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The Death of Father Kaiser

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"Soon thereafter," the April 2001 FBI report read, "Father Kaiser traveled to New York City. While there, Father Kaiser was taken into custody by the New York Police Department and taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Father Kaiser had resisted the NYPD officers because he believed there was nothing wrong with him. He subsequently learned that [the other priest] had filed a report stating that he (Father Kaiser) was mentally impaired, possessed a gun, and had gone to New York City." Mahoney went to Bellevue to visit him and found him under heavy medication. Kaiser agreed to voluntary commitment so his insurance would pay for treatment, the report continued, "and stated it would be a good opportunity to rest."

The real problem, Mahoney maintains, was not Kaiser's mental condition, but widespread corruption within the Albany parish. "There were things amiss in that place," she says. "There were problems — not with John, but with someone in so-called authority."

Mahoney arranged for Kaiser's release from the hospital, and Mill Hill sent him back to Africa. He had no further mental-health issues until 1980, when, on a visit home, he began to feel agitated and had trouble sleeping. His family took him to see a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium. Kaiser took the medicine until he returned to Kenya later in the summer of 1980 and no longer felt he needed it. Weaver believes Kaiser was suffering from culture shock. "He came back here," she says, "and everything was so different. He never had a problem in Africa."

"There was a lot of misinterpretation of his behavior in the FBI's analysis," Mahoney adds.

Kaiser's life as an ordinary missionary priest came to an end one night early in 1993. He'd recently been transferred to a new parish in the central Kenyan highlands, just east of the Rift Valley. Driving along a mountain road, he saw a group of Kikuyu tribespeople trudging through the chilly rain. Kaiser stopped to ask them where they were going. To a refugee camp in Maela, halfway up the mountain, they told him. The government had just confiscated their land in the valley and they had nowhere else to go.

Like nearly everywhere else in Kenya in the early 1990s, the Rift Valley had been the battleground of a bloody tribal war. In the past, the Kikuyu people had leased farmland from their Maasai neighbors. The arrangement benefited both tribes, and they lived together in relative peace. But in 1992, just before Kenya's first two-party election, some of the Maasai began stealing cattle from their Kikuyu tenants and attacking Kikuyu farmers for violating the terms of their leases. The Kikuyu fought back. War broke out, and some entire villages were decimated. The government intervened and seized the Kikuyu land.

Kaiser volunteered to serve as chaplain in Maela. After several months in the camp, he began to realize that the tribal war was not the dustup over cattle rustling and land leases that it first appeared.

Daniel arap Moi had been the president of Kenya since 1978. He was a popular leader at first, but as time went on he began to resort to more menacing measures to maintain political power. By the early '90s, says Durenberger, "the Moi government was rotten to the core."

"Moi was a dictator," says Dasteel. "He had any opposition tortured or murdered. Ballot boxes were stolen. Anyone who tried to run against Moi got killed." One of Moi's favorite methods of eliminating his rivals was to stage car "accidents" in remote locations.

The 1992 election was particularly crucial for Moi. For the first time since becoming president, he was facing a real political challenge. In 1991, in order to continue to receive Western aid, he reluctantly agreed to allow multi-party elections, even though he believed multiple parties would lead to increased tribal warfare.

The parties indeed split along tribal lines. The Kikuyu did not support Moi. In order to prevent them from voting, Moi staged a tribal war, hiring thugs to pose as Maasai and attack the Kikuyu. By 1993, when Kaiser became chaplain of the Maela camp, Moi had been re-elected president, and 30,000 Kikuyu lost their homes and were living in squalor.

"The people were in shock," says Carolita Mahoney. "They had to live in plastic huts. The U.N. provided rations, but they were starvation rations. John would secretly load up his truck with powdered milk and maize and soybeans so they would have something to eat. He got in big trouble."

Kaiser appealed to the U.N. to improve the conditions at Maela, but nothing changed. Kaiser believed it was because the U.N. was afraid to antagonize Moi. Looking to shame the relief organization into changing its mind, he took the case to the press. Soon the missionary priest became a national figure — and a target of the Moi government.

"He didn't welcome the attention," Mahoney says. "He was happy being a pastor. He didn't recognize the danger. The Kisii were not having the same problems as the Kikuyu. But he felt he should have spoken up sooner. The most important thing he remembered from seminary was the time a priest had asked his class what was the most important virtue a priest should have. The students said things like humility and kindness. The priest slammed down his hand on the desk and said, 'No! It's courage! If you don't have courage, you will never be a good priest.' John lived it."

It was because of John Kaiser that stories about the harsh conditions at Maela began to appear in American papers. Facing international embarrassment and, more important, the loss of foreign aid, Moi decided to close the camp and disperse the Kikuyu refugees. Government soldiers arrived in Maela on Christmas Eve in 1993.

They came in trucks to haul the human cargo away to empty stadiums and open fields. Kaiser refused to leave. He herded the women and children into the church and stood guard at the door to protect them. For his efforts, he was beaten and dumped out in the bush to die. Somehow he survived. But that was only the beginning.

For the rest of his life, Kaiser was harassed by agents of the Kenyan government. They tailed his car at night and threw rocks through the windows of his house. Once, says Vos, the Kenyan police caught him in the bush and held a gun to his head. Kaiser told them, "Shoot me and my troubles are over, but yours are just beginning." They let him go.

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