A Brief Analysis on the formation of UMOJA
The formation of UMOJA in 1987 fulfilled the main aim of those behind it: to unify the various external Kenyan organisations into a united front and support internal (Kenyan) struggles, in this case to support MWAKENYA. In the process, an important issue that had divided some overseas Kenyan organisations was also resolved. This was to establish that UMOJA was open only to Kenyan organisations abroad, not any organisation that was, or claimed to be, based in Kenya. At the same time, the policy of UMOJA was clarified in one of the documents of the Conference, under the heading, Points of Clarification:
We are not a mass movement and so do not go after quantity in our recruitment policies; rather we should emphasise the quality of membership. High commitment, discipline, high ideological level and consciousness, ability to struggle against liberalism — these points should be understood together with need for active practice at every level of the organisation, at branch level and at the central coordinating committee level which should pay particular attention that these points are in command in all activities of the organisation at all levels.
So it was clear: UMOJA was not another KANU party where membership was open to all who pay the membership fees. That was an important lesson for any Left political party in Kenya, that it is the ideological commitment and practice that determined party membership. The Conference created a strong central authority in the UMOJA Secretariat. It had a Chairperson who was the Co-ordinator and official spokesperson of the organisation, a Secretary of Finance and Administration, and a Secretary for Editorial work, Publications and Production and a Secretary for Information. It will be seen that information, publishing and ideological direction were seen as key aspects of UMOJA’s work. Similarly, the Chairman had the task of ‘coordinating relationship with MWAKENYA and other democratic and progressive movements at home [Kenya]; relationship with other Kenyan organisations abroad’.
It is ironic that the the Secretariat, while carrying out successfully all the other tasks set for it, failed in completing its Immediate Task, ‘To compile and distribute the Proceedings of the Unity Conference, October, 1987’ That failure has kept hidden one of the most important historical events in the history of Kenya Resistance. The Secretariat’s success was in maintaining regular relations with Branches, in issuing a large number of documents and keeping in close touch with developments in Kenya, particularly with the underground movement, MWAKENYA. UMOJA became the mouthpiece of the movement which, with the restrictive nature of its work, had limited chances to express its views openly. It responded well to its mandate:
The Committee should be sensitive to events at home and abroad and be aggressive in responding to particular needs. It has the mandate to be the spokesperson of the organization; the chairperson of the Committee is the one mandated to issue statements for press and public on behalf of the organisation.
In fulfilling this task, UMOJA issued a long list of Press Statements on the changing situation in Kenya. These were distributed widely in Kenya and overseas, particularly to diplomats and governments which had relations with Kenya, as well as international organisations and solidarity movements, like Amnesty International. Over time, these Press Statements began to influence international opinion on the repressive Moi-KANU government. These Statements — some included the following pages —narrate the events of the times of publication.
Public Statements,1987-1989
UMOJA wasted no time after its formation to make its position clear in various documents, ranging from Press Statements to books. Its leaders also appeared in the public forums and conferences, on radio, TV and press interviews to support the struggle in Kenya. It was active on the cultural front and organised meetings and conferences. Similar activities took place in all the other centers of UMOJA, from USA to Sweden to Australis. For the first time, people around the world became aware of the real nature of the Moi government and also realised that it was the support from Britain, USA and their supporters that kept Moi in power, although he was totally rejected by working people of Kenya.
This points to an important lesson for resistance movements everywhere. When repression ‘at home’ becomes intolerable and it is difficult to organise against an unpopular government, it is a great help to have a powerful ally overseas with freedom to take up the cause of liberation. Globalisation works in mysterious ways. The following is a list of some of the Press Statements issues by UMOJA. A brief background of the events of the time is included from the Statements which, besides taking the side of those resisting the government, were also short histories of resistance to educate the public. These documents are available in the Kenya Resistance Archives at the Ukombozi Library in Kenya.
Mombasa People Champion Resistance Against The Kanu’s Undemocratic Rule (987)
In October and November 1987, the Moi-KANU regime unleashed armed police and the para-military General Service Unit at mass gatherings of Kenyans at Mombasa and Nairobi. The two situations exhibited many similar features which show the mounting mass resistance against the regime and its desperation in the face of such resistance and isolation …
Mombasa, Tononoka grounds
More than 4.000 people who had turned up for the rally at Tononoka grounds formed an orderly procession to seek an audience with the Provincial Commissioner. But instead of the PC holding a dialogue with the people, he unleashed armed police at them.
