Britain should reveal Mau Mau hero Kimathi burial site for closure
By People Reporter, March 2, 2020James Wahome
Last month marked 63 years since the execution of Mau Mau hero Dedan Kimathi by the British colonial government.
But his family, and Kenyans in general, have never had closure because his grave, located within the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, has yet to be discovered.
This has denied Kenyans the opportunity to exhume his body for purposes of giving him a decent burial befitting a man who turned the tide against the British imperialists in the fight for Kenya’s independence.
After many years of Kimathi’s classification as a terrorist by the colonial rulers, the Mwai Kibaki administration finally recognised Kimathi as a freedom hero.
A statue was erected on Nairobi’s Kimathi Street in his honour. Kenyans walking along the street are reminded of the revered freedom hero.
Several books have been published detailing the atrocities committed against those who resisted the British rule in Kenya, including, Caroline Elkins’ Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of the Empire in Kenya and David Anderson’s History of the Hanged. This led London to finally issue an apology for the violence it used to crash the independence movement.
In 2013, it also paid out £20 million(Sh2.6 billion) in reparations to more than 5,000 freedom fighters who were tortured.
Then UK Foreign Secretary William Hague acknowledged, for the first time, that some Kenyans had been subjected to torture and other abuses in the hands of the colonial administration during the Mau Mau emergency.
However, the fact that Britain has to date declined to indicate where Kimathi was buried means that a closure has not been forthcoming.
Last year, the family, through the Dedan Kimathi Foundation, announced that the site where his remains were buried had finally been discovered. But the government dismissed the claims.
When he visited Kenya after release from prison by the Apartheid regime, former South Africa President Nelson Mandela was keen on visiting Kimathi’s burial site to pay tribute to a man who had inspired him. But he was in for a disappointment as there was none.
Neither was he able to immediately meet his widow, Mukami, who had similarly been neglected alongside other freedom fighters.
He was only able to do so later after the government acknowledged her role in the struggle for independence.
The government has for many years now been working on establishing a heroes corner, a burial site for the country’s eminent men and women.
But it remains work in progress. It only crops up when a prominent politician passes on as was the case recently with retired President Moi.
Efforts to trace Kimathi’s remains, centring on 11 spots within Kamiti Prison have been in vain.
At one point, a former prison warder, Samuel Toroitich, 82, claimed he was in a position to identify the grave because he was allegedly one of those who guarded Kimathi’s grave for three months as the colonialists feared he could “rise from the dead”.
The enduring irony is that most freedom fighters have died over the years without the luxury of being land owners.
Sometime last year, Britain had agreed to help them buy land in Laikipia county.
Through the Dedan Kimathi Foundation, the veterans were seeking Sh2.5 billion for the project. However, this has never materialised.
With Britain desperate for closer ties with African countries in the post-Brexit era, the government should revisit the Mau Mau issue for purposes of closure. —The writer is anthropologist-historian based in the US