Kenya's socialist Lumumba Institute...thwarted by
Oshun_Auset:
http://www.eastandard.net/archives/july/sun11072004/reports/rep10070402.htm
SECRET CABINET PAPERS
How Kenya’s best kept secret became a hotbed of insurgents
By John Kamau
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The premises as it looks today and after major renovations.
Jomo Kenyatta who opened the Lumumba Institute off Thika Road
Dateline: Saturday, December 12, 1964. At around 3 pm, just as Kenya turned into a republic, the newly sworn-in President Jomo Kenyatta’s convoy drove from State House, Nairobi to the flag-decked Thika Road to officially open what he described as "Kenya’s best kept secret" and Jamhuri Day’s "big surprise" – the so-called Lumumba Institute.
He didn’t know it was a communist school of politics designed to topple him.
Forty years later, questions are still asked about how the new Vice President, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, managed to trick Kenyatta to approve a plot to topple him. It was a move that not only left top schemer Tom Mboya dazed but also confused Kenyatta’s inner circle — composed of Mr Mbiyu Koinange, Mr James Gichuru, and Dr Njoroge Mungai.
And when they realised what had happened they threw senior Chinese and Russian "spies" stationed at the institute out of the country. Others simply disappeared.
"It was simply a scheme to remove Kenyatta via the party but I think Oginga Odinga was too fast and politically impatient," Nairobi politician Wanguhu Nganga, who was the institute’s deputy principal, told the Sunday Standard this week.
The premises as it looks today and after major renovations.
Jomo Kenyatta who opened the Lumumba Institute off Thika Road with Bildad Kaggia (left), Mama Ngina Kenyatta and Jaramogi Odinga.
So embarrassing is this episode of Kenya’s history that it is hardly talked about. The Lumumba Institute, now known as Pan African Christian College, a bible school off Thika Road, is long forgotten, hiding its Cold War past in the 20-acre land that had been purchased by Odinga for purposes of the plot.
"When it was bought for evangelical work, the entire place was neglected", says Wilfred Hildebrandt, the principal of the christian college.
To the Kenyatta government Lumumba Institute was a dream come true for the ruling party Kanu, which, it was thought, would now have a base to train its members, activists and youth wingers.
The building of the institute was a state secret — at least as Kenyatta and his inner circle knew. But one man, the newly appointed Vice President Odinga, knew another meta-secret about the institute.
Although, Kenyatta was the only other trustee of the institute besides Odinga, the President didn’t know that Lumumba Institute was part of a communist plot to train radicals who would later stage a coup within the ruling party, Kanu, to replace the West-leaning politicians with a new cabal led by Odinga.
And on July 16, 1965, some 16 days after the first batch of 84 students graduated from the institute, they staged a "coup" at the Kanu headquarters, then at Nairobi’s Mfang’ano Street, and ostensibly "removed" the entire Kanu leadership apart from Kenyatta and Odinga.
We can now reveal that behind the scenes, other than Odinga, was a key Chinese undercover agent, Mr Wang Te Ming, who travelled on a diplomatic passport and masqueraded as a journalist. Ming was once a Chinese volunteer soldier during the Korean War and had risen to the rank of a major.
Another plotter was a South African communist, Mr Hosea Jaffe, a Cape Town University-trained engineer who was teaching mathematics at the Duke of Gloucester School, now Nairobi School. He was kicked out of Kenya on the orders of Dr Njoroge Mungai just after the coup at Kanu headquarters.
Kenyatta, we now know, had been told that the institute would be used to "elaborate the spirit of harambee" or as Bildad Kaggia, the institute’s first chairman had put it: "The task of national reconstruction required an institution dedicated to the inculcation of the spirit of harambee in relation to all aspects of social, economic and political effort."
Odinga had also convinced President Kenyatta that the objects of the Lumumba Trust, which was to manage the institute, was to "establish and maintain a college, university or school" and to "grant scholarships and bursaries".
