Kenya: Trouble for Kenyatta

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As Kenya's Vice President, wealthy and rambunctious Leftist Oginga Odinga was a constant nettle to President Jomo Kenyatta and his KANU party, which has ruled Kenya with more moderation than anyone expected. Last month Kenyatta tossed his Vice President out of KANU and the government, and since then Odinga has been busy rounding up support. Last week he got a new base from which to further harass Kenyatta. At a noisy press conference in Nairobi, 27 Kenyan legislators announced that they were resigning from KANU to form a party called the Kenya People's Union. To no one's surprise, Oginga Odinga showed up to head it.

Kenyatta will be able to keep the new opposition in line in Parliament, where KANU holds 144 of the 171 seats, but Odinga and his new party will be able to cause plenty of trouble. Odinga heads the powerful 1,250,000-member Luo tribe, which is second only to Kenyatta's Kikuyus. Because the new party numbers among its founders the leaders of the oil and dock workers' unions, Odinga also has a new power to call wildcat strikes. Moreover, he has reportedly been plotting near Mombasa with politicians from Tanzania who share his pro-Communist views.

Under the circumstances, Kenyatta is understandably concerned about upholding law and order. While cables of support poured in from smaller Kenyan communities (including a group of white farmers), Kenyatta invited his police and army commanders to a de luxe steak luncheon at the Nairobi state house, where he told them bluntly: "Politics is for politicians. Your role is to defend the country." Riot police dispersed 100 banner-waving Odinga demonstrators outside Parliament. An official KANU statement warned firmly that "intimidation and coercion and the spread of fear and suspicion calculated to create tribal conflict and despondency is illegal." And at week's end Kenyatta lifted the passports of several of the new opposition members to prevent them from traipsing abroad, hatching plots to bother Kenya's peace.