Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage)

by Maathai, Wangari

  When I think of what happened, I believe that it was the stories of torture that made the government decide that what we were doing was dangerous. Perhaps we had a false sense of security. We thought that even this government wouldn't hurt old women—mothers who simply wanted their sons to be released from prisons where they were being held for their political conscience(s). But the regime knew neither mercy nor justice and we were accused of threatening “the security of citizens and the nation.” The government had decided that a revolt was brewing and that it could unleash as much venom and violence as it wanted to stop it.

  The story of Freedom Corner did not end with my hospitalization or the dispersal of the mothers. We remained unbowed. The day after the police attack, many of the women, on their own, returned to Freedom Corner. Finding the area guarded by hundreds of armed soldiers, the women decided to seek help at nearby All Saints Cathedral in contacting the other mothers and their supporters. All Saints sits directly adjacent to Uhuru Park and is the seat of the Anglican archbishop. During the 1990s, the cathedral's clergy had begun to speak out against the government's oppression and provided space for prayers by and for pro-democracy groups.

  The women met with the Reverend Peter Njenga, the cathedral's provost (and later the bishop of Mt. Kenya South Diocese), who agreed to give the women a temporary sanctuary so they could trace their colleagues. They learned that some of us were in the hospital, and indeed some of them came to the hospital to visit us while others remained at the cathedral. When night came, some of the women were still at the cathedral and had nowhere to go, so Reverend Njenga allowed them to stay in the cathedral's crypt. Reverend Njenga and the mothers expected the vigil to last for a night or two: It lasted for a whole year. During this time, the mothers rotated their hunger strike. As one woman became weak from lack of food, another would take over while the first one recovered.

  When I was sufficiently healed and could walk properly again, I went straight to All Saints Cathedral to offer the mothers my help. Along with others, I organized supplies and support for the mothers during their yearlong vigil. Beside the mothers, there were male relatives who guarded the doors and acted as protection, because there were many visitors. Throughout their protest, most of the women remained strong despite intimidation and threats, both against them as individuals and their families, as well as police aggression.

  I stayed with the women throughout. Unless I went out of the country, I made the cathedral my second home. I wrote and had printed up leaflets telling the stories of these women's sons, and had these leaflets distributed on the streets of Nairobi. I wanted people to know about these men: what they believed in; what had happened to them, their parents, and their families; how they had been declared enemies of the state or revolutionaries trying to overturn the government; and why they should be released.

  The women also had their stories. One woman told me that the authorities had come to her home, claiming that her son had hidden guns there. “There are no guns,” she told them. “We know your son has hidden guns here,” they yelled back. “So dig.” They pushed this mother to the ground and forced her to dig the earth with her bare hands until her fingers bled. They found no guns, because there were none! Such stories only made us more resolute.

  One night, I was awakened and told that there were people saying they were policemen at the cathedral's door demanding that we open it and let them in. I looked out of the window and saw Nairobi's provincial commissioner and armed men in paramilitary attire, which was a relief since that meant it was the government and not hired thugs or hooligans outside. “Mothers, the president has heard your cry,” the provincial commissioner called out to us.

  “He sympathizes with you. Open the doors and go home, and your sons will follow you.”

  Some of the women wanted to open the doors. They still believed their president was honest and they were desperate to see their sons. But others knew that if the doors were opened, the police would rush in and arrest them and force them out. In the meantime, we realized there was a very large number of soldiers, perhaps five hundred in number, surrounding the church. We were fortunate that some of the soldiers were religious and refused to break down the church doors, even though they had been ordered to do so.

  Eventually the provincial commissioner and others at the door gave up, but the soldiers remained on the compound. By morning, the news that the cathedral had been turned into a military barracks, with the soldiers surrounding the mothers, was everywhere. The government was forced to discuss the situation with the archbishop of the Anglican Church, Manasses Kuria. It was eventually agreed that the military should leave the compound but the mothers could stay in the crypt. As long as the soldiers remained, we never opened the doors.

  Unfortunately, the continuous presence of the mothers in the crypt tended to divide the cathedral's congregation. All Saints, as the seat of the Anglican Church in Kenya, is expected to be proestablishment. It was the church of the state, especially during the colonial period. Because of this heritage, the clergy's giving support and shelter to the striking mothers of political prisoners shocked some in the congregation who expected their church to support the establishment. They questioned why the cathedral was getting involved in politics, and many failed to see the connection between their faith and the need for all people, including people of faith, to respect human rights. However, Reverend Njenga and the leadership of the Anglican Church upheld this pursuit of justice, good governance, and the rule of law. So the mothers continued their vigil in the crypt.