Named after Patrice Lumumba, the slain Congolese leader, the institute was to "provide courses and arrange seminars and discussions for Kanu workers and officials", and that was the catch, both ways.
Just outside the gate, a bronze statue of Lumumba had been erected and a plaque that read: "This institute is dedicated to Lumumba, the patriot who died at the hands of Imperialists and their agents for his firm championship of genuine African political and economic independence and socialism in Africa".
The key words here were "socialism", "imperialists", and "their agents". As Kenyatta cut the tape to formally open the institute, Lumumba’s brother stood by and somehow, may be as a result of political naivety, Kenyatta missed the fine print. He also hardly noticed the many under-cover agents who were to work with Odinga on the Lumumba project.
Unknown to many, the 20-acre land on which the institute stood had been bought by Odinga and the buildings erected in a record five months at a cost of 27,000 pounds (current rates Sh3.5 million) with funding from communist countries. Initially there were two old buildings on the farm. One building was occupied by the principal, New Delhi-trained political scientist Mathew Mutiso, the father of Kilome MP John Mutinda Mutiso, who was born at the institute.
The second was occupied by Wanguhu Ng’ang’a, the deputy principal, while the registrar, F. Oluande occupied a new maisonette. There was also the Kenyatta Conference Hall and a kitchen that had been built with funds from East Germany.
"Everything in that kitchen came from East Germany," recalls Ng’ang’a.
Initially the institute was to admit 108 students — mainly Kanu leaders at the district level or their appointees, but all that was left to Odinga. As Kenyatta and his advisers were to later realise, that was a major blunder.
Kenyatta had left Odinga to coordinate the building and running of the institute, a brainchild of the VP’s. Odinga handpicked the socialist-leaning Kaggia as the chairman of the board of management.
"Although we were all leftists, and had leftist ideologies, we were independent of Odinga and were not under the thumb of anybody," says Ng’ang’a, who trained in Czechoslovakia as a journalist.
Other members of the board included another communist, Mr Pio Gama Pinto, Mr Ochieng Aneko, Mr S. Othigo Othieno, Mr Kungu Karumba, Mr Fred Kubai, Mr F Oluande, Mr Paul Ngei, and Mr Joseph Murumbi – a well groomed set of communists and their sympathisers.
Pio Gama Pinto, an avowed communist, had spent much of his time fundraising for the institute and wanted it to succeed.
The curriculum had been selected methodically — general principles of socialism, history of political organisation, African road to socialism, Kiswahili, Accounts and, oh well, the biography of Jomo Kenyatta.
Donations to the institute had started to flow in from Eastern Europe. On March 4, 1965, Odinga received books, blankets and two cinema vans from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany and China.
Two weeks later, the first batch of 114 students — mainly district Kanu officials consisting of chairmen, secretaries and treasurers — joined. Odinga had brought in two Russian "lecturers", Mr Alexei Zdravomyslova and Mr Andrei Bogdanov to teach "principles of socialism".
"They were very social, very human," says Ng’ang’a, but couldn’t tell whether they were into any mischief. Other teachers besides Mutiso, and Nganga, included Mr J. Thuo, Mr S. Nzioki, Mr J Wanyonyi, and (Prof) Munoru.
Odinga’s project had started in earnest with Russians and Chinese working behind the scenes to help him ascend power through a party takeover.
http://www.eastandard.net/archives/july/sun11072004/reports/rep10070403.htm
Tom Mboya’s response to the plot
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When Tom Mboya stood up in Parliament to lecture his colleagues on what was happening at the Lumumba Institute, most of them were shocked.
Mboya had been briefed by his friend, US Ambassador, William Atwood, whose country did not want the mention of the word Lumumba in Africa.
"The Lumumba Institute has been moving the object of the Cold War and ideological ramblings both here and overseas," Mboya revealed.
He said he was worried because the institute was producing two categories of politicians.
