Kenya's final farewell to Mau Mau heroine Kimathi

Kenyan icon Mukami Kimathi, whose husband Dedan Kimathi led a bloody resistance movement against British colonial rule during the 1950s, was buried in her rural town of Njabini, in Kenya's Nyandarua County on Saturday. She died on May 4 in a hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

The state-sponsored ceremony was attended by Kenyan President William Ruto, who has described Mukami as a "legendary fighter." 

Ruto's predecessor Uhuru Kenyatta — whose father Jomo Kenyatta was Kenya's founding president — hailed Mukami as "a true patriot (who) never failed to play her role as a mentor and a leader worthy emulating."

"For those of us who had the privilege of interacting with her, we will forever cherish the moments we shared and thank God for having given us the opportunity to associate with such a great warrior," Kenyatta said in a statement.

Who was Mukami Kimathi?

Mukami — a wife, a mother of eight daughters and two sons, as well as a freedom fighter — was key in planning Kenya's independence struggle.

She coordinated the women in the resistance when it came to oath administration, resource mobilization, positioning spies and supplying food to fighters in the forest during the Mau Mau uprising.

Mau Mau fighters, who were brutally targeted by British forces before independence, held her in very high regard and nicknamed her "the wasp."

She went unseen by British soldiers as she conducted activities that sustained the struggle for independence.

Kimathi's death comes at a time when some Western nations are working to right the wrongs of their colonial past.

'Symbol of resistance'

Many have praised Mukami Kimathi as an icon.

"She has been the beacon of hope surrounding the freedom fighters and their descendants, we are therefore as a nation very saddened that we have lost our mother who has been ailing for a while," said Kenya's deputy president, Rigathi Gachagua, who also described her as a symbol of resilience and defiance to the oppression.

Kimathi's nephew, Charles Gitahi, told DW that Mukami had held the family together, was "God-fearing" and had showed them "the way of Christ."

Locating Dedan Kimathi's remains

Mukami Kimathi died before she was able to see the remains of her husband, who was one of Kenya's only three self-styled field marshalls during the independence struggle.

He was executed by British soldiers on February 18, 1957.

The colonialists dumped his body in an unmarked grave at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, presumably to stop Kenyans from turning the grave into a shrine.

For the last six decades of her life, Mukami Kimathi begged authorities in both Britain and Kenya to show her where the husband was buried — without success. 

Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga joined her in this endeavor.

"The last wish of Mama Mukami was that she would like the body of her husband to be exhumed from where it was buried in Kamiti prison and interred together with hers next to each other at their home in Njambini this was her wish," said Odinga.

These sentiments were echoed by former Mau Mau fighter Gitu Wa Kahengeri.

"We'd like the government to ensure that Kimathi's body, which was buried in an unmarked grave, be exhumed and the remains buried alongside the wife during her burial ceremony in Njambini Kinangop," Kahengeri said.

Many now want the British government to reveal the unmarked grave in which Dedan Kimathi was buried so that the family can finally give their father a decent send-off.

Dedan Kimathi's son, Simon Maina, had earlier told DW that he would like to bury his father's remains in a dignified manner.

Dedan's youngest daughter, Evalyne Wanjogu, described her mother's struggle to find closure on the whereabouts of her husband's remains as a futile quest that ran for decades.

She pointed out that as soon as Kenya's first leader, Jomo Kenyatta, took office, her mother reached out to him. 

"Her first request for the remains of our father was in 1963, immediately after Jomo Kenyatta was sworn in as prime minister, our mum was the first person to ask Kenyatta to help us find the remains of our father but for one reason or another to which we cannot blame anyone it never happened." 

"It never happened in the second regime, in the third regime, the fourth regime it never happened," she lamented. 

Edited by: Keith Walker

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