  After the agreement between the archbishop and the government, we were able to leave the crypt and move out onto the church grounds during the day. The church became a center of pilgrimage. Many political figures in the pro-democracy movement, including Mwai Kibaki, Oginga Odinga and his son Raila, Michael Wamalwa, James Orengo, and Paul Muite, came and expressed solidarity with the mothers, while religious leaders from all denominations came and prayed with them. Soon the gathering at the cathedral turned into a national sit-in demonstration, a forum for everyone, including the press, to hear how people had suffered under the general misgovernance of the country.

  The danger for the mothers was far from over, however. We were always afraid the government would apprehend us and abort the campaign. I suggested to the mothers that we keep ourselves chained together, so that if one of us was arrested, all of us would have to be dragged out together. The mothers trusted me. Not only could I speak English and translate for them, I was the leader who could articulate the connections and show how the struggle for the sons’ freedom fit into the bigger picture of the pro-democracy struggle.

  At that point, the government tried a different tactic. It attempted to break up the women's group by promising individual women that their sons would be released if they abandoned the vigil. About four women left the group and went to State House for tea with the president. They were told that I was misguiding them and that they should go home and their sons would be released. We knew it was all a ploy—and that the sons would not be set free under such arrangements. They were not, and one mother even came back to the church. The vigil continued.

  Over the course of that year, the mothers’ nonviolent protest became a focus, in Kenya and in other countries, for those wanting to end state-sponsored torture, random imprisonment, and the unjust suppression of the rights and voices of the people. Pressure on the government to release the sons intensified and came from many quarters. The vigil ended early in 1993 when suddenly all but one of the fifty-two sons were released en masse. (The fifty-second prisoner, we learned from informal sources, had been arrested on charges that were not politically motivated. Release Political Prisoners adopted his case and continued to fight for him, and he was eventually released in 1997.)

  Upon the sons’ release, we held a service of thanksgiving at All Saints. During the service, I gave each of the women a “certificate of endurance” that I hear still hangs in a special place on walls of their homes. After
the ceremony the women proudly walked with their sons out through the cathedral's open doors and into the bright light of midday. They could sleep more easily now that their sons were free at last.

  The Release Political Prisoners group decided not to disband but to continue pressing for the release of other prisoners and for the respectful treatment of all people in Kenya held behind bars. A good number of the sons, once they were freed, joined Release Political Prisoners and provided the leadership for greater freedom in Kenya and better conditions for people in jail, efforts that continue to this day.

  When I left the cathedral, I returned to my home in South C, satisfied with what we had accomplished. I was also relieved to be back in my home and to sleep in my bed, instead of on a hard and very uncomfortable bench. I had been able to run home and take showers, and there was a shower for the women in the church, but the women and I slept in the same clothes we wore during the day and we lost all sense of privacy. Yet there was never any question in my mind of not seeing the vigil through. Having joined the women, I would not abandon their cause. We stuck together to the very end. In the months and years that followed, I sensed the bond we had formed with one another as mothers, and recognized the appreciation they had for what we had done for their sons.

  Occasionally I would leave the women to travel. I felt it was prudent to maintain the international links I had established since, among other things, they offered a degree of security for myself and others from governmental attack at home. Sometimes I left to receive awards and honors in distant lands. For instance, in 1991, with five other people, I was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, which I traveled to San Francisco to accept, and that same year I also received the Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership, presented in London. This visibility helped bring the issues of the environment and democracy, the work of the Green Belt Movement, and my personal profile to a wider audience, both nationally and internationally.

  I spoke on how to protect and restore the earth, along with the need for democracy, human rights, and an end to rampant corruption. I knew that much of what I said would make its way back to Kenya and help expand democratic space there. The regime, however, often took what steps it could to silence or distort my voice. When CNN's report of the Goldman Prize winners was aired in Kenya, the three-minute segment on me and the Green Belt Movement was edited out. I later learned that journalists for the state-run broadcasting company were told not to air any interviews with me. When some staff of the state radio station did, they were promptly fired.

  At times, particularly in the first few years of the 1990s, the government also made it difficult for me to travel. When this happened, I had to appeal to supporters abroad to ask the Kenyan authorities to guarantee my freedom of movement. In June 1992, for instance, I was due to address the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, better known as the Earth Summit. But I was also due in court again because of my arrest for the coup rumors, so my lawyer had to appeal to Nairobi's chief magistrate for permission for me to miss a court date to attend the summit. This time, the magistrate agreed. So President Moi and I both went to Rio.

  In Rio, I addressed the government delegates, spoke on several panels, and participated in a press conference with soon-to-be U.S. vice president Al Gore and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I also conferred with environmentalists and friends from around the world, even as the media staff on Kenya's official delegation launched a campaign at the Earth Summit to discredit me and the Green Belt Movement. Preposterously, they accused me of inciting women in Kenya and encouraging them to strip at Freedom Corner. I was thus a bad influence on rural women, they said, and should not be allowed to speak at the summit. As it turned out, in spite of—or perhaps because of—the government's campaign, the international NGOs chose me to be their spokesperson at the summit. (It was during the two weeks I was in Rio that the government began its campaign to encourage the women to leave All Saints.)

