Kenya Land and Freedom Army

The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) was a guerrilla warfare army, formed mainly by the people of central and eastern Kenya, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, in protest against the injustices of colonial rule in Kenya. The army was led by Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi.

An army platoon had 500 soldiers; and in some cases where a platoon had 2,000 soldiers, a General was assisted by a Colonel and a Brigadier. Some of the well-known generals of the army include: General Chui, General Kassam Njogu, General China, Stanley Mathenge and General Bamuingi. The capture of rebel leader Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 fatally crippled the army, and ultimately ended the war. However, the army objective was achieved when Kenya attained self-government by the African majority. General Bamuingi (meaning, People’s General) whose team were killed on the battlefield by the Kenyatta government after independence in 1965 for going back to the forest to fight after 1963 independence of Kenya, claiming that the independence that had come to Kenya fundamentally benefited the ‘barren’ of the land (collaborators and moderates). Their bodies were paraded in Meru Township for three days as the last chiefs of the "Mau-Mau terrorists".