Close relatives to attend funeral
This is to notify the general Kenya-Stockholm public and friends alike that the late Mr. Boniface Mutahi Gacheru will be buried on Thursday 15th December 2011 at Lilla Dalens graveyard in Tumba at 11.00hrs.
Speaking to KSB, Councilor Daniel Mwaura of Botkyrka Municipality where Gacheru lived, said that the late Gacheru’s sister together with her husband will arrive in Sweden tomorrow Wednesday December 14th ahead of the funeral on Thursday. Mr. Mwaura said that he has been working “round the clock” with the case and that tickets for Gacheru’s relatives who will attend the burial have been financed with Gacheru’s cash which was in his bank account.
Mr. Mwaura said that there is still no arrangement on how Gacheru’s relatives will be accommodated once they arrive in Sweden and added that he is in the process of taking contact with the Kenyan Embassy in Stockholm to investigate how the Mission can chip in to help.
“The Swedish authorities have said that they cannot help with the upkeep of the relatives and threatened to withdraw the tickets if arrangements cannot be made”, Councilor Mwaura told KSB. He said that he assured the Swedes that he will look into the matter. He has appealed to Kenyans to come up and help Gacheru’s relatives with transport, food and accommodation once they arrive in Sweden.
After Gacheru’s burial was stopped by KSB to allow for time to track down his relatives in Kenya, Mr. Aurther Andambi at the Kenyan Embassy said that the Mission could not help with tracking down Gacheru’s relatives due to lack of logistics. This position perplexed many Kenyans who expected the Embassy to be the sole authority which had the capacity to track down Gacheru’s relatives.
Mr. Mwaura appealed to Kenyans, friends and sympathizers to help with ideas on how Gacheru’s relatives could be accommodated in case the Embassy becomes a let-down. Mr. Mwaura criticized the Embassy for not being able to help Kenyans in Scandinavia especially during moments of crisis and pointed to the Embassy’s inability to play any role in tracking down Gacheru’s relatives following news that he had been found dead in his apartment.
He said that he had already spent a lot of money helping the family of the late Charles Njonjo following the arrival of Njonjo’s brother in Sweden ahead of Njonjo’s burial tomorrow Wednesday December 14th.
“Njonjo was my friend and Gacheru was also my friend. I cannot dump them in death and that is why despite the failures of the Kenyan Embassy, I took it upon myself to ensure that their relatives travelled to Sweden to attend the funerals and to ensure that they are taken care of once they arrived in Sweden”, Councilor Mwaura told KSB. He added that he had to hire a Taxi from Arlanda International Airport to transport Njonjo’s brother to a Kenyan’s residence who had offered to accommodate the brother. Councilor Mwaura said that he has been mobilizing support for Njonjo’s brother since he arrived in Sweden and thanked a Kenyan who bought him a pack of food yesterday.
Councilor Mwaura was among a few Kenyans who met the late Dr. Njojnjo’s brother yesterday in Alby to finalize plans for the funeral. The meeting was attended by Njonjo’s children while the venue where the meeting took place was also hired by Councilor Mwaura. . The Councilor told KSB that he had done a lot in connection with the two Kenyans who had lost their lives and attacked the Embassy for failing to turn up at yesterday’s meeting which was attended by Njonjo’s close family members.
KSB can only agree with Councilor Mwaura – that the Embassy is a big failure. We can add that it is time for the government to recall Ambassador Purity Muhindi. We appeal to Kenyans to join hands in pressurizing the Coalition government to send Purity to retirement because she has been a big let-down to Kenyans in Scandinavia.
Okoth Osewe
About the Author
Ean Wuod Luo
What has death dealt us. Am available as a soldier.Mwaura keep the flames burning.God Bless
Jaaduong OSEWE gona sime.
KSB: Namba?
this is enough of this shady embassy.am appealing to kenyans in scandinavia to make a peacefull demonstration outside the embassy and let it reach to the media in kenya.we are tiredthe embassy is doing nothing to help kenyans..its just a place you get visas and get your passport when expired which an agent can do.purity must go
Jaduong namba mar ot en 08- 53172114
Gona sime, omera.
Purity and Andambi are useless for Kenyans.
Good work Councillor Mwaura and those who have supported after the two tragedies. Now all know that Purity can never help Kenyans.
Both Gacherus Family together with Njonjos Family from Kenya should be accommondated by Kenyas Ambassador in Sweden at Nacka Resident located at Strand Vägen hence Huge equipped with Guests bedrooms.
Both Families belongs to the Ruling Kikuyu Elites.and there is no reasons for Kikuyus failing to support One of their Own. Let us remember how Jews used to help and assist Jews during Second world war where all jews were subjected by harsh Adolf Hitler inhuman treatment. Daniel Mwaura should take these arriving Kenyans to the Kenya Embassy and had them to Mr Andambi the Master of conspiracy and Anti-Kikuyu Rhetorics.
