The failed 1982 coup in Kenya
On August 1, 1982, one Goan family was returning from
church when the attempted coup made its stumbling start. To this day, the
family thanks God for their safety. Several Goan families in and around the
Pangani, Parklands area were injured, robbed, and abused.
The 1982 Kenyan coup d'état attempt was a
failed attempt to overthrow President Daniel arap Moi's government. At 3 A.M. on
Sunday, 1 August 1982, a group of soldiers from the Kenya Air Force took over Eastleigh Air Base just outside Nairobi, and by 4 A.M. the nearby Embakasi
air base had also fallen. At 6 A.M. Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka and Sergeant Pancras Oteyo Okumu captured
the Voice of
Kenya radio station in central Nairobi, from where they then
broadcast in English and Swahili that the military had
overthrown the government.[3] Working at the behest of
Ochuka, Corporal Bramwel Injeni Njereman was
leading a plot to bomb the State House and
the General
Service Unit headquarters from the Laikipia Air Base, Nanyuki.[4] Corporal Njereman forced
three pilots (Major David
Mutua, Captain John Mugwanja, and Captain John Baraza) to fly two F-5E Tiger jets and a Strikemaster that would be used for
the mission. However, Major Mutua was aware that Corporal Njereman had never
flown a jet fighter before
and would likely not be able to cope with the g-forces. The pilots, while communicating
on a secret channel, agreed to execute daring manoeuvres to disorient their
captor.[5] The trick worked. The pilots
dumped the bombs in Mt. Kenya forest
and headed back to Nanyuki.
The coup was strategically planned to coincide with the war games taking place in Lodwar, a remote town in Northern Kenya,
when most of the army units and the senior leadership were away from Nairobi. This
meant that the senior-most officers present at the time were Lieutenant General
John Sawe (the Army Commander and Deputy Chief of the General
Staff), Major General Mahamoud Mohamed (Sawe's
deputy), Brigadier Bernard
Kiilu (Chief of Operations at Defence Headquarters), and Major Humphrey Njoroge
(a staff officer in charge of training at Army Headquarters). At a meeting of
the four, it was agreed that Mohamed would take charge of the operation to
suppress the coup. He then assembled a team of about 30 officers from First Kenya
Rifles Battalion and Kahawa barracks. The team stormed the
broadcasting station and killed or captured the rebel soldiers inside. Leonard Mbotela, a broadcaster who had
earlier been captured by Ochuka to announce the coup went on air to report
that the rebels had been defeated and Moi was back in power.[6] With the help of the General
Service Unit (GSU) and later the regular police, Mohamed gained control of
Nairobi, causing the Air Force rebels to flee.
Hezekiah Ochuka, whose rank of Senior Private Grade-I was the
second lowest rank in the Kenyan military, claimed to rule Kenya for about six
hours, before fleeing to Tanzania. After
being extradited back
to Kenya, he was tried and found guilty of leading the coup attempt, and was
hanged in 1987. Also implicated in the coup attempt were Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, a former vice-president to Jomo Kenyatta (Moi's predecessor), and
his son Raila Amolo Odinga.
The plan
Ochuka had become obsessed with becoming the President of Kenya at
one time in his lifetime[9] (he had the words "The
next president of Kenya" carved on his desk), and this led him to quickly
accept a proposal by Obuon and Oteyo to overthrow Moi's government. He
recruited some of the soldiers at his base at Embakasi, including those who
ranked higher than he.[9]
There was a heated debate amongst the plotters about who
would become the chairman of the "People Redemption's Council" (PRC)
that would assume power after the coup. For his part, Obuon claimed that he had
recruited the largest number of soldiers into the plan, and so warranted the
chairmanship. Obuon also added the fact that he had served as the chairman of
the airmen's mess. Ochuka threatened in return that all the soldiers he had
recruited to the plot would quit if he was not selected as the PRC's chairman.
Obuon and Ochuka had a heated debate that almost broke into a fight over the
chairmanship, until Oteyo intervened. Oteyo advised Obuon to leave the
chairmanship to Ochuka, whom they could then kill once the coup had succeeded.[9] Ochuka may have suspected
the plot of Obuon and Oteyo. He rallied support from soldiers to him as an
individual, and he went further to build a protective wall around him. Ochuka
also rallied support from Obuon's old political friend and it is believed that
the old friend even gave him two million shillings and a second hand car. He had also managed
to steal some military communication equipment which he had set up at a private
house in Nairobi which was located a few
kilometres from the city center.
In late July 1982, Ochuka held a secret meeting at football
grounds near Umoja estate, at which details of how the coup was to be executed
were discussed. Ochuka told the attendees that he had the support of Uganda, Tanzania, and Sudan,
who would send their soldiers to the borders to counter any opposition. He went
further to allege that he had the blessings of the Soviet Union, which would send a ship to
the Kenyan coast to guard against any external interference.
Details of the impending coup were known by senior military
officials.[James Kanyotu,
the Directorate of the Kenya
Security Intelligence had infiltrated the military and was also
aware of the coup plot. After the opening ceremonies of the Nyeri ASK Show on Friday, 30 July, Kanyotu
asked President Moi to give him permission to arrest the officers who were
planning the coup. However, President Moi was not willing to involve the police
in military matters. He preferred the matter to be dealt with internally by the
military on Monday, 2 August. However, the coup happened on Sunday, 1 August
before any action could be taken.
Why the coup failed
Oteyo said that the coup failed because most of the soldiers
did not execute their parts of the plan, as they were drinking and looting
instead of going to arrest the president and his ministers. The coup leader,
Ochuka, had gone to fetch a radio presenter, Leonard Mambo Mbotela. The
plotters' poor organisation left the rebels unprepared for a counter-attack.
They failed to capture or kill any of the political leaders they had targeted
and did not seize the army headquarters. The air force rebels also lacked
support from within the army, leaving them with no armour or heavy arms to take
and hold key installations.[14]
Aftermath
The coup left more than 100 soldiers and perhaps 200
civilians dead, including several non-Kenyans.[12][2]
After the failed coup, the organizers were arrested and tried
by court martial at
the Army's
Langata Barracks. Corporal Bramwel
Injeni Njereman, who was an armaments technician, was the second
to be convicted of treason on 24
November 1984.[4] He was found guilty of five
overt acts, and sentenced to death by hanging.[5] Corporal Walter Odira Ojode
was the first to be charged with the same offence, on 16 December 1982, of
which he was found guilty; he also received the death penalty. Both appealed
their cases and lost. Their death sentences, together with those of coup
mastermind Ochuka and his counterpart Pancras Oteyo Okumuwere, were carried out
on the night of 10 July 1985 at Kamiti
Maximum Security Prison. Up to date they are the last people to
have been executed under Kenyan law. A total of twelve people were sentenced to
death, and over 900 were jailed. The convicts who were hanged were buried at
the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison.
During the trials, the name of Oginga Odinga was
mentioned several times as having financed the organizers, and he was put
under house arrest.
His son Raila Odinga,
together with other university lecturers, were sent to detention after being
charged for treason.[15]
After the coup attempt, the entire Kenya Air Force was disbanded. The
coup attempt was also a direct cause for the snap 1983
general election. In response to alleged campus involvement in the
failed coup, the Kenyan government accused external communist sources of
secretly funding the coup attempt. (courtesy of Wikipedia)
Would love to hear from folks who were affected by the coup!
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