Four decades ago this month on August 1, 1982, some elements of the Kenya Air Force attempted to overthrow the Daniel arap Moi-led government of Kenya. They declared their takeover on radio via state broadcaster KBC.
All hell broke loose in the capital city of Nairobi and its environs following this early morning announcement. Massive looting erupted in the central business district, untold destruction unfolded and a trail of death including more than 100 soldiers and about 200 civilians bloodied the streets.
The disorderly rebellion by junior officers was crushed within six hours by an army still loyal to the President. Kenya Air Force Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka, the mastermind, was later convicted of treason and executed on July 9, 1987, at Kamiti Maximum Prison alongside Sergeant Pancras Okumu and Corporals Bramwel Njereman and Walter Ojode.
But for many young servicemen in the Kenya Air Force, the worst was yet to come. Many did not have prior knowledge of the coup attempt, but in the crackdown that followed, they suffered arrest, torture, imprisonment and banishment to joblessness and poverty for life.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 servicemen were arrested. The lucky ones were interrogated for a few days and allowed to resume work. Others were discharged after the initial interrogation. But others were taken to hell and back for months, if not years.
One of those whose lives were shattered was Peter Mutune, 63, who at the time of the coup was only 24 and relatively new in the Air Force, still only a private. He and other servicemen only found out about the coup on the morning of August 1. But when the army subdued the Kenya Air Force ‘rebels’, they were confined and interrogated at the Eastleigh Air Base for three days.
On the fourth day, they were transferred to the Kamiti Maximum Prison, where they cooled their heels and continued to be interrogated for six months. The ordeal would later be sustained at the Naivasha Maximum Prison, where Mutune and others were incarcerated for three months. Among other injustices, the airmen were subjected to psychological torture at the Naivasha Maximum Prison in an effort to make them confess to participation in the attempted coup.
In exchange for confessions, the interrogators would dangle ‘pricey items’ that they had been starved of, including tea and cigarettes. “They would also tell us that if we confessed, we would be re-employed, but those who took the bait were quickly whisked to Langata to face a court martial and eventual jail term.”
Then one day, out of the blue, those who did not confess (to an offence they had not committed) were packed into an army truck and taken to Kahawa Barracks, where they were ordered to remove the then irreparably tattered and filthy Kenya Air Force uniforms. They were ordered to don pieces of equally filthy civilian clothes from a bloody heap at one corner of the barracks. Mutune believes the clothes were either taken off dead people or had been picked from the streets following the coup attempt.
In what was essentially a dishonourable discharge, the servicemen were given bus fare (in Mutune’s case, Sh17) and dropped by an army truck at the Machakos bus stop in Nairobi.
Some of us were awarded Sh5.5 million each plus accrued interest in 2013. But almost 10 years later, we are yet to be compensated
TREATED LIKE ANIMALS
After months of drinking his frustrations away, Mutune took an insurance sales job, which was just about the only job the ex-Kenya Air Force man could get as the government had instructed potential employers to hire ex-servicemen. He sold insurance for two years, but it was just not his thing.
Mutune has since, through assistance from family and friends, tried his hand at various casual jobs, including working at a butchery and hawking flowers, but finally settled on growing vegetables at his quarter-acre plot.
All the while, he was haunted by his nine months in hell at the hands of a country he had served so diligently for three years.
In 2012, two years after the new Constitution was promulgated, Mutune and fellow former servicemen went to court, seeking compensation for wrongful detention and unlawful dismissal.
“Some of us were awarded Sh5.5 million each plus accrued interest in 2013. But almost 10 years later, we are yet to be compensated,” lamented the grandfather in an interview with the Star last week.
David Njau, 70, joined the Kenya Air Force in 1973 and proved himself in turbulent times, including participating in the Shifta war by providing technical support. “I used to repair runway flasher beacons and pumps for refuelling fighter planes in Wajir and Mandera during that war,” he recalled.
He also remembers the high alert status in which his fellow officers and himself were at when, also in the 1970s, former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin claimed part of Kenya’s territory, declaring that his country’s border extended to Naivasha.
Njau, who by the time of the attempted coup was a sergeant, was awarded three medals for his exemplary performance in the Kenya Air Force, but even this honour was ignored by those who dishonourably released him from the force following the botched coup.
When he was released, he and all the other sacked officers were not allowed to go back to the barracks for their personal effects and documents, including academic certificates. They were given dirty clothes to wear and shooed away like animals.
“We did not know about nor did we participate in the attempted coup, and yet I was detained for eight months and then dismissed without benefits,” Njau said.
“My life was turned upside down and initially, nobody would employ me. I did interviews with the Kenya Pipeline Company and Kenya Power and Lighting Company, but when each entity found out that I was a former Kenya Air Force officer, they told me they had instructions not to employ our kind.”
But unlike many, Njau would later hit the jackpot when the Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority (Tarda) employed and put him on six months’ probation. “At the end of that period, auditors came and in the process, I was summoned by the personnel officer and asked to provide a clearance certificate.”
Njau did not have the certificate so the personnel officer wrote a letter to the Ministry of Defence, asking for the same. Defence said it did not object to his employment, which Tarda took as clearance. He served that organisation for 13 years.
We did not know about nor did we participate in the attempted coup, and yet I was detained for eight months and then dismissed without benefits
FIGHT FOR JUSTICE
Mutune, Njau and the other servicemen have gone through many processes in demanding their rightful compensation, including but not limited to petitioning the National Assembly and the Senate, which has recommended that the former servicemen be paid their dues. The Attorney General has also recommended the payments.
On June 10 this year, Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi presented to the House a petition he had received from the ex-servicemen. It narrated their journey from being arrested in August 1982 to being detained and/or imprisoned, the consequent suffering, their quest for compensation in the High Court and the awards that have never been honoured by the government.
On behalf of other former servicemen, Njau and RL Ngure petitioned the Assembly, reminding it that they had diligently served the nation as Kenya Air Force officers until the August 1, 1982 attempted coup. “We were subsequently arrested for allegedly participating in the attempted coup. We were then imprisoned for periods ranging from six months to several years and then unlawfully and unconstitutionally dismissed from the Kenya Air Force, without compensation, despite not having been involved in the attempted coup.”
In their petition, the former officers indicated that they had pursued justice in the High Court, where they were granted varying awards, on different dates from 2012. They obtained orders to be paid in 2017 and the Principal Secretary for Defence swore an affidavit saying the ministry had factored the decreed compensation amount in the 2017-18 budget allocation, but the orders have remained unheeded since.
The petitioners asked the National Assembly to allocate the Ministry of Defence enough funds in the 2021-22 budget to allow for their compensation and settlement of decretal debts and interest accrued. Speaker Justin Muturi declared that matters raised were within the authority of the august House and ordered that the petition be committed to the Budget and Appropriations Committee to consider and report findings back to the House and the petitioners. The committee was asked to consider the necessary adjustment to the 2021-22 budget to accommodate the prayers of the petitioners.
“We are old and most of my colleagues are also sickly. Personally, I am taking care of grandchildren following my daughter’s death last year. The government should compensate us now,” pleads Mutune.
Any further delay in compensating the now senior citizens, most with underlying health conditions, they argue, would only aggravate their life situations and lead them to early graves.
Edited by T Jalio
