(Part 3 of 3)
Oduor Ong'wen
[In this last instalment of a three-part discourse on our resistance against exploitation and domination, I look at resistance to neo-colonial rule]
The lowering of the Union Jack at midnight on December 12, 1963 marked the end of orthodox colonialism directed from London. But it marked the beginning of a new form of foreign domination – neo-colonialism – in which other imperialist powers competed for the country’s wealth with the weakened Great Britain but under the oversight of local watchmen led by Kenyatta. What KLFA had warned against during the 1961 KANU Conference had come to pass.
The Kenyan people were hugely disappointed as they watched in disbelief the hijacking and betrayal of their heroic struggle by pro-imperialist demagogues. Within just its first two years in power, the Kenyatta government was already a minority government that couldn’t risk facing the Kenyan people in elections. The workers, peasants, youth, students and other patriotic Kenyans saw it as a sell-out clique. Progressive nationalists led by Odinga, Kaggia and Pio Gama Pinto were among the first to sound warning bells and put the Kenyatta government to task for reneging on pledges that KANU had given Kenyans, more so with regard to the promise to restore the stolen land to the people of Kenya; to guarantee democracy; and to contribute to liberation struggles of other African peoples. Kenyatta’s response was a brutal purge on his erstwhile comrades. Government-sponsored murderers assassinated Pinto on February 24, 1965. It is widely held that his assassination was intended to paralyse the progressives ideologically as Pinto was believed to be the chief ideologue of the nationalist wing of KANU and was a great intellectual worker. Soon Odinga, Kaggia and all progressive nationalists in government were purged out and former KADU stalwarts invited into the cockpit of the State vessel through the infamous KANU-KADU merger of 1965.
Signs that little had changed with “independence” were manifest at Uhuru celebrations at Ruringu grounds where General Bamuinge showed up with 10,000 guerrillas and announced that the soldiers would not leave the forest unless and until the goals and objectives of the liberation struggle were realised. Barely one year later, Kenyatta made an executive order for the army to launch a “search and destroy” operation into the forests of Nyandarua and Kirinyaga to eliminate the remnants of Mau Mau.
To neutralise the nationalists, the reactionary elements in KANU in cahoots with their newly co-opted KADU collaborators engineered a coup de grace at the infamous Limuru KANU Conference of 1966 where the Party’s constitution was amended to water down the powers of KANU Vice President (who at that time was Odinga), thus contributing to Jaramogi’s resignation from the country’s Vice President post and the formation of the Kenya People’s Union as the new opposition party. In spite of spirited efforts to portray KPU as a “Luo affair,” it emerged as a popular national party with Kaggia as its Vice President, Oyangi Mbaja from Kakamega as the National Organising Secretary and Peter Young Kihara from Kiambu as his deputy. Among the leading members of KPU were Wajir MP Khalif, the one-time Mombasa Mayor Msanifu Kombo and Kenyan poet Abdilatif Abdalla. Some of the most active branches of KPU were Machakos, Embu and Kwale.
In its Interim Manifesto, the KPU condemned the entrenchment of neo-colonialism in Kenya under KANU leadership through the Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 cheekily titled “African Socialism and Its Application to Planning in Kenya.” It pointed out that the policies articulated therein were neither African nor socialist but the continuation of colonialist satellite economy where Kenya would remain a raw material production ghetto for European economies and active consumers of second-class industrial goods produced in the West. The manifesto did not mince words on Kenyatta regime’s betrayal and promised to implement KANU’s pre-independence programme including free and compulsory education, free healthcare, address the matter of land distribution and youth unemployment; and establish a self-sustaining and integrated national economy as opposed Kenyatta regime’s looting economy. The formation of KPU was greeted with excitement and patriotic enthusiasm from Kenya’s workers who constituted itself into its social base in the major urban centres and contributed some of their leaders to become organisers and activists of the new party.
The Kenyatta regime answered popular opposition with unprecedented state terror. Between 1964 and 1967 there was a ruthless military offensive, led by British military officers, to crush the remaining Mau Mau guerrillas once and for all. To stem the overwhelming popularity of KPU, the KANU minority regime resorted to brutality against KPU branch officials, crude tactics to incite backward currents of negative ethnicity, cultic oathing ceremonies and other forms of fear mongering. By 1969, when it was clear that KPU was going to pose a formidable challenge for power during the General Elections, the Jomo regime resorted to a series of repressive actions including the banning of the Kenya War Council, the Kenya Ex-Freedom Fighters Union and the Walioleta Uhuru Union, culminating in the arrest of Jaramogi Odinga and other key leaders of KPU following stage-managed chaos and consequent massacre in Kisumu. The events gave Kenyatta regime an excuse to ban KPU. Kenya was by fiat made a de facto one-party state. The next ten years Kenya was a gangland with Kenyatta as the gang leader. But the main target for neutralisation was the organised workers movement. Kenyatta detained progressive trade union leaders, banned their organisation and created a puppet centre, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions.
From 1969 the KANU regime did not even attempt to hide its dictatorial character, with power concentrated in the Executive. Kenyatta greedily amassed wealth in all sectors of the economy as he surrounded himself with land grabbers and corrupt tycoons. He quickly peeled off the veil of a freedom fighter and acquired the manners and demeanour of a tribal monarch. He created a fertile ground for development, expansion, growth and prosperity of a comprador bourgeoisie that thrived in a sinister climate of lawlessness, corruption, robbery, extortion and political repression. Kenyatta disregarded the due process of law and resorted to rule by arbitrary decrees. The assassination of Tom Mboya on July 5, 1969 jolted the nation to the reality that even the regime’s insiders were not safe. The beast’s thirst for blood and increased manifold and had to be quenched even if it meant by its own children’s. The nadir of this slide to tyranny was the murder of J.M. Kariuki on March 2, 1975.
