HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 184960,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/184960/?format=api",
"text_counter": 242,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kioni",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": {
"id": 49,
"legal_name": "Jeremiah Ngayu Kioni",
"slug": "jeremiah-kioni"
},
"content": "Thank you Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this very important Motion. I want to start by congratulating Mr. Mututho for thinking about this and bringing it to the Floor of the House. I am a son of a former Mau Mau fighter. My father was detained twice. It was by the grace of God that he did not die under the very cruel hands of the British colonialists. So, as I stand to speak here, I talk from a point of a person who has had it, felt it and knows what it is to have been associated with this issue of Mau Mau and other freedom fighters. Let me just say that it is clear that when you see Mau Mau, it was not a Kikuyu name. It was not just meant for the Kikuyus who were in the forest. In fact, the word Mau Mau was not coined by Kikuyus. It is a name that was October 8, 2008 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 2559 given to those who were fighting for the freedom of this country. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I would want to mention that it is telling that when at one point, in 1946, the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta said that if it was Central Province that we wanted freedom for, the wazungus were ready to give him that freedom that early. He said that it was not Central Province that those who were in the forest were fighting for. It was the whole of this country they wanted liberated. They wanted the white man to leave the whole of this country to those it belonged to. One former Member of Parliament, Mr. J.M. Kariuki who was the Member of Parliament for Nyandarua North was also a detainee. It is important to remember that he used to prick his own skin. He used to use his own blood to write letters to the colonialists asking for the land that belongs to us. We still have very many other people who contributed. We have Ndung'u Gicheru, who is now aging somewhere in Endarasha in Gatarakwa. I know he has bullet shots on his body but if you visit him now, he has nothing to show for all the sacrifice that he made. He is amongst very many other old people. If you go and see those people and if some of them can be seen on television, we would know what I am talking about. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we will be having a meeting in Ndaragwa soon. We will be bringing all those people together so that the country can appreciate the difficulties that they are living in. They can actually get to understand what we mean when we say that those people are living in dehumanised conditions. Just as has been said by other hon. Members, we should not live a lie. The people who fought for Independence, those who were in the bush and those who were detained and are still alive have a lot of bitterness. That bitterness is even more in the young people we see on the streets. If we do not address these issues, we will keep hiding and every other time there is an opportunity for people to come to the streets, we would be thinking that they are coming to the streets for the reasons we think but it is historical bitterness. We have the National Land Policy issue talking about historical injustice. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, if there can be any other historical injustice other than people who died and fought for this country, yet we have just forgotten them--- As many people have said, the only time we want to remember them is the time they are about to die. When they cannot meet their medical bills, is when we go and try to pay these bills for them. We are being hypocritical when we do that because we are trying to get political mileage out of these cases. It is not that we are going to help them but looking for political mileage. It is very important that we get history accurately. If we do not address it properly, for sure, every other time, for example, in the year 2012, there is going to be general elections and there is a likelihood of violence. Let us not cheat ourselves. Some of these cases of violence have a lot to do with the way we have treated our parents and the way we treated those who sacrificed for this country. It also has to do with the way those who came after them have suffered. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it is known to us that when our fathers were in the forests, many of us lost opportunities to go to school. Many of us lost opportunities to venture into business. Out of that poverty, we can still see the line going on. If we do not come up and face these issues--- They are painful and difficult and we may not want to talk about them. However, if we do not allow ourselves to be open and talk about these issues, this is going to be a problem. It is not just going to be a problem in Central Kenya, it will be across the whole nation. If you look at history, many attempts have been made to address the issue of land in this country since 1897. In 1905, we saw the Nandi Resistance. In 1908 we saw the Maasai fighting. In 1912 we saw the Chiefs' Association. We saw the Giriama in 1913. All these are attempts to sort out the issue of land. Even in the year 2008, we can still see these issues of land. We do not talk about it and continue hiding. That is why I stand to support this Motion. 2560 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES October 8, 2008 Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, at times, it is just important for us to stand and say, \"thank you\". I want us to be told at what time did the Government take a moment to just thank those people who sacrificed so much. You have given this issue so much lip service and we are limping out of the situation we have. Even if we do not solve it in this Parliament, let nobody think that it is going to die. This is something that will be there for the life of this country. When you go to the United States of America (USA) and other places, they make a lot of money in the tourism industry just by telling people who their heroes were, what they did and how they contributed to the country they are in now. Ours is a question of saying it is like nothing happened. We want to behave like there are no people who died in the forest or those who lost property. We want to behave like it did not happen. If we continue to behave this way, then let me say we may be calling them Mungikis, the SLDF or whatever you want to call them, but it will continue coming. Until we say \"yes, this happened\", we cannot succeed. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, we have a group of Mau Mau people. I use the word \"Mau Mau\" to represent all those who fought for Independence in this country. They are struggling to get compensation from the British Government. However, they have got no help from the Government. They use their own money to hire lawyers, they travel around and because of the inadequacy in terms of knowledge and resources, they have always had technical problems with the cases they have filed. I do not understand why the Government cannot just take over this on behalf of its own people. Other countries have been compensated for their people being killed and mistreated. They say that, that which belongs to us should always belong to us. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}