Unbowed: A Memoir (Vintage)

by Maathai, Wangari

  As we drove through the forest in the pitch-black night, we suddenly came upon a group of men dressed in traditional warlike costumes, including headgear and sheets across their chests, crossing the road. They were carrying bows and arrows and machetes, and while we did not see any, they may also have had guns. Even though there was a sort of grace to their movements, as they hopped like antelopes across the road, it was immediately obvious that these men were ready to kill. While I couldn't quite make out what they looked like, from the way they moved they appeared to be young. I had never been so scared: Here in front of us was the killing machine whose destructive actions we had come to witness.

  We stopped to let them pass, keeping our headlights on at full beam. I imagined that they were on their way to launch fatal attacks in Molo! Those few minutes were terrifying. If we had switched the lights off, the men could have easily attacked us. Fortunately, they had no idea who was in the cars and kept moving. If they had looked in our direction and discovered it was my friends and me, I am sure they would have killed us on the spot. It was one thing to read about the men who were carrying out the violence, but quite another to see them on the move. Later, we discovered how dangerous our encounter had been when we heard that the town of Molo, west of Nakuru, had been attacked and that many were killed and injured. Those young men had been heading for Molo.

  We arrived in the morning in Burnt Forest, visited communities affected by the clashes, and then attended a meeting between the provincial administration and the elders of communities that had been displaced. While the elders knew we were present, we deliberately did not draw attention to ourselves and so were not immediately recognized by the local government administrators. During the course of the meeting, both sides raised issues and after some time the district commissioner asked all those present to identify themselves. Soon it was my turn: “I'm Wangari Maathai,” I said. The district commissioner could not believe his ears. How had we been allowed to attend this meeting? Why were we there? He was in a huff, and I knew that some heads would roll. With that the meeting was called to an immediate end and the police were ordered to remove us.

  Both Deutsche Welle and the Kenyan press were there to witness this encounter. Earlier in the day, the German crew had taken some important footage of those who had suffered from the tribal clashes. Naturally, the police didn't want the international press filming our expulsion from the meeting, since they knew that that film, along with the other footage the crew had shot, would be shown outside the country. The police shouted at the camerawoman to get out and stop filming or they'd shoot. The woman shouted back, “Well, shoot then.” I was thinking, “Why did she say that?” They could easily have shot her, and all of us.

  They didn't, but instead forced us out with the barrels of their guns, very menacingly. It was fortunate that by then we had recorded what had been said at the meeting and shown the international and Kenyan journalists what was happening on the ground, so our mission was accomplished. But now the authorities would know we had been in Burnt Forest, so when we left the town late that afternoon, we took extra precautions. On the way back to Nairobi, we changed cars and drivers and arrived in the city only very late that night.

  Through Deutsche Welle and other non-Kenyan media contacts, the news of the violence in the Rift Valley and other areas was spreading internationally. In addition, many human rights defenders, including Kerry Kennedy of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial

  Center for Human Rights and U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, traveled to Kenya and witnessed the atrocities being carried out through these tribal clashes. This was very important. We knew all too well that the Kenyan government could be completely untouched by the complaints of its people; but the minute the international community caught wind of what elements in the government were doing, it could move quickly, because it depended so much on foreign aid, military training funds, and goodwill overseas. Ironically, the Achilles’ heel of so many oppressive governments is the positive international image they so desperately crave. It is perhaps just as sad that I had to turn so often to international supporters to protect me from my own government.

  Initially, the government didn't complain about what the Green Belt Movement was doing in the Rift Valley. The first seminars held in early 1993 were not public, so the security forces may not have known they were taking place. Furthermore, how could the authorities complain about giving out footballs or planting trees? But as the clashes continued, the government lashed out, particularly after our visit to Burnt Forest.

  In a speech the president gave toward the end of February 1993, which was reported on the front page of the Standard, he claimed that I had “masterminded” the distribution of leaflets in the Rift Valley that called for Kikuyus to attack Kalenjins and said that our visit to Burnt Forest had incited further clashes. He also asserted, rather ridiculously, that a “lucrative business” had been made by the victims of violence clearing household goods from their own homes and then setting them on fire, as well as by the National Council of Churches, which supported and funded camps to shelter the displaced people.

  As usual, I wrote to the president to make my position clear and sent copies of my letter to the press. I had gone to Burnt Forest, I explained, because the victims’ suffering had moved me and I wanted to listen to their concerns. I urged the president to use the machinery of government not to further the conflict but to end it. As usual, I did not receive a response. Instead, the attacks both on me and the Kikuyu community continued.

  KANU's mouthpiece, the daily Kenya Times, claimed that I was “crusading for supremacy of the Kikuyu.” A local councilor in Eldoret informed the public that I was out to topple the government and to turn Kikuyus against Kalenjins. He even claimed that the year before I had organized an infestation of aphids that had killed most of Kenya's cypress trees. Now that would have been quite an achievement! A KANU MP bluntly threatened to have me forcibly circumcised if I entered Rift Valley Province again: a chilling attempt to try to control and intimidate me as a woman. The National Council of Women of Kenya called the MP's statement “primitive and irresponsible” at a time when Kenya was working to end female genital mutilation (FGM). Indeed, President Moi himself had banned the practice five years earlier and many women's groups had been advocating for the eradication of FGM from Kenya.