  The Earth Summit was the second time I had met with Al Gore. He had visited the Green Belt Movement in the autumn of 1990. We planted a podo tree together in Kanyarirĩ in Kabete (it's still doing very well), and he had written about our work in his best-selling book Earth in the Balance. A few years after Rio, he invited me to accompany him to Haiti to look at the effects of deforestation there. We met with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and other government officials. I then boarded a military helicopter and flew over the countryside. As I looked down, I realized I had never seen a country so devastated. People were cultivating crops on the tops of hills and nearly every tree had been cut down. It looked like someone had taken a razor blade to the land and shaved it bare. When the rains came, the soil just washed away.

  In 2000, two Haitian women supported by GROOTS International came to Kenya to learn about the Green Belt Movement. When they returned to Haiti, however, they were unsuccessful in establishing an initiative. I tried to find funding to bring more people from Haiti to Kenya to train them in the Green Belt Movement approach, but I was unable to raise the resources. When, in September 2004,I heard the news that Hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne had together caused the deaths of more than three thousand people in Haiti through landslides and floods, I thought immediately of what I had seen a decade earlier. When people in Kenya call for forests to be opened for cultivation of crops, I think of the people of Haiti and vow that I will do all I can to prevent what happened there from occurring in Kenya.

  We have continued to seek help and to reach out to the people of Haiti, but it has always been difficult because peace has been elusive in that country. Nevertheless, we hope one day to return and plant millions of trees and so realize Al Gore's dream of a green Haiti.

  11

  Aluta Continua: The Struggle Continues

  The elections of 1992 provided a focal point for the democracy movement in Kenya. This was the first time since 1966 that more than one party would legally be able to contest elections, even though many restrictions remained. By the summer of 1992, after my return from the Earth Summit and even as the women's hunger strike in All Saints Cathedral continued, it had become clear to me and others in the opposition that we needed to present a united front in order to beat the incumbent president and KANU in the December elections.

  As the largest party, and the party of government since independence, KANU had over a period of time changed the electoral system to make it harder for smaller or regional parties to form governments. The president also controlled the state-run television and radio and could draw on his and the state's large financial resources to support the ruling party. The government had disrupted independent media outlets and much of the political activity that had begun in the 1980s. Kenya's people hungered for change, but they needed the opposition to unite to satisfy their hopes.

  Unfortunately, only a year after its founding, the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy, in which I'd been a keen participant, splintered. Kenneth Matiba and Oginga Odinga both ran for FORD's leadership, and the party divided. Odinga started FORD-Kenya, while Matiba led FORD-Asili. Mwai Kibaki, former vice president in the Moi administration, who left KANU in 1991, did not join FORD but formed the Democratic Party, further fracturing the opposition. This fragmentation would set back the cause of democratization for ten years.

  As a result of this schism, some FORD members decided to form the Middle Ground Group, or MGG. I served as its chair. We hoped to create a “middle ground” on which the opposition parties could unite in time for the elections. We wanted to offer the public a space to learn about the opposition, give their opinions, ask questions, and engage with people of different views. To do this, we hit on the concept of “teach-ins.” My colleagues liked the idea, but were not sure how to coordinate them. I drew on my American experience of the teach-ins of the 1960s. By this time I had also been holding seminars with Green Belt groups for years and I enjoyed leading group discussions. I therefore volunteered to conduct and organize them.

  I led a number of t
each-ins in a tent in downtown Nairobi to raise Kenyans’ awareness about why it was so important for us to come together and reclaim our democracy at the ballot box. The tent was next to the Kenya Commercial Bank on Mama Ngina Street, in a central location that was also a transport hub for buses, so it was easy to gather a crowd. I would also inform the press of when I would be there, so that the word could spread. The teach-ins generally lasted all morning: I gave everyone an opportunity to speak and people to ask questions and debate. It worked very well. The MGG also organized several gatherings in All Saints Cathedral at which the public and sometimes opposition party officials came and prayed for unity.

  The Green Belt Movement served as the secretariat for the MGG's public activities. Green Belt staff pitched the tent for the teach-ins, and if we needed them, made banners and signs. The tent was opposite Dr. Makanga's pharmacy at the Hilton, so he and his staff helped provide space to store our campaign materials. They also supplied first aid and medicines if we needed them.

  The authorities never bothered us during the teach-ins, but not all of the MGG activities were free from police interference. Informers were busy keeping the police updated on the activities of people associated with the opposition. One evening, we were having an MGG strategy meeting at my house with about thirty activists, some of whom were lawyers. It was still not permitted for more than nine people to meet without first obtaining a permit—which, of course, no authority would give us. Suddenly, three armed policemen arrived at my door and I met them. “You're holding an illegal meeting. Where is the license?” they asked me.