Definición y clasificación

27. Kenya’s colonial history witnessed a large number of mass killings that occurred in the context of colonial resistance. This sub-section provides an account of the massacres committed during the Giriama Rebellion which took place between 1912 and 1914. Tales of this rebellion continue to be passed down from generation to generation. The rebellion was unusually led by a woman: Mekatilili wa Menza.

28. The first contacts between the Giriama and the British took place in the 1840s through the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission in Rabai. In 1890, another mission station opened further up the coast at Jilore. Despite their best efforts over nearly half a century, CMS found it difficult to convert more than a few Giriama to Christianity. The IBEAC was largely uninterested in Giriama territories as they did not seem to offer much commercial potential. No development occurred outside the main urban areas of Mombasa and, to a lesser extent, Malindi.

29. Initially, British administrators adopted the same detached approach to the Giriama as their predecessors. Their main focus was on the pacification of larger and much more troublesome inland communities such as the Nandi. The transfer of Kenya’s capital from Mombasa to Nairobi drew attention and resources inland.

As long as things remained calm, the British were happy to administer the coastal region indirectly using existing Arab-Swahili personnel inherited from the Mazruis, the former rulers of the coastal strip.

30. Everything changed in 1912 when Arthur Champion was posted to the region as Assistant District Commissioner. He set up his headquarters at Mount Mangea.⁸

8 Mount Mangea is approximately fifteen to twenty kilometers north-west of modern day Shimo la Tewa

http://maps.google.co.ke/maps?hl=en&rlz=1C1enKE415KE415&q=Mangea%2BKenya&gs_upl=5646l8725l0l109 39l20l11l0l0l0l9l1761l11057l6-2.6.1l9l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=667&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=XLK3TrH4NY-srAf-pvXnAw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=3&ved=0CAwQ_AUoAg accessed 11^th November 2011

Champion pronounced himself shocked by the lack of British influence on the Giriama. He immediately set about bringing them under much firmer control. One of his first priorities was to impose taxes on the Giriama. The imposition of taxes was a common method by which the British forced Africans into the labour market.

In this particular instance, nearby large-scale rubber plantations (Magarini and Sokoke) were in danger of collapse on account of the refusal of members of the Giriama community to take up employment there.

31. Public works in the area faced the same fate. Early in his posting, Champion began a census and mapping exercise that would be used to determine who would pay tax and how much. Champion immediately encountered resistance.

People would run and hide in the forests and bushes when headcounters were spotted. Public works projects were sabotaged. A few taxpayers were added to the roll but their payments came not from wages from employment in the local labour market, but from Arab-Swahili money lenders. Champion became more aggressive. Huts belonging to tax evaders were burnt down and their livestock confiscated. Stiff fines and prison sentences were imposed on more persistent offenders.

32. The Giriama resistance was under the direct influence and inspiration of Mekatilili wa Menza, assisted by her son-in-law Wanje wa Mwadarikola. Mekatilili was at this stage a seventy-year-old woman who had already shown a talent for activism.

When she was younger, her brother was kidnapped by Arab slave traders. She spent many years organising small pockets of Giriama to hide away from slave traders. Despite her age, Mekatilili took on Champion and the interests he represented. In 1913 she organised a large meeting in Chakama, deep in Giriama territory near the Sabaki River. The plan was to convince people to reject paying taxes and to resist the recruitment of Giriama men into the King’s African Rifles (KAR), the main military instrument of the British colonial regime. Champion was informed of the impending meeting and headed to Chakama. When he arrived, there was a confrontation that resulted in one Giriama warrior being shot dead.

Some versions of the story suggest that Champion was hit in the face by Mekatilili herself and then, humiliatingly, forced to hide in a nearby granary with nothing to eat other than fermented ugali for several days. Mekatilili fled into the forest.

The rebellion was on.

33. The Giriama uprising employed guerrilla-style skirmishes during which warriors targeted the homes and properties of converts to Christianity and government employees. They also cut telegraph lines. On at least two occasions, however,

the Giriama were drawn into open encounters with the KAR. It was during these encounters that mass killings took place. The first took place near Jilore that may have been a point of interest because it hosted a large mission station.

About 1 000 Giriama were assembling when they were ambushed by a small contingent of KAR forces under the command of one Captain Carew. Carew and his men opened fire. Official reports list 30 fatalities and an unspecified number of casualties. Some Giriama would have succumbed to their injuries later and the death toll was thus probably higher than 30. KAR operations in and around Giriama country were characterised by a casual brutality. There are accounts of, for instance, soldiers simply emerging from river banks and shooting at anything that moved; they made no attempts to determine whether they were firing at combatants or civilians. There are also reports of KAR firing into the backs of fleeing civilians. Seven were killed in this manner in a village known as Magogeni.⁹

34. Details of another massacre came to light through Giriama legends. The Gohu are Giriama elders respected for their ability to communicate with ancestral spirits. Mekatilili was quick to recruit the Gohu to the rebellion. She needed their authority to draw in wider members of their community. More importantly, she needed their skills for the preparation of poisons, spells and potions for warriors as they went into battle. As with many other African societies, the Giriama believed that their cultural and religious beliefs offered them protection against the Europeans.

35. The Gohu quickly became central to the resistance. Indeed after Mekatilili’s capture (in either late 1913 or 1914) and subsequent detention in Kisii, the Gohu became the fulcrum around which the uprising revolved. By the time Mekatilili escaped detention (again, the date is uncertain), the elders were central to the Giriama rebellion. They thus became the target of the administration’s military campaigns.

A British officer known locally as Mugamara summoned members of the Gohu for a meeting near Kilifi. That meeting turned into a bloodbath with several Gohu shot dead and their bodies apparently burned in a heap that also contained the remains of dead sheep and goats.

36. What happened at Kilifi is so notorious not for the number of deaths but the impact that these deaths had. The Giriama were severely affected by Mugamara and his men attacking their spiritual elders. The fact that the killings took place in a kaya caused even more distress.

37. Kayas are the spiritual or sacred places of the Giriama community. They are clearings that are typically found deep inside a forest. Prayers and other religious ceremonies take place in kayas. Kayas are also politically important as they are the places where significant decisions relating to governance and justice are made. The desecration of this particular kaya and the burning of the others¹⁰ were identified as key factors in forcing the Giriama into peace negotiations with the British at the end of 1914. The passage of time did very little to lessen Giriama pain even though the kayas were beautifully restored and recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.¹¹ Ceremonies are regularly held to commemorate the loss of life in these sacred spaces, as well as the achievements of Mekatilili wa Menza.¹²

38. Official estimates put the total number of Giriama killed during the entire uprising at 500. The behaviour of the KAR and its commanding officers pointed to an emergent pattern; many of the deaths occurred as a result of arbitrary and indiscriminate shootings.¹³ Nothing demonstrated this trend more than a shooting that took place in January 1915 after the British and the Giriama had agreed to a cessation of hostilities. The KAR were sent up the Sabaki River to collect animals and money as a fine imposed on the Giriama as part of the peace treaty. This turned into another bloodbath. Instead of simply collecting what was due to them, the KAR stormed into villages with their guns blazing. One patrol killed 19 people in addition to burning down 400 huts. Such were the tactics employed by the KAR during peaceful times.