Kenya: The Trouble with Odinga

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Ever since Kenya became independent two years ago, Jomo Kenyatta's rallying cry has been harambee -Swahili for "all pull together." Most Kenyans have been quite happy to put aside their tribal and political rivalries and give pulling together a try. The notable exception: Oginga Odinga, 54, Vice President of the nation, deputy president of its only political party and leader of the powerful Luo tribe. A wealthy and ambitious leftist who disagrees violently with Kenyatta's moderate policies, Odinga has spent the past two years trying to pull his own government apart.

He has attempted to import Communist arms, has received both money and ad vice from Communist diplomats, has at tacked fellow Cabinet ministers as "imperialist agents."

Last week Odinga got his comeup pance. In a series of finely tuned politi cal maneuvers, Kenyatta expelled elev en of his Iron Curtain friends, stage-managed a reorganization of the KANU party that abolished Odinga's job as deputy president and elected eight regional vice presidents in his place -all of them anti-Odinga. A small group of Odinga fanatics resigned to form their own opposition party, but it was a ges ture so hopeless that Odinga himself refused to join them.

"The purge that has been going on is not a purge against left-wing elements as such," explained one of Kenyatta's new vice presidents."It was a purge against those left-wing elements who were receiving advice and cash from Communists outside the country." That, to Kenyatta's mind, had been the main trouble with Odinga.