Shadowy death of an Irish idealist under African skies

BROTHER Larry Timmons began his last day like any other tip at dawn, prayers and down to work in the rural development centre he founded nearby.

There were bills to pay, fees to collect. He picked three students for training in artificial insemination, a new project he hoped - would improve the quality of livestock in Lare, an arid dustbowl settlement on the edge of Kenya's Rift Valley.

Lare is old settler country, but the whites are gone. Their cedar plantations have been broken up into small farms. It lies just 50 miles south of the Equator, but at over 8,000 feet the climate is pleasant and your breath catches for lack of oxygen. The soil is rich, the rains are unreliable, but a growing population finds it increasingly hard to survive.

After attending Mass on January 21st, Brother Larry greeted a visiting colleague, Brother Tony Dolan, who was staying the night, before going to bed.

There was a commotion shortly after 1 a.m. Larry barely had time to put on a pair of trousers and a "Fields of Athenry" T-shirt before the robbers arrived. There were at least 15, armed with machetes and clubs. Unknown to the brothers, they had already beaten the night watchman - he died later.

"Money is our God, give us enough to feed our families. This, is the way our country is going," they said repeatedly in English.

They ransacked the house and the adjoining school and took about £1,000 in school fees. "We were just congratulating ourselves that none of us was hurt - and then the shooting started," Tony recounts.

The robbers were at the compound entrance; the two brothers nearer the door of the house. The shooting - more than 20 bullets in all - came from the gable end of the house.

"I dived down to the left, Larry to the right. We were both shouting stop the shooting, stop the shooting. Then I heard a moan from him and knew he had been hit."

The bullet entered his back, passed through his liver and severed his spinal cord. Larry Timmons died quickly under the jacaranda tree in front of his home. His brother Tommy says he hardly recognised Larry when the body arrived at Dublin Airport. "I'd hardly have known him, he was so badly embalmed. His face was puffed up and marked where is must have hit the ground."

At first, it seemed like a cold-blooded killing by robbers, common enough in Kenya these days. That's how the District Commissioner described it two days later; Larry was "killed in crossfire".

But this is far from the truth. The man who allegedly lowered his gun after the robbers fled was an Administrative Officer, a form of local policeman. He was also the man accused of corruption by Larry Timmons only days earlier.

Eye-witnesses say Brother Larry accused four people of corruption: the policeman, Mr Francis Kimanzi; another Administrative Officer, John Churchir; the Deputy Chief of Lare, whose position is akin to that of assistant mayor; and a former councillor, a Mr Kamau.

According to Brother Larry, they were involved in taking bribes for registering people for identity cards. Kenyans need the cards to vote later this year. However, Daniel arap Moi's government has been lethargic about registering those in anti-government areas such as Lare.

The money demanded seemed small by Irish standards - about £1.25 - but this is two days' wages for many Kenyans and by registering up to 1,000 a day, the officials could make a sizeable sum.

Brother Larry said he would bring the allegations to the Catholic authorities and to the District Officer in the nearest big town, Njoro. He said he was warned by the men not to do this. "When outsiders speak the truth in this country, they are expelled. But I am protected by my diocese," Brother Larry was heard to say.

MR CHURCHIR denied the bribery allegations and said he never tried to dissuade Brother Larry from taking the matter further. But the account set out in a report Brother Larry wrote just before his death, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, is corroborated by two witnesses interviewed by this reporter.

Mr Kimanzi has claimed he shot in the air, but the six bullet-holes in the Brothers' pick-up truck disprove this. Three witnesses have testified separately that the policeman was drunk when called to investigate the robbery. One alleged he came directly from drinking potent home brew beer in a local shebeen.

The skies were clear on the night of the killing and the moon was bright. "It was certainly bright enough to distinguish between a black man and a white man, between someone speaking English and someone speaking Swahili," said a neighbour who came quickly to the scene.

The policeman fired from about 10 yards, yet of almost 20 people in his line of sight, only Brother Larry was hit.

Subsequent police investigations do not give cause for confidence.

Mr Kimanzi returned to the house and removed his spent cartridges. He also forced two local children to remove bags of stolen goods which the raiders had left behind: these were later returned.

District police arrived in great numbers the following day but did little fingerprinting. However, following outspoken criticisms by the local Catholic Diocese of Nakuru, Mr Kimanzi was arrested on Monday.

