Mau Mau terrorists in a forest sent surrender note to priest

`OUR GOD IS SLEEPING'
By Douglas Hyde
"DRAY for us, our God is sleeping." This was the message which members of Mau Mau, cut off in the forest and under constant attack by British troops, sent recently to a missionary, Fr. Bartolomeo Negro.
Fr. Negro took the message to mean that they were at the end of their tether and would welcome the opportunity to pull out of the fight. He checked and found that this was so, then told the author
ities.
Surrender leaflets were dropped on the forest, the gang gave themselves up, went into a rehabilitation centre for which Fr. Negro is responsible, and a number of them are now under instruction in the Faith.
I met this Italian Consolata Father who has the ear of both repentant Mau Mau and the Government at the meeting of the African lay apostolate in Kisubi, Uganda.
When he came he was accompanied by an armed guard as far as the Kenya border. for the irreconcilable* in Mau Mau have repeatedly declared that they will "get him" and there has been one attempt after another on his fife.
Karema, South Nyeri, where he has his mission. is an all-Kikuyu area, and because he is close to his people, Fr. Negro knew of the turn things were taking long before the outside world, or even the authorities, had come to take Mau Mau seriously.
First guard
Knowing that Mau Mau was antiChristian and was committed to terrorism as a method, and foreseeing the possibility of attacks, Fr. Negro began to raise an armed guard for the protection of his people and for°"rmerdtYl.o4wailleear4stAletr:.;-..a. ?guard bad been inaugurated.
Into it have come Catholics, Protestants and loyal pagans too. Day and night they guard the mission an school. At night there are guards with 10 or 12 rifles between them, Wright round the mission. Others have spears, bows and arrows or, of course, the all-purpose panga knife which one sees everywhere in East Africa.
That the move was justified in the circumstances is reflected by the many Christians who have died at the hands of the terrorists. There have so far been five armed attacks by Mau Mau on the mission. One nun, Sister Eugenia, was murdered last September.
Now the attacks have been for the moment switched to the native missions. Two African nuns have been killed. Another was terribly slashed with knives but is recovering.
I asked Fr. Negro what happens to Catholics who take the Mau Mau oath.
I had previously discussed this matter with a number of intelligent, educated young Catholic Kikuyu who all took the view that under the conditions which Mau Mau have created it is almost inevitable that Catholics should take the oath when it is demanded of them.
There had been in early days many who refused, ready to die if necessary. And they did die—horribly. •
Twenty died
But it became clear that this would almost certainly be the fate of all those who refused to take the oath. At least 20 of his parishioners, Fr. Negro told me, died in this way. But it was clear that not all could be expected thus to court martyrdom.
Some 40 per cent., he calculates, have now taken the oath either because they were misled or, in most eases, under pressure. Almost 100 per cents of the Protestants in the same area have taken it.
Fr. Negro has two aims in these cases—to get them out of Mau Mau again and to get them back into the Church. In both he has been notably successful.
He told me how some of his parishioners were drawn into the movement because they approved of its aim of independence (as do the Majority of Kikuyu, Catholics included).
Carried along by the fight, they became active, then saw it was wrong and came out.
He has others who even went so far as to go into the Home Guard, put there by Mau Mau, worked well for the terrorists; then their Catholic conscience reasserting itself, repented.
For all cases short of those who have been guilty of murder the way back into the Church is made as easy as the circumstances permit. Men who, like Fr. Negro, live in Kikuyuland, understand the temptations and the pressures under which these people are living today.
Absolution
If they took the oath at a public ceremony they must recant at an equally public cleansing—the Government insists on this in any case.
Then, as Catholics who put themselves outside the Church by taking this anti-Christian oath, they go to Confession. The priest is permitted, once be has satisfied himself that the ex-Mau Mau's repentance is genuine, to absolve him.
In a rehabilitation camp five miles from his mission and adjoining his school, Fr. Negro has a rehabilitation centre. In it are some 50 men and women who formerly lived in the forest with Mau Mau gangs. Some were captured by British troops, some surrendered.
The Government helps with the salary of the two instructors in the camp, both of whom are Kikuyu professional teachers. Slowly and thoroughly they are brought back to a normal life. And from their ranks —and even from those on capital charges too—Fr. Negro is getting a steady flow of converts to the Church.