1975 was a watershed that marked a turning point in the country’s history of resistance. As the culture of fear became entrenched in the Kenyatta regime, the popular struggle shifted away from overt parliamentary battles, which had been stifled through the growing repression of the de factoone-party state. Organising of political resistance shifted into the subterranean terrain. In the process, the struggle acquired a more radical and anti-imperialist orientation. Above the ground, the university became the bedrock of major democratic struggles. Progressive lecturers and radical students mobilised and transformed the campuses from the ivory towers into workshops of national democratic revolution. In 1977, the second African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC ’77) was held in Nigeria, where two Kenyan plays depicting the neo-colonial political reality of the country and corruption in high places won accolades. The Trial of Dedan Kimathi, co-authored by Micere Mugo and Ngugi wa Thiong’o in 1976 stood out. Equally lauded was Francis Imbuga’s Betrayal in the City. The University of Nairobi’s Traveling theatre took the message of nationalist to the people all over Kenya as they performed to full social halls wherever they went. Similarly, the community theatre started by Ngugi at Kamiriithu home village near Limuru thrived. In reaction, Kenyatta detained Ngugi without charge or trial in 1977. The old despot finally expired on August 22, 1978 and was replaced by his loyal understudy. Daniel arap Moi had been a keen student of Moi’s autocratic methods for twelve years as his Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs – a portfolio charged with policing.
Moi began his inheritance of Kenyatta’s “political estate” on a populist note. A former herds boy and primary school teacher had risen to power, hail “the hustlers.” He was tall on anti-corruption rhetoric, ordered free milk for primary school children and released all political detainees. He spent most of the time on the road presiding over fundraising events to construct school buildings and other infrastructure or attending church services every Sunday all over the country. But progressives and keen political observers were not fooled. Immediately he was sworn in as acting president and confirmed in that position at an unconstitutional ceremony two months later, Moi stated categorically that he would follow in the footsteps (nyayo) of the departed despot. This was a clear message to the Kenyan people not to expect any departure from the rampant human rights abuses, corruption and economic exploitation by the local bourgeoisie and foreign interests. It did not take long before the mask slid and fell. In October 1979, the KANU leadership barred Jaramogi Odinga, George Anyona and other progressive nationalists from being candidates in the General Elections scheduled for the following month. Many Kenyans were alarmed. The Nairobi University Students Organisation, under the leadership of Rumba Kinuthia staged a public procession against these anti-democratic moves. The students were granted “early Christmas vacations” and the entire NUSO leadership including Kinuthia, Mukhisa Kituyi, Otieno Kajwang’, Josiah Omotto and Wafula Siakama expelled. In the absence of official opposition following the ban on KPU in 1969, the 1970s saw the Kenyan people identify, campaign for and vote in progressive nationalists and radical democrats like Koigi wa Wamwere, Mashengu wa Mwachofi, Chibule wa Tsuma, Abuya Abuya, Lawrence Sifuna, Martin Shikuku, Chelegat Mutai and James Orengo, whom they could rely upon to raise in parliament issues affecting Kenyan workers and peasants and confront the corrupt individuals in the corridors of power.
KANU under Moi became even more intolerant that by 1981, many Kenyans were loudly demanding for the formation of other political parties. Attempt by Jaramogi, Anyona and other progressives to form Kenya African Socialist Alliance (KASA) made KANU panic. It moved with alacrity to change the Constitution in 1982 making Kenya a de jureone-party state. This enraged Kenyans even more and culminated in members of the Kenya Air Force staging a short-lived coup d’etat.
The coup provided Moi with the opportunity to crack down on lawyers, authors, activists, scientists, and (especially) university lecturers perceived to be critical of his authoritarian rule. Most were detained for what the State called “over-indulgence in politics” and having “Marxist leanings”. Among these were Prof Edward Oyugi, Al-Amin Mazrui, Kamoji Wachiira, and Mukaru Ng’ang’a. Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, then a University of Nairobi law lecturer, had earlier been detained for having “seditious” literature purportedly advising “J M Solidarity. Don’t be fooled. Reject these Nyayos”. Other university lecturers did not fare any better, such as Mau Mau historian Maina wa Kinyatti, who was jailed for six years for allegedly possessing a “seditious publication titled “Moi’s Divisive Tactics Exposed.” Prof Micere Mugo, and Dr Kimani Gecau, fled to Zimbabwe. The University, which Moi called a “den of dissidents with foreign backing”, was closed for almost a year after the coup. It was never the hotbed of “intellectual pyrotechnics” thereafter. He later had to institute the biggest purge in the history of Kenya in the guise of fighting the MWAKENYA underground resistance.
By 1988, even the regime’s most ardent supporters could not stand the tyranny anymore. Opposition grew within KANU, from the religious fraternity, lawyers and other civil society entities. This culminated in the removal of Section 2A of the Constitution and reintroduction of political pluralism.
This history of resistance to oppression, exploitation and tyranny continues. It manifested in 2002 when Kenyans thought they had broken free by electing NARC; it again temporarily triumphed in 2010 with the promulgation of the new Constitution.
Kenyans always unite in resistance against their oppressors. It matters little whether those oppressors wear the dresses of dynasties or they put on the masks of hustlers and chicken thieves. It is in our DNA to resist the bad and fight for the good.
December 8, 2018
No comments:
Post a Comment