Local churchmen have claimed the Administrative Officers were seen drinking with "criminal elements" in the town on the day of the murder. The chief, Mr Sammy Kimani, denied this to me.

Speaking in a shack-cum-office under a picture of President Moi, he assured me the allegations raised had been "dealt with". There was no corruption in the issuing of identity cards in Lare, he said.

Mr Kimani declined to answer questions about the police, saying this "related to the national security of Kenya" and could only be dealt with by senior officials in Nairobi.

Yet only 20 per cent of those who live in Lare have been registered. President Moi has just extended the deadline for registration to the end of this month but there are no plans to allow the citizens of Lare obtain an identity card in their home village.

In a letter to Mr Ernest Murimi, the Secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the local Catholic Church, written on the day before he died, Brother Larry advised Mr Murimi to put "your plan" into action.

Mr Murimi confirmed yesterday this meant that the church confront the authorities in Njoro in the same way as it had in Lare. It looked as if grassroots revolt against local corruption was spreading.

Brother Larry's note to Mr Murimi is the last thing he is known to have written. "If I don't see you, please feel free to use the report as you see fit.

Larry Timmons's death prompts many questions. Tommy Timmons is convinced his brother was assassinated - "the only question is how high the order came from".

Violence in Kenya has often been "political". The Catholic Church, which has loudly criticised corruption, wants to know why its clergymen have suffered three attacks in recent weeks. Only two days before Brother Larry's death, a Kiltegan Father was beaten up during a robbery nearby.

But the killing also leaves a small and vulnerable community considerably poorer. If anyone in Ireland ever wonders what happens to the shillings they send off to obscure parts of Africa, here is an inkling.

Brother Larry cadged money off everyone to further his project - Trocaire, Gorta, Irish Aid, the Garda, family and friends even the US ambassador. He built schools and sustainable farms, dug water holes and trained carpenters and tailors. He paid school fees for students who could not afford them and bought allotments for landless villagers.

He did all this with limitless energy. Even Chief Kimani yesterday claimed him as a friend for 17 years - and looked as though he meant it. There hadn't been a problem until a few weeks ago, he said.

He was a strict teacher, according to his former pupils. In his pastoral work, he was not afraid to stand up to authority. Even during the robbery he pleaded successfully with the raiders not to ransack the church.

But his wasn't his first taste of violence in Kenya. Three years ago his car was hijacked. The robbers sat on either side of him and put a gun to his head. They wanted money. He gave them some but they wanted more. He convinced them to stop the car, got out and produced more cash, and persuaded the robbers to divide it equally. While they were distracted, he escaped into a maize field.

LARRY Timmons was the middle child of a family of nine. He was a bright child in a poor family in rural Ireland - in other words classic material for the religious life. In the Ireland of the early 1960s, before free education, a boy's choices were limited. There was the civil service, the boat to England - or a career and a proper education in the church.

His father, Thomas, worked for the council in Westmeath and like many parents of his generation, was a passionate believer in education. Finding the money to pay for it was another matter.

The Franciscans took Larry under their wing. He left home to attend their monastery school in Clara, Co Offaly, at the age of 14. After graduating as a primary teacher he returned to Clara in 1969 to teach. They paid for his education (he completed a degree in UCG in 1975) and he gave them his life.

By all accounts it was a happy bargain. Friends described Larry - as "constantly happy, always bubbling with energy".

"He wasn't a religious man," says his brother Tommy, without irony. "He loved his pint of porter, a bet on the horses, a game of cards, his round of golf - especially the golf. He had a knack of getting on with people."

Larry's mind brimmed with plans, projects, protests, and this intensified when he came to Africa in 1980. He looked and acted younger than his 47 years - though not so young as the old photograph which has appeared in this week's newspaper.

He was Headmaster of St Francis Secondary School in Lare for four years, but his interests in community development outgrew his job.

What local people needed were new skills which would lessen their reliance on subsistence farming. Late last year St Clare's Community Centre was completed and now offers instruction in carpentry, sowing, knitting and metal-work. It was a start.

The Franciscans have vowed to continue this work. A policeman has been arrested for his murder, but the root cause of so many of Kenya's problems - corruption remains untackled.

His brother Tommy told me: "I just hope he hasn't died for nothing."