  Not all those leveling insults against me were men. Women from several Christian denominations in Nyandura District, northwest of Nairobi, called the government blameless and said that I was disrespectful to the president and out of step with African tradition. An African woman's most important duty, according to them, was “to obey.”

  Some of these accusations may have been ridiculous, but they were also frightening. During that time, it felt as though anything could happen, in an instant—and often did. On Saturday, February 25, hooded men abducted Dr. Makanga at gunpoint from his pharmacy. For three worrisome days no one, not even his wife, had any idea where he was. Dr. Makanga was a close ally in what we were doing and I was terrified to think what these men—whose identities were a complete mystery—could do to him, whether they were police or hired rogues. I felt terrible because I knew they had abducted him because he supported our work, and I worried about him being tortured in an effort to get information out of him.

  After Dr. Makanga's arrest, I received several death threats and I began to fear for my life. I noticed unfamiliar vehicles following me in Nairobi and when I left the city. This was very unsettling, since I knew the recent history of “accidents” on the road. Never before had I felt as threatened as I did now. I decided that going public with my fears might protect me. I wrote an open letter to the attorney general.

  At about the same time I organized a seminar at the church of Christ the King in Nakuru, the site of serious violence, and I asked the attorney general for assurances that the police would not harass me. This was not forthcoming. So, knowing the police would be looking for me on the road from Nairobi to Nakuru, I went to Nak
uru two days early and hid near the church hall where the meeting was to take place. To the seminar, I had invited not only the affected communities but also the press and diplomats from countries that provided economic assistance to Kenya.

  The attorney general replied in a manner of speaking: armed police prevented the seminar from taking place, as well as others we planned for later in March. I heard about the police activities from local guides on the ground and so did not go to the church hall that day. However, two days later, I learned that a delegation of diplomats and the press, guided by the Catholic Church and accompanied by the district and provincial commissioners and the police, had come to Nakuru to see the effects of the tribal clashes for themselves. I left the safe house in Nakuru where I had been staying and appeared at that meeting, knowing that the presence of diplomats made it unlikely I would be arrested. Together, we saw the burned houses, the charred ground, and the camps where displaced families were being sheltered. To ensure my safety, one of the ambassadors there that day gave me a ride back to Nairobi in his car and left me safely inside my home in South C.

  Dr. Makanga's abduction and harassment gave me more than enough reason to preempt arrest. Therefore, on the suggestion of my lawyers, on March 4I presented myself before a judge and told him I believed the police were intending to arrest me and that I wanted to plead to a charge and post bail (a process known in Kenya as bail before arrest or court arrest). This allowed me to preempt more serious charges. The next day, however, I decided that the danger to my life was very real, and did something I never thought I would have to do in my own country: I was forced to go into hiding. It wasn't simply being arrested that I was worried about. I could also have been beaten by the security forces or hired thugs. Friends believed I was targeted for assassination. I could only guess what might happen next.

  Before I went underground, I issued a statement to friends around the world asking them to urge their governments not to resume the assistance that had been cut off prior to the reintroduction of the multiparty system unless the president ended the tribal clashes. “While the world is naturally focused on Liberia, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia,” I wrote, “there is ethnic cleansing going on in Kenya.” Friends and colleagues in the United States and United Kingdom contacted their legislators, Human Rights Watch raised awareness of the situation, and Amnesty International sent out an urgent action alert about the dangers we faced. They and others called on their members to appeal to the president and his government to guarantee our safety and the freedom of the pro-democracy movement in Kenya.

  One feature of living in an oppressive system is that you develop networks of information and protection. In a network, people sometimes know one another and sometimes don't. But when you need one another, a connection is made, often without your even knowing how. For instance, I would be home and someone would call or come by and say, “We must move you out of here.” An informer might have heard that the government planned to pick people up for questioning or detention. Before the policeman had even put on his gear, that individual would know he or she was a target and head for a safe house. Only a few people would know where those who had gone underground were.

  My network was quite broad. It included friends, members of the clergy, other pro-democracy advocates, and even foreign diplomats. During this time, I spent two weeks “underground” at a church guest house. This was a good safe place since it was an unlikely place to look for me. The archbishop agreed I could be hidden and gave me a room, where the church staff would bring food to me so I didn't have to come out and risk being seen by anyone. Nevertheless, it wasn't secure to stay in one place for too long. But going from safe house to safe house presented its own challenges. In the first half of 1993, I spent a lot of time crouched on the floor of friends’ cars being transported around Nairobi under cover of darkness. I often wore a wig or scarf to disguise my appearance.

