Widow of slain SLDF leader cries for acceptance

By Anderson Ojwang’

One year since Wycliffe Komon Matakwei was shot dead his widow still shoulders the burden of his role as a militia leader.

Ms Salome Chepkemoi Ndiwa, who has spoken for the first time about her husband, who led the rag-tag Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) in Mt Elgon, says she has been treated badly by neighbours.

"Many still refuse to be associated with me while others treat me with suspicion," says Ndiwa.

Soldiers, deployed to the district under Operation Okoa Maisha that crushed the SLDF insurgency over land, killed the militia leader.

Ndiwa says even as the army hunted for Matakwei in the caves of Mt Elgon, he never hid far and always sneaked back to his home.

several bodyguards

"My husband spent most of the nights at home. He had several bodyguards who guarded him round the clock. He would tell me whenever he would not be back. He was not as mysterious as most people were made to believe," she says.

She says the first time she realised her husband was a wanted man was in 2005 during a constitutional referendum rally at Huruma Market, in Mt Elgon, hosted by then local MP John Serut and attended by top Government officials.

He shouted at the MP at the rally, telling him the district was ‘Orange’ and not ‘Banana’, the referendum symbols that defined the opposing camps.

"That night, more than 200 police officers came to our home armed to the teeth, but did not find him because he had escaped after sensing danger," she recalls.

Ndiwa adds: "From that day he became a wanted person and started a cat and mouse chase with police. He was wanted for campaigning against land division in the third phase of Chebyuk Settlement Scheme."

She says her husband and other members of the Soy clan were enraged after they were left out in the distribution of the land, which they claimed was riddled with corruption and favouritism.

destroyed everything

"In February, 2006 police came to our farm in Chebyuk where we had a semi-permanent house and other businesses. They destroyed everything and this infuriated him," she says.

Ndiwa says police put up a tent on the farm and drove them away. She moved to Cheptais, where her husband’s parents live.

She says the officers camped on their farm until December last year when they moved out after residents had been evicted from the controversial settlement.

She says Matakwei always hid among the people and not in the forests.

"When my husband was alive, he spent most nights at home or in houses of friends," she told The Standard.

Matakwei, she adds, had a large following.

"The truth is that nearly all men and boys in Cheptais joined his group," Ndiwa claims.

She says when the first Army platoon arrived in February last year, Matakwei told her and their five children hide in Webuye.

However, after a month, she surrendered at Kapkota where the soldiers asked her to telephone her husband and persuade him to surrender.

She says they spoke over the phone several times, but her husband was aware she was under duress and declined her request.

"The military freed me. My husband and I kept in touch on phone. He would pretend he was far away, then without warning appear in the house at night and leave before dawn," she says.

Then came the fatal day towards end of May last year when Matakwei was cornered and shot.

telephone call

"At 11pm, I received a telephone call from the military, asking me to report and record a statement with them at Kapkota military base the next day.

The following day, police took me to Kapkota. They said I would meet my husband after two hours. Exactly after two hours, two helicopters landed, one carrying my husband’s body and those of others killed along with him," she says.

She identified Matakwei from the clothes he was wearing because they were the same ones he had worn when he left home. Ndiwa says police destroyed their two motorcycles, a lorry, killed their livestock and froze her husband’s account that had more than Sh300,000.

"Since then, my neighbours have discriminated against and shunned me. I sometimes feel very lonely and do not know why people do not want to associate with me," she says.

But religious groups and Rural Women Peace Link, an NGO, she says, introduced her to new friends who have helped her restart her life.

She says it is through the NGO that she shares her experience with women whose husbands were either tortured or killed by SLDF militia.

"The meetings have healed me and I am beginning to see the brighter side of life. I have taken every opportunity to seek forgiveness from those people my husband wronged. I have to bear the burden," she says as tears roll down her cheeks.