"There are those who wish to give the impression that the Institute is the only place where true nationalists reside. There are those who wish the institute to be regarded as a den where revolution is cooked, where subversion is discussed, where communism is promoted and dished out. Both these images are wrong."
Mboya said the "original idea" was not of an institute that was a showcase for one group or ideology; after all "it would not be possible to judge the full worth of the institute until its pupils graduated".
Mboya was annoyed that students at the institute had even started to write leaflets criticising members of the Cabinet. "Was this the kind of things that the country was being told was in the best interest of Kenya? … Was the country being told that in a period of only three weeks students at the Institute had become specialists and were in a position to condemn members of the government as useless nitwits?’
"We have to remove this impression that the Lumumba Institute is an ideological institute because it is not and the only way to do this is to bring the official stamp of the government."
Home Affairs minister Daniel arap Moi described the statement by the students condemning the Justus ole Tipis motion as "the worst to come from a Kenyan institution and said that non-alignment did not mean siding with another power".
Moi said the institute was infiltrated by a clique of "professional instigators". It was then no surprise when on May 5 the Kenya Civil Servants Union issued a statement denouncing the Russians at the Lumumba Institute.
With most of the senior civil servants being trained, or having trained in western countries or at the US-funded Kenya Institute of Administration, that statement did not surprise anybody. But Lumumba institute was facing the full force of US might.
Africanprince:
Off topic: How come you haven't said anything about your trip to West Africa? I was anxiously waiting to hear how your trip went.
Did you take pics?
PEACE!
Oshun_Auset:
I'm still absorbing it, and actually you were the first to ask. I'm at a loss for words currently, and extremely jet lagged/fatigued because of the time change. I'll say this much, Africa was everything I thought it would be, I felt like I had done my reearch, there were no surprises...although the westernization/American cultural imperialism and class division did turn my stomache quite a bit, even though that was also expected.... Unfortunately my film got stolen in my purse in France, so I don't have any pictures. But a friend's/cadre's camera made it back with us. I'll post a thorough post about it when I have time to actually organize what I want to say. Sorry to keep you waiting. I need to collect my thoughts. I don't want to rush it and be rambling or forgetting key points/experiences.
Africanprince:
OK cool! I'm glad it was everything you thought it was.
You must've did some amazing research
ptaured7:
Myboya was assasinated not that long ago. He was well respected in western Kenya. The Luo people unfortunately have much mineral resource wealth and Lake Victoria coveted by many. I beleive Mboya was a pragmatist. It is difficult for African leaders to walk the tightrope of finding some benefit for their people amidst the extortion racket from the big players they must face. Some see through the doctrine and sloganeering knowing that it's African Resources that are the central theme of foreign missions and introduced idiology from China to England to USA to E.U. & Russia. Well, Russia's pretty much out of it these days.
One realizes that in the early 60's, Marxism seemed to be the only "port in the storm". What we all need are fresh ideas from the African perspective on economics, not exactly tossing out Marx and Keynes, etal, but synthezizing something acceptable and consistent with their values, which would certainly benefit us all.
My impression in Africa is often that there is a traditional entreprenuerial spirit not well served by Marixist doctrine while community resources are traditionally held in common. Privatization minions are unfortunately at work as we write.
One is the Dominion Group in Western Kenya along the shores of Lake Victoria, not far from Mboyas home. this US corporation is primarily a privatization specialist consulting group, a for profit prison construction design and build contractor, and an executive jet propulsion customization engineering firm. they are currently invovlved in a big rice farm project on the Yala river. Now, you may wonder, what is a company so described doing involved in rice farming (something they have never done before)? I met the CEO in Kisumu, he's actually a likeable guy in that sort of informal mid-west how are ya kind of way. Still, it is disturbing, what are they doing there? The Yala R. is a vital watershed of troubled L. Victoria. And Domion Group has I think a 90 year lease (maybel less, I'm not sure).
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