Monday, December 12, 2011

Field Marshal who snubbed Mzee



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Left: Field Marshal Muthoni on May 21, 1964. Right: Youth leader Benedict Wachira with Field Marshal Muthoni in Nyeri during the 53rd  commemoration of the execution of freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi.
Photo/NYAMBEGA GISESA/NATION Left: Field Marshal Muthoni on May 21, 1964. Right: Youth leader Benedict Wachira with Field Marshal Muthoni in Nyeri during the 53rd commemoration of the execution of freedom fighter Dedan Kimathi. 
By NYAMBEGA GISESA engisesa@yahoo.com
Posted  Sunday, December 11  2011 at  19:11
On December 12, 1963 President Jomo Kenyatta sent a car to pick up a Mau Mau fighter from the forest to take part in a ceremony where freedom fighters would lay down their weapons.
She refused, not convinced the war was over, and demanded instead to first see the Kenyan flag.
President Kenyatta had a lot of convincing to do before the woman agreed to lead other fighters in the ceremony marking Kenya’s full independence at Nyeri’s Ruringu Stadium in December 1963.
Today, Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima, previously known for her air of authority and rebellious streak, lives with her grandchildren at her home in a Nyeri suburb.
Last year, President Mwai Kibaki invited her to State House Nairobi. They had earlier met in May 2009 during the burial of Mishek Wachiuri, the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi’s son, in Nyeri.
“I arrived shortly after seven in the morning and I was denied entry and told to get an appointment letter. I left after five in the evening,” she told the Nation by telephone.
Being asked to write a letter was too insulting for the senior most women within the Mau Mau ranks.
“I know neither English nor good Kiswahili because when others were in school, I was in the forest fighting,” she said in February during the 54th anniversary of the execution of Dedan Kimathi in Nyeri.
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Field Marshal Muthoni was one of the very few women to become active fighters in the liberation movement. Most other women only worked as carriers of information or supplies, as she also did at the start.
The liberation movement had only four Field Marshals — Kimathi, Baimungi Marete, Muthoni and Musa Mwariama — and rising to such a position was no easy task.
The only surviving Field Marshal is one of a kind. Muthoni wa Kirima showed great courage even as a young girl when she killed a rhinoceros to save her father’s goats.
Later she followed her husband into Nyandarua Forest to join the Mau Mau freedom fighters. Dedan Kimathi named her Weaver Bird because of her ability to weave brilliant strategies in the struggle for Kenya’s independence.
Although her parents worked on a European farm, after her marriage, she moved to a village “reserve” for Africans in Nyeri before joining the Mau Mau as a married woman.
She led the hunt for elephants, walked hundreds of kilometres among other fighters to pick up weapons from Ethiopia and was among the fighters who were never caught, only came out of the forest after independence.
“Field Marshal Muthoni was trapping wildlife to cook. She went to fight alongside famous warriors of the forest like Dedan Kimathi Waciuri,” the book Mau Mau Women notes about her.

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