The Kenya Govt treats her Citizens so Mwauras criticalissues here is not a suprise to wakenya >FIELD MARSHAL MUTHONI
By NYAMBEGA GISESA engisesa@yahoo.com
Posted Sunday, December 11 2011 at 19:11
On December 12, 1963 President Jomo Kenyatta sent a car to pick up a Mau Mau fighter from the forest to take part in a ceremony where freedom fighters would lay down their weapons.
She refused, not convinced the war was over, and demanded instead to first see the Kenyan flag.
President Kenyatta had a lot of convincing to do before the woman agreed to lead other fighters in the ceremony marking Kenya’s full independence at Nyeri’s Ruringu Stadium in December 1963.
Today, Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima, previously known for her air of authority and rebellious streak, lives with her grandchildren at her home in a Nyeri suburb.
Last year, President Mwai Kibaki invited her to State House Nairobi. They had earlier met in May 2009 during the burial of Mishek Wachiuri, the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi’s son, in Nyeri.
“I arrived shortly after seven in the morning and I was denied entry and told to get an appointment letter. I left after five in the evening,” she told the Nation by telephone.
Being asked to write a letter was too insulting for the senior most women within the Mau Mau ranks.
“I know neither English nor good Kiswahili because when others were in school, I was in the forest fighting,” she said in February during the 54th anniversary of the execution of Dedan Kimathi in Nyeri.
Field Marshal Muthoni was one of the very few women to become active fighters in the liberation movement. Most other women only worked as carriers of information or supplies, as she also did at the start.
The liberation movement had only four Field Marshals — Kimathi, Baimungi Marete, Muthoni and Musa Mwariama — and rising to such a position was no easy task.
The only surviving Field Marshal is one of a kind. Muthoni wa Kirima showed great courage even as a young girl when she killed a rhinoceros to save her father’s goats.
Later she followed her husband into Nyandarua Forest to join the Mau Mau freedom fighters. Dedan Kimathi named her Weaver Bird because of her ability to weave brilliant strategies in the struggle for Kenya’s independence.
Although her parents worked on a European farm, after her marriage, she moved to a village “reserve” for Africans in Nyeri before joining the Mau Mau as a married woman.
She led the hunt for elephants, walked hundreds of kilometres among other fighters to pick up weapons from Ethiopia and was among the fighters who were never caught, only came out of the forest after independence.
“Field Marshal Muthoni was trapping wildlife to cook. She went to fight alongside famous warriors of the forest like Dedan Kimathi Waciuri,” the book Mau Mau Women notes about her.
Even when death stared at the fighters, she found a humorous and satirical way to keep their spirits high.
Another book, Field Marshal Muthoni Kirima — Warrior Woman quotes her speaking about her first bombing experience:
“We saw the bottom of the bomber open and then something drop. Some of us said: ‘Well, so they (whites) also go to the toilet.’”
After independence, Field Marshal Muthoni convinced Mzee Kenyatta to get her a licence to trade in ivory, saying she used to kill elephants for food and hide the ivory, and knew where they had buried tusks.
Her permission to collect and sell “wild” ivory ended in 1976 when trade in ivory was banned.
Security firm
She then moved to transporting farm produce to sell in Nairobi before the Moi government helped her set up a security firm in Nyeri that she runs up to today.
She says she did not attract much attention after independence since she got clean and adopted modern clothes, unlike a number of Mau Mau fighters who continued wearing dreadlocks and animal skin clothes.
Today, Field Marshal Muthoni is still concerned about land being sold to foreigners instead of being rented out on short leases to such outsiders.
Alternatively, she says, the government should use the land itself to address lack of jobs for the youth, and settle IDPs and the landless freedom fighters.
But she also has praise for what has been happening, including the free primary school education, recognition of the heroes and the removal of the Mau Mau from the terrorist list.
“As the only female Field Marshal, we are demanding that a statue be elected in her honour when she is alive. It’s wrong for the county to only keep honouring the dead,” activist Benedict Wachira says.
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Field+Marsh….xz/-/index.html
The system has touched base It is a good indicactor.
Lets be wholesome in Sverige .The need to be one has come around.God as a reason will be the deliberator.Love for Kenyans.especially LUO..Its me Anthony Odera.
Ean Wuod Luo
Councilor Mwaura good work you always do be blessed,my kenyans sometimes is not our wish people go and through there some who believe of,everyone want to play mwaura`s part no no,mwaura has wife offcus even u,but l cant marry RATS and pretend that l have awife n get kids with ooops.thats one JALUO,,,ukweri wa mambo iko and Enough..
finaly l wish all kenyans mary christmas and happy new year.God bless you all and our kenyan ambassador AHA purity to stay
It still mystifies me that we have Kenyans in this day and age of enlightenment, and moreover probably educated to some degree, displaying reasoning that is akin that of a wild savage living in 1800’s Africa wearing nothing but a loin cloth, if anything at all.
