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1/ #HistoryKeThread: This is a photo of #MauMau Gen. China aka Warûhiû Itote (below) being escorted to court after his capture by colonialists. 
2/ Moments earlier, he had been receiving medical treatment. During the operation that led to his capture, Warûhiû was shot and suffered bullet wounds in the neck. 
3/ Born in 1921, Gen. China served in Burma during WWII and was retired as a corporal. When the emergency was declared in Kenya, Gen. China retreated to the forests of mount Kenya.
4/ In the early years of the Mau Mau wars, Warûhiû was assigned the 'rank' of General after convincing the Mau Mau War Council that he had 8,000 men. They didn't quite believe him but gave him the rank anyway.
5/ Warûhiû, whose men were referred to as the 'hîka hîka' (rush, rush) battalion, was a great student of the action in WWII.
6/ On the fringes of the forests, he created mock camps to delude the enemy. Even around the mock camps, he set up booby traps to ensnare colonial troops or homeguards. He then set up real camps deeper in the forests and created codes and signals to distinguish his men from... 
7/ ...the enemy.
8/ For example, if his men came across a stranger, they would greet him with a coded salutation - "itimû" (spear). The stranger was then expected to reply by saying "ngo" (shield), otherwise he would be treated as a spy, or enemy.
9/ General China was also famous among the top ranks of the Mau Mau for the clever use of girls in combat.
10/ In one Embu incident described by the man who would after independence be part of the formation of National Youth Service (NYS), four of his girls helped disarm a KAR NCO of a Bren gun. 
11/ After a village swoop by the KAR troops at a village in Embu, one of them was attracted to a pretty girl smiling teasingly at him. The latter's girlfriends lurked in a thicket nearby, monitoring proceedings.
12/ Flattered by her interest, the soldier suggested that they move to a more secluded spot. The girl agreed, to his obvious delight, and led him to a nearby banana grove. Then the girl quickly threw herself to the ground seductively.
13/ As the soldier made as if to join her for an embrace, the three girls violently grabbed him from behind. The temptress girl grabbed the Bren gun and made away with it as the three other girls quickly choked the soldier with a piece of stick, his hands tied behind him.
14/ When Gen. China was arrested in January 1954, lawyer A. R. Kapila (pictured) stepped forward to represent him. Itote was sentenced to hang but following a deal he subsequently struck with the colonial officers, he was spared in return for his commitment to act as a... 
15/ ...go-between in negotiating surrender with the Mau Mau (a role that was unthinkable as the freedom fighters would have killed him rightaway).
16/ Upon independence, Gen. China was among the first crop of officers of the National Youth Service trained in Israel. He retired into farming and died in 1993. 
17/ In the photo below, former President Kibaki addresses mourners at the Mau Mau man’s funeral. 
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