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Change Your Life! |
Is he serial no.9454 or is he Hiram Karambo? |
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News
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August 8, 2000
NAIROBI (AP) - Fingering his worn leather dog-tag, serial No. 9454, and two brass buttons from his private's uniform, Hiram Karumbo thinks back to his military service during World War II. "All I remember is walking long distances," says the Kenyan, who thinks he was born in 1913. "Sometimes we would jump in holes full of (human) bones to hide because there was nowhere else to go." Karumbo, who served in the King's African Rifles, a British colonial regiment, is one of thousands of East African veterans who fought for Britain during the two world wars and in local conflicts. Now, at the end of their lives, Karumbo and his comrades are for the first time getting assistance - from their former British colonial officers. Stirred by tales of old African soldiers living in poverty with little or no assistance from either the British or their own governments, retired British officers last year began the Askari Appeal. Askari means soldier in Kiswahili, the lingua franca of East Africa. The officers have collected about 150,000 pounds, or about dlrs 235,000, which is being distributed to veterans in Africa. For many, the money is too late, says Maj. Isaac Chumo of the Kenya Armed Forces Comrades Association, a government-sponsored group responsible for the welfare of veterans in this East African country. "Most of the veterans say they were promised in the victory parade (in 1945) that they would get educations, land and a lump sum, but many have had nothing," he says. The harsh reality is that no soldier - British or African - was entitled to anything more than a small one-time payment unless he had been injured during service or served for 22 years. The difference is British veterans returned to a country that was introducing a social welfare system, while African veterans were left to fend for themselves. At independence in 1963, Britain handed over to Kenya's government military buildings and firing ranges that were supposed to be sold to raise money to finance veterans pensions, but it is not clear what happened to the properties. Karumbo, who volunteered for the King's African Rifles in 1941 and served in Ethiopia, Ceylon, India and Burma before being mustered out in 1946, says he has received nothing from Kenya or Britain. He is bitter he has had to eke out a living on a tiny farm. "We were not enlightened like people are now," he says, squinting through thick glasses. "It's been a difficult life because I came back with nothing." But the proud man who stands remarkably straight despite his spindly legs says he doesn't regret fighting. "I volunteered to join the army to fight for my country because the war was here," he says. "If I was young, I would join (again)." The Askari Appeal's director, Col. Fergus MacKain-Bremner, says the group's objective is to give old soldiers some dignity in their waning years. For the first time, the Kenyan branch of the British Legion, an association of British veterans, is also trying to raise money for old soldiers. The legion's purpose is not to help former colonial soldiers, "but we see how little is being done for them," says Maj. Andrew Bacon. There are 8,000 to 10,000 surviving Kenyan veterans, says Chumo at the Kenya Armed Forces Comrades Association, which is responsible for distributing funds raised by the Askari Appeal. Last September, his group received nearly dlrs 40,000 from the appeal. That allowed Chumo to dole out 6,500 Kenyan shillings, or about dlrs 87, to each of 418 Kenyan veterans deemed needy by the British Commonwealth Ex-Services League. Karumbo did not apply last year, but he has filed forms for this year's allocation. Britain first established colonial armies in Africa in the 1880s to help quell local uprisings. But it was during World Wars I and II that the native soldiers came to prominence. The King's African Rifles, established in 1902 with recruits from Uganda, Somalia, Nyasaland (today's Malawi), Tanganyika (Tanzania), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Kenya, grew from 2,319 men in 1914 to almost 31,000 in 1918, historian Timothy Parsons says. During World War II, 323,483 East African soldiers played a major role in defeating the Italians in Ethiopia, Vichy French forces in Madagascar and the Japanese in Burma, Parsons says. Col. Sam Pope, an official in the British Commonwealth Ex-Services League, says the money being raised by the Askari Appeal is letting the group reach more Kenyans. In the past, Kenyans also have missed out because of poor administration within the Kenya Armed Forces Comrades Association, Pope says. "When they (KAFCA) have remembered to ask, they have got something. but when they don't, they get nothing," he says.
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