In self-defence the people faced the police. With strong involvement of Musim women and the youth, they boldly attacked the provincial headquarters. They later on marched to the Central Police Station and attacked it too. The youth adopted guerrilla hit and run tactics in the narrow streets of the Old Town area. The subsequent hide and seek continued till about 2 o’clock in the morning.
The people’s anger at what happened to them on 30 October erupted once again on 4 November during the massive procession to mark the birth of Prophet Muhammed. The youth used the religious procession to once again air their defiance and express their demands for the right to organise and assemble.
University of Nairobi Students’ Defiance – Once Again!
The pattern of events at Mombasa repeated itself in Nairobi at the University [of Nairobi]. The students at Nairobi had elected new leaders for the Students Organisation of Nairobi University (SONU]. The new leadership wanted to become more independent of the government.
The Moi-KANU regime arrested the entire leadership after it had gone to ask the government to explain why the students’ organisation was not allowed to send a delegation to Cuba for an international students conference.The students held a peaceful rally where they wanted to know why their elected leaders had been arrested. The students invited dialogue with the authorities. But the authorities sent armed police. who attacked the students. In self-defence, the more than 3.000 students re-grouped and a running battle between them and the police in the streets of Nairobi started. On Monday 16 November. the regime closed the university, banned the Students’ Union. and. of course. arrested more people.
The mass demonstrations of more than 4.000 people at Mombasa on 30 October and 4 November and those of more than 3.000 at Nairobi on 13, 14 and 15 November, were clearly in protest against the denial of democratic rights of the freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of movement. Both were against the arbitrary and tyrannical anti-people actions of the Moi-KANU regime …
The mass action in Mombasa is particularly symbolic for the whole country. Mombasa has a history of more than 4 centuries heroic resistance against both foreign domination (Portuguese, Arab and British] and internal oppression by feudal and colonial landlords. Mombasa in particular, and the Coast in general, has always defended its lands and its independence. The 1631 great Mombasa anti-Portuguese war led by Yusuf bin Hassan, the 1985 great anti-British resistance led by Mbaruk bin Rashid, the 1913-1915 armed struggle led by Me Katilili, the 1947 Mombasa general strike led by Chege Kibachia and the 1955 deck-workers strike are but few instances that testify to that history of struggle.
The Truth Behind The Moi-Kanu Regime’s Aggression On Uganda (1987)
From the time of ldi Amin and under successive Ugandan regimes, certain Kenyan business people exploited the conditions brought about by the collapse of the economic infrastructure to make enormous profits. An example is the way Uganda’s economic life-line to the rest of the world was used by the Kenyan regime for the benefit of a few. Transportation of goods to and from Uganda was taken away from the parastatal Kenyan railway into private road haulage in which Moi and his associates had important assets.
By 198G transporting one ton of Ugandan goods by rail cost $20.00. It cost $120 by road. When the N RM government sought to use the cheaper railway system at the beginning of 1987, Moi and his associates were so angry at this prospect of private loss that they tried to sabotage Uganda’s economic recovery programme. Ugandan vital imports started to pile up at the Kenyan port of Mombasa and Ugandans resident in Kenya were harassed. The regime was on the verge of invading Uganda then, but not only was it unable to invent a credible excuse, it did not have enough time to psychologically prepare Kenyans with lies about the NRM’s aggression. These events in the earlier part of this year were a dress rehearsal for what is happening today.
Subsequent events have since made the Moi-KANU regime desperate for a convenient scapegoat to deflect attention away from its problems. The regime’s gross economic mismanagement; its massive corruption as exemplified by the above open theft from its own parastatal; its crushing of all democracy; its barbaric torture of patriotic Kenyans and its surrender of Kenyan sovereignty to the USA by the granting of military facilities have fuelled the fire of national resistance.
This resistance by working people, progressive students and intellectuals, religious and nationalist leaders and particularly the well-organised underground resistance led by MWAKEN YA has caused the isolation of the regime nationally. The regime hopes to break out of this national isolation by trying to unite Kenyans behind it against the bogey of an external enemy and in the process diffuse the unity of internal resistance.
The exposure of the regime’s massive abuse of human and democratic rights of Kenyans has led to international condemnation and further isolation even in the West. By inventing stories about Libya’s threat to Kenya’s stability, the Moi-K AN U regime is hoping to gain sympathy from both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations.
The recent torture of the student leader Robert BUKE, so soon after the massive student demonstration which further exposed the regime’s brutality and unpopularity, and his subsequent jail sentence of 5 years on charges of “spying for Libya”, is a good example of the convenience of the Libyan bogey.
