all black jury, he was lynched on 18 February 1957 and buried in a unmarked grave in the Kimati maximum security prison. Although Kenya now is an independent country Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi’s body is still lying in that same unmarked grave because Britain objects to his reburial and insist that he has was terrorist and so he should remain there.