The Dark Legacy

• They were brutalised or killed by Moi’s agents and yet Wako has refused to pay compensation awarded by courts.
• The victims of Kenya’s darkest chapter won’t wait for the Truth and Reconciliation for a hearing
• How a small band of Moi agents wrote Kenya’s darkest chapter in a basement

She tells her story: “I was arrested by a team of 14 special branch and CID men led by Superintendent Kasera, Inspector Clement Masinza and deputy DCIO Wang’ombe.

There was no woman in the team. They thoroughly searched our house, slapped me and told me that my husband’s case was serious and he might not come back.

I was bundled into the back of a car and driven to the Bungoma Police Station a few minutes after they had driven off with my husband in a Land Rover. At the police station, we stood outside and they started interrogating me.

“During the interrogation, they wanted to know more about my husband, Cornelius Mulumia, especially his activities in Mwakenya and other underground movements that I did not know about.

They also wanted to know if I had any idea of the allegedly seditious documents which they had taken from our house, and if Koigi Wamwere and Raila Odinga had ever visited us.

They later took the typewriter from my office at the ministry of education to compare with the characters of the machine that had typed the documents found in our house.

For the 14 days I stayed in custody I felt as if it was 10 years. All this time my young children, a daughter aged 5 and a son aged 3, were under the care of my neighbours.”

The husband takes up the story: “After the search that lasted for over an hour, they drove me in a Land Rover to Bungoma police station where I found my wife being interrogated by a group of over six policemen.

I was put in a cell and through a small hole on the door I could observe my wife being taken to another cell. One hour later, they came for me and took me to the special branch office where I found her being interrogated.

As we entered, they welcomed me with slaps and kicks before they returned me to the cell where I stayed for another three days.

“From December 10, 1990, to February 18, 1991 they shuttled me from Bungoma, Eldoret forest, Kakamega, Webuye Falls and back to Bungoma.

In between, they beat me using a whip, pierced my fingers with a needle and forced me to do all sorts of exercises including press-ups while demanding information on guns and underground movements like Mwakenya. In June 1991 I was finally released but I have yet to recover my health and social status.”

Torture in the Nyayo house basement resulted in death. The most well known case was that of Peter Njenga Karanja, a businessman who was arrested from his Chelsea Coffee House in Nakuru on allegations of being a member of Mwakenya.

In February 1987, Karanja died from internal bleeding and open wounds inflicted upon him during two weeks of brutal torture at Nyayo House.

The public outcry and international condemnation of Karanja’s death forced the Moi government to concede to a governmentcontrolled inquest into the death.