The comment by Kipchirchir Rugut is one that falls in this mystifying category. What does he mean by the bereaved families belong to the ruling kikuyu elite? The statement is obviously based on the fact that they belong to the same ethnic group and therefore collectively part and parcel of this elite. Based on the name Kipchirchir Rugut, one can deduce this individual hails from the kalengin ethnic group. Do we thereafter associate Kipchirchir Rugut and his family as being members of the kalengin ruling cliché of the Moi era? Do we presume that Kipchirchir Rugut breaks bread and wind with the likes of Gideon Moi and Biwott? Perhaps Kipchirchir Rugut believes this to be the case, and this would certainly be the reasoning of a moron. Stupidity personified! The bereaved families may be from the kikuyu ethic group but have more in common with Kipchirchir Rugut than they will ever have with the elite kikuyu ruling class.
It is people that reason and think like Kipchirchir Rugut that took up machetes during the post 2007 elections chaos slaughtering their neighbors, justifying their actions as attacks on the thieving kikuyu elite. The truth is that they killed and maimed Kenyans because they can only reason within a tribal context and as such compare to the beasts in the wild, like the Hyena. Hyenas can never live side by side with anything but a hyena, because they have no reasoning and perceive everything else as a threat. Kipchirchir Rugut should crawl back under the rock he emerged from and leave debate to those that do the thinking for people of his caliber. On the other hand, kwanini hawezi kuacha ukabila? The choice is Kipchirchir Rugut’s.
LoL Hatari! Wewe ni hatari kwa kuwachamba wajinga kama Kipchirchir Rugut! We need a peaceful political transition next year so early stoking of fires as such should be avoided. Good you pointed on his stupidity of bundling the bereaved together with the Kikuyu elite. Ignorance mwingi on his part.
And then there’s this DAVID WA KAROKI…..´
What the hell is he on? What’s all this about marrying rats, WTF?!!!! Or is RATS an abbreviation for someone that can be taken in marriage? I never get his comments, and when I have read them always left thinking…WTF?!!!! Ukweli wa mambo is, debe’s abound where Kenyans congregate.
I wish him a “mary christmas” and happy new year too.
wacha matuzi kambla nyama ijakuja.fitina kado tafota kisu na niwewe daktari..wewe ni daktari hatari sana some WEWE unajikoroga tu,WHT-H????and let osewe answer!!you dont have to understand those but wewe fizi nj gozi ya mbina damu you have ama ODIEKI HATARI SANA.NA SINILI KWABIA????
Ean Wuod Luo,
When we start dispensing nonsensical views that negate tribe .I would suggest that as collective whole we have lost it.I belong to a people and would never abandon my identity because of some fallicious misconceptions about my people ,The Luo.So be it as it may l cannot come around to be reading whimsical attempts by those who do not identitfy .Punkt slut.Lets accept our origins then as Kenya we shall be free from the illusion of being called a country. .Ean Wuod Luo.
Tony Odera
Is this the same mwaura who was smered with mud sometimes backall is a diffrent one. Kweli dunia ni kegeugeu. Njoro wa skogås you are the next to be praised. be patient
Na kubaliana na nambari 14.
If the man has repen ted (Ångra) why not forgive him and let him join in the Fold. He had gone astry and if he has realized his Unjinga shaauri zake Washa tumukarimbishe.
Mwaura gets peace when he comes with it. But when he talks bad about KSB commentators, he gets painful fire from HELL.
Councilor Mwaura is a nice man and he is worth praising for coordinating the funeral. Congratulations to him and he should know that KSB is the authoritative Kenya Media in Scandinavia. Osewe did not praise Mwaura. He reported what Mwaura did and this is how a responsible media ought to operate.
Mwaura atulie hivyo hivyo na mambo yatabaki salama kwake.
ole kitamy r u telling me u ready to through a stone to someone. we are human being and can never be perfect.
Thanks mwaura for the good job u have done. umeweka mfano mwema. atleast one have to assist where one can. lakini we want to know what help u got from the embassy, twambie. did they help?
Well done Mwaura and your family for what you have all done by assisting the late Gacherus funeral and the relatives.We know you are moving here and there to assist with your own money.
We have the Embassy that cares for the movements of visiting government dignitaries ok but what of such needy cases like Gacherus..or Njonjos.All of good will can chip in with food or anything.It was wonderful to have people like Nyori,Ngatias,Naomis and others who have cared as well.Keep it up Kenyans!