Thatcher’s Endorsement Of The Repressive And Corrupt Moi-Kanu Regime (1988)
Statement Concerning Margaret Thatcher’s Endorsement Of The Repressive And Corrupt Moi-Kanu Regime In Kenya. January 7, 1988.
The British Prime Minister’s statement in Nairobi on 5th January 1988 that Moi’s human rights record was one of the best in Africa has shocked many Kenyans and caused a lot of distress and agony to the families of the many victims of the regime’s repressive practices.
The regime officially acknowledges only 11 political detainees – that is those who have been imprisoned without trial. But in 1986 alone the regime jailed more than 80 people to terms ranging from I to 25 years on political charges particularly of alleged membership of MWAKENYA, the underground opposition movement. All together there are more than 1,000 political prisoners rotting in Mei’s jails, but the regime classifies them all as common criminals.
The official prison population in Kenya in 1985 was 160,344. In 1979 the first year of Moi’s ascension to power 118 people died in prison. By 1985 the figure had tripled to 342. All together between 1979 and 1985 deaths in prison (excluding executions) were 1,409! [Source: Kenya Statistical Abstract, 1986, p.270].
It is in fact ironic that her visit and statement were preceded by the reported killings by Moi’s security forces of 40 people in Marsabit, Eastern Province in November 1987; and a similar number in Wajir, North-Eastern Province in September. [see Indian Ocean Newsletter, November 28, 1987].
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Her endorsement of the corrupt Moi-Kanu regime must have been motivated, not by ignorance of the facts, but by the same calculations which prevents her from accepting sanctions against the South African apartheid regime. In both Kenya and South Africa there are vast British economic and military interests. In the case of Kenya, a British battalion is permanently stationed there. The stock explanation is that they are there for training, but Kenyans know that they are there to prop up the regime.
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Because of the misleading nature of Mrs. Thatcher’s statement and the false image it drew of the Moi-Kanu regime, UMOJA — The United Movement for Democracy in Kenya, being an organisation of Kenyans exiled abroad, would like to present the following few examples of the many atrocities committed within just the last four years of Moi’s ten year rule:
1. 1984 — Massacre of civilians:
a) In February 1984 the army machine-gunned unarmed men, women and children. More than 1,000 people were killed in the Wajir massacre. Wajir is in North-Eastern Kenya where a State of Emergency is in force and ‘normal’ laws do not apply.
b) In August 1984 the army was sent on a search-and-destroy mission against the Pokot people of Northwest Kenya. Over 800 citizens were massacred by Mai’s security forces.
2. 1985 — 12 University students clubbed to death
On 10 February 1985 twelve students were clubbed to death by baton-wielding police who entered the University of Nairobi to break up an interdenominational prayer and protest meeting. The day is marked in Kenya as Bloody Sunday.
3. 1985 — Political Executions:
On 5th July 1985, 11 political exiles out of 19 forcibly and illegally returned from Tanzania where they were registered with the UNHCR as refugees were hanged at Kamiti prison near Nairobi during the UN Women’s Decade Conference in Nairobi.
4. 1986 — Mass Arrests and imprisonment of political suspects
The year saw a sharp increase in repression, mainly directed against the underground MWAKENYA.
5. 1987 — British Judge Resigns over torture case
By 1987 torture of political prisoners had become routine. In October 1987 a British Judge, Derek Scofield resigned in protest over the case involving the death of Stephen Mbaraka Karanja who was tortured to death by police. The government defied court orders to produce the body. Gibson Kamau Kuria, the Kenyan human rights lawyer who was detained without trial, was released in December and confirmed that he himself had been tortured.
6. 1987 — Abolition of Secret Ballot confirmed:
Despite protests from church leaders, lawyers and even politicians, the secret ballot was abolished. Voters would now have to queue behind the candidate of their choice.
7. 1987 – Police invade striking workers:
Strikes have been outlawed by a presidential decree. A mass strike by textile workers in August l987 saw the police force set upon the workers . Thus what Mrs. Thatcher described as ‘decisive leadership’ is just another Marcos-type dictatorship. Moi’s philosophy is better explained by his words. On September 13, 1984 he ordered the nation to sing like parrots. He said:
I call on all Ministers, Assistant Ministers and every other person to sing like parrots. During Mzee Kenyatta’s period I persistently sang the Kenyatta tune until the people said: ‘This fellow has nothing to say except to sing Kenyatta.’ I say, I didn’t have ideas of my own. I was in Kenyatta’s shoes and therefore, I had to sing whatever Kenyatta wanted. If I had sung another song, do you think Kenyatta would have left me alone? Therefore you ought to sing the song I sing. If I put a full stop, you should also put a full stop. This is how this country will move forward.”
