The inside story of the struggles of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, referred to by British colonialism as the ‘Mau Mau rebellion’, is little known today. The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, was a Kenyan insurgent group which fought against British colonial rule in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion from 1952 to 1960. The autobiographical material written by Karari Njama (a senior leader in the Mau Mau hierarchy) and compiled by Donald L. Barnett was first published by Monthly Review Press in 1966 as Mau Mau From Within: An Analysis of Kenya’s Peasant Revolt.
On February 18th, I attended a program to celebrate and commemorate the life and legacy of anti-colonial fighter Dedan Waciuri Kimathi. For those who may be unfamiliar, Dedan Kimathi was the chief and commander of the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army (KFLA), also known by the settler given name, “Mau Mau”. On the day mentioned above he had been savagely executed by British colonizers after being captured.
It was reprinted in 1970; it has remained out of print for many years. As the late Basil Davidson put it in his review of the first edition: “Njama writes of the forest leaders’ efforts to overcome dissension, to evolve effective tactics, to keep discipline, mete out justice … and to teach men how to survive in those merciless forests. His narrative is crowded with excitement. Those who know much of Africa and those who know little will alike find it compulsive reading.
What is recounted in this publication is more than an ‘analysis of a peasant revolt’. It is, above all, a history of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Karari Njama is a former member of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (otherwise known as the Mau Mau.
The important thing to recognize about the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army, was that they were the first to wage armed struggle against imperialism in Africa. The first swing at imperialism on the continent. During the program, we watched a documentary tracing the history of anti-colonial resistance in Kenya, and listened to panelists of community organizers speak about the legacy of Dedan Kimathi (and the KFLA) and what must be done to throw off neo-colonial exploitation today.
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The Mau Mau were the confrontational wing of a growing demand for political representation and freedom in Kenya. The first attempt to form a countrywide political party began on October 1, 1944. This fledgling organization was called the Kenya African Study Union.
Author Wangari Maathai writes that many of the organizers were ex-soldiers who fought for the British in Ceylon, Somalia, and Burma during the Second World War. When they returned to Kenya, they were never paid and received no recognition for their service. Dominated by the Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu people, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai peoples who fought against the white European colonist-settlers in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu people).
The KLFA's membership consisted largely of the Kikuyu people, many of whom had their lands confiscated by British colonial officials and given to white settlers during the early 20th century. The KFLA began what is now called the Mau Mau uprising in 1952.
One of the most important achievements of the KFLA was the development of a robust and effective information system that combined oral experiences of ordinary Kenyans with print works. Songs were produced to pass on important information and to raise political consciousness and at the same time newspapers would be published. The KFLA published over 50 newspapers in different languages such as Swahili, Kikuyu and other Kenyan languages.
The KLFA was led by Dedan Kimathi for most of its existence. After four years, British forces managed to destroy the KFLA militarily, and Kimathi was captured and executed in 1957.
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During the rebellion, thousands of KFLA insurgents were killed by the British, including 1,090 people who were executed by the colonial authorities. Official numbers state that 11,000 insurgents were killed, though the Kenya Human Rights Commission has estimated that "90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the crackdown, and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions".
A KFLA platoon consisted between 500 and 2,000 insurgents. If the platoon numbered in the thousands, its general was assisted by a colonel and a brigadier. KFLA generals included Chui, Kassam Njogu, China, Stanley Mathenge, Kubu Kubu and Bamuingi.
The Mau Mau military strategy was mainly guerrilla attacks launched under the cover of darkness. In addition to physical warfare, the Mau Mau rebellion also generated a propaganda war, where both the British and Mau Mau fighters battled for the hearts and minds of Kenya's population.
Women formed a core part of the Mau Mau, especially in maintaining supply lines. Initially able to avoid the suspicion, they moved through colonial spaces and between Mau Mau hideouts and strongholds, to deliver vital supplies and services to guerrilla fighters including food, ammunition, medical care, and of course, information.
The British and international view was that Mau Mau was a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule.
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The psychological war became of critical importance to military and civilian leaders who tried to "emphasise that there was in effect a civil war, and that the struggle was not black versus white", attempting to isolate Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu from the rest of the colony's population and the world outside.
The capture of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on October 21, 1956, signaled the defeat of the Mau Mau. However, the rebellion survived until Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama and General Baimungi. Baimuingi, one of the last Mau Mau generals, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.
Despite attempts to unify the factions, the Mau Mau movement remained divided. Meanwhile, the British applied the strategy and tactics they developed to suppress the Malayan Emergency.
In August 1952, Kenyatta told a Kikuyu audience "Mau Mau has spoiled the country...Let Mau Mau perish forever.
The British attempt to defeat the movement broadly came in two stages: the first, relatively limited in scope, came during the period in which they had still failed to accept the seriousness of the revolt; the second came afterwards. The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers ( Operation Anvil); the enacting of major agrarian reform (the Swynnerton Plan); and the institution of a vast villagisation programme for more than a million rural Kikuyu.
On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a state of emergency. Early the next morning, Operation Jock Scott was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi. The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces, and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed.
By September 1953, the British knew the leading personalities in Mau Mau, and the capture and 68 hour interrogation of General China on 15 January the following year provided a massive intelligence boost on the forest fighters.
By 1954, Nairobi was regarded as the nerve centre of Mau Mau operations. The insurgents in the highlands of the Aberdares and Mt Kenya were being supplied provisions and weapons by supporters in Nairobi via couriers.
Anvil was the ambitious attempt to eliminate Mau Mau's presence within Nairobi in one fell swoop. 25,000 members of British security forces under the control of General George Erskine were deployed as Nairobi was sealed off and underwent a sector-by-sector purge. All native Kenyans were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures.
Mau Mau memorial
Though the Mau Mau rebellion was ultimately suppressed, it played a major role in achieving Kenyan independence, which occurred on 12 December 1963. After independence, former KFLA general Bamuingi continued to lead a team of former KFLA insurgents which were killed by Kenyan security forces operating under the command of Jomo Kenyatta.
They had returned to the forests in 1965 to fight against the new Kenyan government, claiming that independence only benefited pro-British collaborators and political moderates.
"Mau Mau Uprising: The Brutal War for Kenya’s Freedom (Untold Story!)"
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