Radical Utu. Besi Brillian Muhonja

her activities closely, increasing its hostility toward the GBM as the 1990s began. During these years, Maathai was constantly afraid for her life. She reflected, “I realized that I was now a political figure, and that I had to take care even as I knew I couldn’t stay silent” (2007a, 206–7).

      The 1990s constituted the most radical years of the prodemocracy and women’s movements in Kenya up to that point. This volatile time was characterized by expanding prodemocracy initiatives, protests, and battles; outbreaks of ethnic violence related to elections; and the fight for affirmative action on behalf of Kenya’s women. Against this setting, Maathai’s global profile and visibility as an activist for human rights, democracy, women’s rights, and environmental protection expanded. Some saw her as a liberator and others as an anti(s)hero. Her crusading resulted in public judgment and shaming, repeat imprisonments and assaults, and reported assassination threats.

      The crusaders for Kenya’s second liberation challenged section 2A of the constitution, even demanding a dissolution of parliament. As part of this campaign, in August 1991, six opposition leaders, Oginga Odinga, Masinde Muliro, Martin Shikuku, Philip Gachoka, Ahmed Bamahriz and George Nthenge, formed the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) and invited the participation of like-minded individuals, including Professor Maathai (Muigai 1993, 29). The government reacted by outlawing the party and arresting its members but released them following criticism from local and global leaders and governments, including those of the United States and United Kingdom (29). At the time, the agenda of the women’s movement was becoming intertwined with the prodemocracy movement, placing Maathai at the center of the action as a principal of both movements. As 1991 wound down, the Paris Club made the decision to freeze aid to Kenya until change was evident in policy and practice, a direct result of the unrelenting campaigns by the leaders of the prodemocracy movement as well as increased international scrutiny of Kenya’s poor democratic practices, human rights violations, and economic mismanagement (28). This was a significant blow to the Kenyan government. The reality that many African nations—Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Zambia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Mauritania, Rwanda, and Madagascar—were embracing multipartyism around the same time put extra pressure toward change on the Moi regime.

      On December 3, 1991, a special KANU conference at the Kasarani Sports Complex in Nairobi agreed to the reintroduction of multiparty politics and the legalization of opposition parties. On December 10, the amendment to the constitution repealing section 2A, marking transition from a one-party system to a return to multiparty politics in Kenya, was passed in parliament (Adar and Munyae 2001, 8). Multipartyism opened up opportunities to engage semiliberally in opposition politics. In July 1992, female delegates at the National Capacity Building Workshop for women candidates, hosted by the National Committee on the Status of Women–Kenya (NCSW), endorsed Wangari Maathai as the women’s choice for president of Kenya. She declined the invitation to run, however, preferring to focus on her work with the GBM and with grassroots women.

      The rise of opposition politics in Kenya came up against a militantly obdurate government, leading to a bloody march toward democratization. Maathai and other members of FORD spent much of the 1990s in running battles with the government. Unfortunately, in 1992, FORD split into two parties—FORD-Kenya, led by Oginga Odinga, and FORD-Asili, led by Kenneth Matiba. Splintering the opposition further, Mwai Kibaki and John Keen founded the Democratic Party of Kenya (Fox 1996, 601). As part of her work with the prodemocracy movement, Maathai cofounded and served as chair of the Middle Ground Group (MGG), tasked with reuniting the opposition, and also led the Movement for Free and Fair Elections (Allen 1997, 332–33). Because the GBM was an active partner in these initiatives, detractors often lumped the activities and criticism of the two movements together. Thus, as Maathai’s stature as an environmentalist grew internationally, so did her politically instigated conflicts back in Kenya. This was demonstrated in the 1992 Release Political Prisoners (RPP) protest and, later, the globally publicized fight to save the indigenous Karura Forest. These events, explored further in chapter 3 and appendix 2 respectively, placed her in direct conflict with Moi and his government. The run-ins with the government were accompanied by assaults, hospitalizations, arrests, court appearances, death threats, and constant intimidation for crusaders for democracy.

      Global leaders and organizations, including the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), leaders of Western nations, religious leaders, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, would intervene time and again to ensure the safety of Maathai and other prodemocracy leaders (Maathai 2007a). With direct threats made against her life, Maathai later recounted that she often had to travel during the night and in disguise and even change cars to avoid detection on her trips. She regularly stayed at safe houses she and her friends and supporters had established (247).

      The administration’s antagonism toward Maathai and the risks to her life are exemplified by events relating to a planned seminar in Nakuru on ethnic violence that followed the 1992 elections. She reported that she, with GBM employees and other partners, were engaged in initiatives toward establishing peace and rebuilding communities following conflict in the Rift Valley. On this particular occasion, members of the police force with guns and dogs blocked their entry to the venue of the proceedings. Fearing for her life, she arranged to ride back to Nairobi with an ambassador of a foreign nation to ensure her security. Government representatives foiled further attempts to hold the event and other meetings in the Rift Valley, forcing Maathai to file an injunction with the High Court to compel the government to cease the obstructive behavior toward her efforts to convene the seminar (Maathai 2007a, 238–42).

      In this environment, on February 23, 1993, one of Maathai’s allies, Dr. Ngorongo Makanga, was abducted from his pharmacy, and Maathai reported receiving death threats. In an open letter to the attorney general, she requested protection and followed this with a trip on March 4 to the courthouse to plead bail before arrest in an effort to preempt any attempts to take her into custody. The following day, she went into hiding for two months after sending out a call for international organizations and governments to uphold the freezing of aid that had been instituted against the country before Kenya’s transition back to multipartyism (Maathai 2007a, 244–46). On that same day, Amnesty International published the statement “Fear for Safety KENYA: Wangari Maathai (female)—Environmentalist, Opposition Activist,” calling for appeals demanding the guaranteed safety of Maathai and Dr. Makanga to be sent to President Moi, Commissioner of Police Phillip Kilonzo, and Attorney General Amos Wako.

      As previously mentioned, Maathai’s security was made possible by supporters, including friends, prodemocracy leaders and activists, foreign diplomats, and religious leaders. Vertistine Mbaya recalled, “We were constantly on the lookout to make sure they didn’t pick her up, particularly secretly where nobody could protest because that’s when the damage can be done” (Taking Root 2008). On March 17, 1993, eight female politicians made a public statement asking the president to stop trying to intimidate Maathai. On April 18, Mikhail Gorbachev sent President Moi a letter requesting that he personally guarantee her safety as she traveled to the first International Green Cross gathering in Kyoto, Japan, which the former president of the Soviet Union had founded (Maathai 2007a, 248). Moi denied that the government was harassing Maathai, asserting that she was free to come and go as she pleased. The next day, she came out of hiding.

      That June, Maathai attended and spoke at the UN’s World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, where she also planned to hold an exhibition of photos on the ethnic violence in Kenya and distribute the parliamentary report on the violence. She later disclosed that persons acting on behalf of the government had stolen the photos and reports. This act of sabotage, she noted, was not an isolated event. She had helped establish the Tribal Clashes Resettlement Volunteer Service to support rebuilding postconflict communities (Taking Root 2008, 238), and government forces had constantly inhibited its efforts. The following September, Maathai called a press conference to say that she planned to sue the government for failing to intervene to stop the ethnic violence in Kenya. According to the Human Rights Watch Africa, approximately fifteen hundred Kenyans lost their lives and three hundred thousand were internally displaced during these ethnic conflicts (Materu 2014, 38). Lack of government will and investment in addressing the core issues related