Britain is directly involved in the state of affairs prevailing in our country, not only because of its vast economic and strategic interests, but because Britain advises and trains the Kenyan security forces. Britain also exports torture instruments to the regime. The New Statesman of September 21, 1984 reported the export of torture equipment manufactured by the Birmingham firm of Hiatt. It also reported that the Crown Agents had exported leg irons to Kenya. Britain maintains its own military forces in the country.
Umoja Rejects The Fraudulent General Elections Of March 21, 1988
UMOJA joins MWAKENYA and alI other patriotic. democratic and progressive forces in rejecting the recent General elections held in Kenya on March 21. 1988. We support MWAKENYA’s call of March 29. 1988 for the immediate nullification of the results and for the immediate call for fresh elections in which all political parties and independent candidates can take part freely without fear of state terror and intimidation. and in which the electorate can freely vote for the leaders of their choice.
About half of the candidates were selected through Moi’s queuing system in which voters lined up in front of the pictures of the contenders. The other half were elected through Moi’s version of the secret ballot.
Both elections were characterised by intimidation, harassment and killings. Some of the candidates deemed to be anti-Nyayo had to suffer the public humiliation of being carted from place to place in handcuffs with Moi’s henchmen jeering at them for their alleged anti-Nyayo sentiments and practices.
The results have gone to prove to the world that what UMOJA and other patriotic. democratic and progressive forces have been saying about the regime is true: that it is a dictatorship of a minority clique. Thus the general elections have exposed the political illegitimacy of the Moi-KANU regime. This exposure is even more dramatic because it has emerged within the terms set by the regime itself. KANU, the only legal political party made so by the undemocratic June 1982 amendment of the constitution, failed to persuade the majority of Kenyans to even register for the elections let alone to vote. Many Kenyans refused to register despite pressure, harassment and intimidation from Moi’s henchmen. In further acts of defiance, only about 13% of the 41/2 million KANU members actually voted in the queuing system. The population of Kenya stands at 22 million at present. This is a clear indication that the majority of Kenyans boycotted the elections, both the controversial primaries and the sham secret ballot ones on March 21.
Oppose Repressive Constitutional Amendment in Kenya (1988)
UMOJA. the United Movement for Democracy in Kenya. opposes and strongly condemns the bill passed on August 2. 1988 in Kenya’s cowed parliament, amending the constitution to allow Moi and his police force more powers of repression.
The bill allows the police to detain suspects for up to 14 days before bringing them before the courts of law. It also empowers Moi to dismiss senior judges and members of the Public Service Commission without consulting a tribunal. It was rushed through parliament and passed without any debate in order to pre-empt the opposition that was bound to greet it. This is yet another manifestation of the dictatorial and tyrannical nature of the Moi-KANU regime.
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Prior to the passing of the new bill, police have been detaining suspects for more than 24 hours as was then allowed by law. Allowing police to detain suspects for up to 14 days is legitimising the torture that has already resulted in many deaths of innocent people in police custody. Since September 1986 about 10 people have died from torture, among them Stephen Wanjema, a carpenter who died in September 1986 and Peter Njenga Karanja, a rally driver and businessman who died after being held illegally for 23 days.
UMOJA supports the statements issued by the Law Society of Kenya, religious leaders and other individuals opposing the new amendment and calls on all Kenyans to support Mzalendo Mwakenya’s call to intensify opposition to the despotic dictatorship of Moi.
Moi: Destroyer Of Kenya’s Natural And Human Environment (1989)
The Kenyan president. Daniel arap Moi is scheduled to give the key-note address at the international conference on Saving the Ozone Layer in London on March 5, 1989. Moi’s presence at this conference diminishes whatever significance this gathering would have had given his appalling record in protecting Kenya’s natural and human environment.
Under the Moi-KANU regime’s open-door policy, foreign companies are allowed to operate freely in Kenya without any concern for the environment. The government’s half-hearted attempts to enforce environmental protection laws has resulted in the dumping of industrial waste, pollution. deforestation and chemical poisoning. There has been an increase in chemically related diseases.
The greatest threat to Kenya’s environment, however, is that posed by US nuclear-powered and nuclear-carrying ships which call regularly at Kenyan ports. In 1980 Moi secretly signed an agreement allowing the US military access to Kenyan facilities thus exposing millions of Kenyans to a nuclear threat in case of war or accident.
