Skip to main content

DEDAN KIMATHI: Mau Mau leader's last letter before execution





The last letter Dedan Kimathi wrote before being executed on 18th February 1957:

The accompanying image/letter/attchment dated 17th February 1957, published in the "Daily Nation" of 25th July 1986, is said to have been written by the penultimate military commander of Kenya’s “Mau Mau” Rebellion Dedan Kimathi, and appears to have been written just hours before Kimathi was executed in Kenya on 18th February 1957. The letter is addressed to one Father Marino of Catholic Mission, P.O. Box 25, Nyeri, Kenya.

A typed copy bearing the contents of the accompanying image/letter/attachment was on display at the Kenya National Archives public gallery in the 1990s, since when it has been removed. However members of the public, on request, can get a typed copy of Kimathi’s said accompanying letter/image/attachment at the Kenya National Archives. According to the “Daily Nation” of 25th July 1986, the original letter is kept in Rome, Italy, at the Archivio Generale of the Instituto Mission Consolata.

Contents of Kimathi’s said accompanying letter of 17th February 1957 reproduced below verbatim;

Dedan Kimathi
C/O H.M Prison (i.e. Her Majesty’s Prison)
17th February 1957

Father Marino
Catholic Mission
P.O. Box 25

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.  
1 comment
Read more

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....
Post a Comment
Read more

Celly Dias: one of Uganda's greatest sportsmen

  Celly Dias One of Uganda’s greatest sportsmen By Norman Da Costa Celly Dias will be remembered for his excellence on and off the field. He used his creativity and skills to get to the top. Then he turned his attention indoors and again mastered the intricacies of each sport to reign supreme. Celly was a legend in Uganda and his impact on the field was immediate and profound. He enjoyed the best of two worlds – indoors and outdoors - and even his opponents admired him and spoke in glowing terms of this sportsman. He was a sportsman in the true real sense of the word. Having met and interviewed some of the greatest sportsmen during my career in Kenya and later in Canada one thing that struck me about Celly was that he reminded me of tennis ace Roger Federer - humble and down-to-earth.  Celly, who passed away at the age of 94, still followed every sport closely and would analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a batsman or a bowler. This isn’t surprising as Celly p...
Post a Comment
Read more