Mau Mau warrior returns home

The Mau Mau staged a rebellion against British colonial rule

A leading Kenyan independence fighter - General Stanley Mathenge - has returned to Kenya for the first time in 47 years to attend celebrations marking 40 years of independence.

General Mathenge, 84, returned at the invitation of President Mwai Kibaki to attend Sunday's ceremonies.

He was a commander in the Mau Mau independence movement, but he fled Kenya in 1956 after the nominal leader of the movement, Dedan Kimathi, was captured and executed by the British colonial power.

He was a brave, courageous, fearless and partly ruthless commander

Kamau wa Kihote

More than 13,000 Africans were killed in the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s as well as about 100 Europeans.

"I am so delighted to be back home. I thank Kenyans for their ungrudging hospitality," he told a crowd of about 300 people in the airport lounge.

He spoke in Amharic, the only language he speaks, which was translated into English by Ethiopian ambassador to Kenya Muradi Mussa.

Mr Mathenge had the rank of general bestowed on him after he returned from service in Burma in the second world war.

Call for support

"He was a brave, courageous, fearless and partly ruthless commander," said Kamau wa Kihote, 81, who fought alongside General Mathenge in Mount Kenya and the Aberdares forests in central Kenya, reports AFP news agency.

"Mathenge, I swear, used to punish us for a good cause, if we failed to take his commands in the bush," said another former veteran, Francis Muruiki, 80.

He added that the general's war tactics led the British army to start bombarding the Mau Mau in the forests.

"The local fighters dodged the bombs for weeks, but when the food supplies dried up, our lifeline was cut off, each of us fled on our own. Many died in the forest and were consumed by wild animals."

General Mathenge and 28 other fighters fled to Ethiopia, with the hope of getting support there, but they never returned.