  Even foreign diplomats from several countries helped me feel safer. Several of the Norwegian diplomatic staff were actively involved in efforts to protect me, and even assisted in moving me to safer ground. The Norwegians, in particular, were strong supporters of the pro-democracy movement in Kenya. When some Kenyan political prisoners were released and felt it was not safe to stay in the country, Norway gave them refuge. The Norwegian government's position on human rights so riled the president that he cut off diplomatic relations with Norway in the 1990s, and nearly all of Norway's diplomatic staff left the country. Unfortunately for the Green Belt Movement, this severing of relations meant that, like all other Kenyan organizations, Green Belt could no longer receive the support NORAD had been providing. After diplomatic relations were cut, one Norwegian diplomat, Arman Aardal, remained in Kenya; he was his country's representative to UNEP. Arman was very supportive and quite often during my time underground would help drive me from one safe place to another. He became a good friend and an ardent supporter of the disadvantaged children of the Mathare slum.

  At the same time that I was moving from one safe house to another, I had been invited to a meeting in Tokyo by the Green Cross International, a global environmental organization set up that year by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. I sent a message to the Green Cross meeting organizers to say I couldn't come because I did not have the necessary travel documents and was in hiding. To the surprise, I think, of the Kenyan authorities, President Gorbachev intervened, sending a message to President Moi asking his government to help me obtain the documents I needed to travel to Tokyo. The Kenyan president expressed shock. He claimed that he knew nothing about my inability to travel and sent a message through the press saying he could not understand why I thought I couldn't go to Tokyo.

  My friends relayed this information to me in my safe house and suggested that I come out of hiding to get the travel documents. In their view, given what President Moi had said, it seemed likely that I would be safe. I was persuaded and presented myself to the immigration authorities, who gave me the necessary documents and never again questioned me at the airport in Nairobi about where I was going or why. Unfortunately, by the time I got the papers I needed, the Green Cross meeting was almost coming to an end and I would not have arrived in Tokyo in time.

  I was, though, able to travel in late April 1993 to Scotland to receive the Edinburgh Medal from the Edinburgh District Council, as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. I'd written to the council and expressed my regret that fears for my safety and the fact that I couldn't get the necessary travel documents meant I could not attend. But thanks to President Gorbachev, I received my passport in time.

  Working for justice and freedom is often a lonely and dispiriting business. Yet in my various struggles I have been fortunate to receive the encouragement and support of many individuals and institutions, both in Kenya and overseas, who have stood by me in difficult times. Often their phone calls, faxes, letters—or, later, e-mails—or simply their presence made the difference at a crucial moment. To all of them, I am eternally grateful, as I am to the powerful who were willing to use their positions to protect me.

  It is no exaggeration to say that these friends, the awards I received, and the conferences I attended may have saved my life. As I told journalists in Edinburgh, “I don't want to die before finishing my work.” After Scotland, in May 1993I flew to Chicago to receive the Jane Addams International Women's Leadership Award and then in June I deliberately traveled to Vienna for the UN's World Conference on Human Rights. In addition to meeting with delegates and nongovernmental organizations, I organized an exhibition of photos of victims of the tribal clashes, and distributed copies of a Kenyan parliamentary report on the violence. Unfortunately, the photos and reports were stolen from the booth by members of the Kenyan delegation. Although I was angry and frustrated that they had wrecked my exhibit, their actions gave me an additional opportunity to expound at the conference, including to the media, on the tribal clashes and the violation of human rights in Kenya. I had turned my misfortune into an oppor
tunity.

  Gradually the clashes died down, although the effects of the violence linger to this day. Indeed, tribal conflicts tend to recur in different parts of the country whenever unscrupulous politicians incite their communities against other communities. They happened, for example, during the election campaigns of 1997, and even today they can be revived at the whim of politicans. Many people who were displaced by the violence of the early 1990s have still not returned to their homes and have been turned into internally displaced refugees. Unfortunately, the UN Commission on Refugees does not cater to internally displaced persons.

  From the outset of the ethnic violence in 1991, I knew that the issues of land and governance had to be part of the civic and environmental education that Green Belt Movement members received. Too often, Kenyans were looking at one another as foreigners. It is the case that the various ethnic communities in Kenya are, for all intents and purposes, distinct nations, what I call micronations. We have our own languages, traditions, foods, and dances, and our own cultural and historical baggage.

  However, in the late nineteenth century a large power with its own baggage brought us together and called us a nation. We cannot deny this fact of history, although being in one country does not mean we are identical peoples. We have to accept that our baggage can be divisive or destructive, and we should discard it. But this process has to be deliberate so that we focus on what brings us together, which will allow us to cooperate and respect one another. We need to honor the past but look to the future. In this way, we can consciously create a new idea of a nation, of Kenya and of what it means to be Kenyan. This concept of nationhood became a component of the Green Belt seminars after the tribal clashes.

  From the outset of the ethnic violence, we held seminars in my house in the evenings, since during the day the house resembled a beehive, packed with Green Belt staff. People came over and sat in the living room and I'd teach, sometimes until one or two o'clock in the morning. Nearly all of those who attended were men, since it was easier for them to travel and many women were too scared to come or couldn't leave their children at night. At this time, we were still being constantly monitored by government informers. The informers got to know who came to my home and what kinds of activities were going on, as did the neighbors.