Second liberation leaders speak out

Jubilation filled lawyer Japheth Shamalla’s house on a foggy and cold Saturday morning 20 years ago when a US embassy official made the all-important telephone call with a coded message: “The cargo is on board.”

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The “cargo” was Dr Gibson Kamau Kuria, who the US embassy was spiriting out of the country to avoid the Moi regime crackdown — arrests and detentions without trial — on campaigners for a multi-party democracy ahead of the original Saba Saba Day on July 7, 1990.

Shamalla’s house

Mr Paul Muite, who had spent the night at Mr Shamalla’s house, then went home to wait for his own arrest that never came.

The multi-party campaign pioneer who went on to serve as Law Society of Kenya chairman and MP for Kikuyu, reveals plans were made to help Dr Kuria flee the country, while others awaited their fate.

Former Cabinet ministers Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia had launched the multiparty campaign early in May.

By the end of June they had expanded the circle to bring in a large number of dissident politicians and clergymen, lawyers and academics.

Most importantly, they had secured the involvement of veteran opposition pioneer Oginga Odinga and his son, detention camp veteran Raila Odinga.

It was this group operating out of Mr Matiba’s College House office, the Odingas Agip House base and Mr Muite’s Electricity House law firm, that upped the ante by calling for a public rally on July 7 at Nairobi’s historic Kamukunji grounds.

The government immediately announced that the meeting, called significantly at a venue famous for pre-independence nationalist political rallies, was banned.

Not wanting to provoke a confrontation the conveners immediately announced they would call off the rally.

But the government was taking no chances. On July 4, Mr Matiba, Mr Rubia and the younger Odinga were arrested and detained without trial.

Police and Special Branch squads spread throughout Nairobi and other towns arresting key figures behind the clamour for multipartyism.

That was also American Indepedence Day which in Kenya was celebrated at the US embassy residence, a significant coincidence because Ambassador Smith Hempstone had angered President Moi by coming out as an early supporter of the multiparty campaign.

At Electricity House, Mr Mohammed Ibrahim walked into the office of his senior, Muite, a partner in the then bluechip firm of Waruhiu and Muite Advocates.

The routine conversation on some legal matter would come to lay the basis for Ibrahim’s own arrest and brief term in detention without trial.

Mr Ibrahim is now a High Court judge.

From Electricity House, Mr Muite went to the Karen Country Club, where he took a call from his wife, Edith, with the message that Mr Matiba and Mr Rubia had been arrested.

“I had no doubt I was the next on the line,” he says now. He called Dr Kuria, Dr John Khaminwa, Mr Matiba’s daughter Susan, and Mr Rubia’s son Morris for a secret meeting at Mr Shamalla’s house in Riara Ridge.

They wanted to secure the release of those already arrested and being held at police headquarters, while aware they were also on the wanted list.

“Look here,” warned Dr Khaminwa, “if the two of you (Muite and Kuria) appear at the Nairobi Area, you will certainly be arrested.”

Mr Morris Rubia recalls: “Dr Khaminwa offered himself to go the police station to apply for Mr Matiba and my father’s release in very difficult circumstances.”

Dr Khaminwa duly went to press for the release of his clients, only to “vanish” within the bowels of the police station.

The multiparty campaigners then got in touch with Mr Hempstone, who offered to help Mr Muite and Dr Kuria flee the country.

However, it would be difficult get them both out, so priority was given to Dr Kuria who had already experienced the horror of President Moi’s detention camps.

They also called Dr Kuria’s law partner, Kiraitu Murungi, who was attending a meeting in Ethiopia, and advised him not to return home just yet.

Mr Murungi, now the minister for Energy, moved on to the United States where he served out a period in exile. Meanwhile, a safe house was required for Dr Kuria while arrangements were made to sneak him out of the country.

Mr F. T. Nyammo, a prominent businessman and close friend of Mr Muite (now Tetu MP) not openly linked to the multiparty campaign, offered his Karen home.

Mr Muite took refuge at Mr Shamalla’s house.

It was from Mr Nyammo’s house that Dr Kuria was disguised and driven to the US embassy on a Saturday morning.

Principal shareholder

Mr Nyammo was at the time best known as principal shareholder of Pan African Insurance Company and the collapsed Kenya Finance Bank.

The Tetu MP is now associated with Inoreero University (formerly School of Professional Studies).

It is generally assumed that Mr Muite, who somehow was never arrested during the crackdown as he went undercover, was hidden in the US Embassy.

But apart from the one night he spent at Mr Shamalla’s, he was all the time in his own house – only that the police never bothered to search it because it never occurred to them that he could be “hiding at home”.

Mr Muite credits his wife’s quick thinking for preventing his almost certain arrest one night.

As dozens of policemen surrounded the house and began knocking on the door, Mr Muite prepared for the inevitable.

“I had no doubt that they had come for me. I asked my wife to give me warm clothing for my coming days in police cells,” he recalls 20 years later.

However, Mrs Muite insisted that he remains indoors while she went out to inquire what the police wanted.

“Madam we are sorry for disturbing you at this hour of the night. We know you have been speaking to your husband wherever he is hiding. Please ask him to tell you where he has kept his gun,” the commanding officer told Mrs Muite, “Then call us to come for it or deliver it to our station.”

Mr Muite could not believe when the police drove away after that terse conversation.

“I think women have a sixth sense. If it wasn’t for her that night, I would have spent the night in police cells,” he says with mirth.