The Moi regime only pays lip-service to the conservation of wildlife. Conservationists strongly believe that some of Kenya’s once abundant wildlife, like elephants, rhino and leopards face extinction from poaching by government officials and highly placed Kenyans. Under the pretext of combatting poaching the regime has been indiscriminately shooting innocent people in North-eastern province and around national parks.
Moi Fails In His Bid To Cover Up Nyayo Crimes (1989)
Dictator Moi has responded to the exposure of his gross human and democratic rights violations documented in UMOJA’s publication, Moi’s Reign of Terror, January 1989, with a series of public relations exercises meant to deflect national and international attention from the grim record. The document which has been circulated among members of the United Nations in New York and among selected journalists all over the world reveals that be tween 1978 and 1988, Dictator Moi killed over 6,000 Kenyans; arrested over 4,000 for political reasons; imprisoned 1,000 on trumped up charges or forced confessions; detained over 40 others without trial; and instituted torture as a norm in extracting information and confessions from political opponents. This rivals the murderous records earlier set by Idi Amin of Uganda; Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic; and it certainly makes Moi a companion of honour with South Africa’s Botha. The demand for the document from the buying public has been so great that we have had to do a reprint.
The exposure together with others by international human rights bodies such as Amnesty International; the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights (US); Human Rights Watch (US); the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya; and others have dented the regime’s previously well nurtured image of stability and democracy. As a result, several international organisations began to talk of linking aid to Kenya with an improvement in the regime’s human rights record.
The dictator’s team of political surgeons started work to repair the image. Huge sums of money were spent on public relations firms such as the Washington based Neill & Company Inc and the London based Rait, Orr & Associates and on having supplements in the mainstream western press. They also advised him to don a sheep’s clothing to cover up the wolf’s bloodstained fur. Since the publication of Moi’ s Reign of Terror, the dictator has appeared in his new clothes at highly publicised but very carefully chosen settings under the watchful eyes of a team of managers from his Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Mau Mau Freedom Fighter’s Day October 20, 1989
Thirty seven years ago today, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) started a protracted armed struggle against the undemocratic, anti-Kenyan British colonial settler regime. The armed struggle eventually forced the British to concede Independence to Kenya. The actual outbreak of the war was preceded by acts of intensified repression and further erosion of human and democratic rights of Kenyans. These acts of colonial brutality were capped by the declaration of a state of Emergency on October 20, 1952.
People were jailed; detained without trial; or else forced into exile. Many more were murdered. The Colonial Government’s reign of terror created a climate of fear over Kenya.
It was at the height of this repression that a primary school teacher by the name of Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi was appointed to the colonial settler legislative council to help in anti-African, anti-Kenyan legislations of the State of Emergency.
Today, Daniel Arap Moi is the head of a neo-colonial regime in Kenya that has already sold Kenya’s sovereignty and granted military bases to the U.S.A. The IMF and the World Bank direct Kenya’s economic and financial policies. The Moi-KANU regime has turned Kenya into a haven for the transnationals and the local rich, and a hell for the vast majority of Kenyans.
The last seven years have seen the Moi-KANU regime reproduce (almost like if it was taking everything from a colonial textbook!) the anti-Kenyan, anti-people measures that preceded the Mau Mau armed struggle of the Fifties.
But this time measures are directed at all democratic-minded Kenyans and particularly at Mwakenya, a movement that is simply calling for the restoration of Kenya’s sovereignty; the establishment of genuine democracy; setting up an economy to serve the majority; in short, a truly free and genuinely independent Kenya.
UMOJA has called this meeting on the 37th Anniversary of the KFLA to celebrate the achievements of Mau Mau and the gains of the resistance forces who are calling for unity in q1e struggle for a new Kenya. Mau Mau Mau’s defiant call 37 years ago is just as relevant for our struggle today:
We are not afraid of detention
Or of being locked in prisons
Or of being deported to remote islands
Because we shall never cease
To struggle and fight for liberation
Until our country is free!
Moi Unleashes A State Of Terror On Kenyan Somalis (1989)
The Statement stated:
Once again the Moi-KANU regime has unleashed a new terror on the Kenya people. This time, it has started using the so-called screening process against the Somali people.
It then reproduces MWAKENYA”s press statement, Moi Unleashes a State of Terror on the Kenyan Somalis. This indicates the close links between UMOJA and MWAKENYA pointing to the merger of the two organisations in 1996.
