A Sharper Panga

There was a time when Kenyans solved their political problems with the panga, a two-foot-long bush knife that the Man Mau terrorists wielded to bloody effect against British rule. Independence and parliamentary government demand more subtle solutions. Kenya's President Jomo Kenyatta, whom the British once jailed as the master of the Mau Mau, has been quick to adapt.

Take the problem of Oginga Odinga, the powerful leftist who last month resigned as Vice President, bolted the ruling Kenya African National Union, and took 27 other members of Parliament with him to form his own opposition party. Although Jomo still had a clear majority in the 130-member House, Odinga's revolt was the first serious challenge to the political unity on which the Mzee (Old Man) has based his rule. Kenyatta's answer was to cut Odinga down to size, and his slices were as quick, neat and deadly as those of a Mau Mau panga.

First he called Parliament into emergency session, rammed through a constitutional amendment forcing the rebels to resign their seats and run for office again, this time against KANU's powerful opposition instead of with its support. Then, before a mass rally in Nairobi last week, he produced four former Mau Mau leaders who told the shocked crowd that Odinga had offered them nearly $500,000 to return to the forests to fight Kenyatta. "If you play around with me," warned the Mzee, "you'll be playing around with a lion." So saying, he reshuffled his Cabinet, putting pro-West moderates into all posts formerly held by Odinga's left-wingers. His final stroke was to name Foreign Minister Joseph Murumbi as his new Vice President. Murumbi, a sometime leftist whose occasional anti-Western statements have angered Kenyatta in the past, is nevertheless absolutely loyal--and, unlike Odinga, has no pretensions to the presidency. From now on, Kenyatta himself will handle his nation's foreign affairs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.