COUP MASTERMINDS: Only Charles Njonjo Still Alive.

There is one country in the world where I am not welcome and would be arrested on sight – the Republic of Seychelles.

I was declared prohibited immigrant (persona non grata) in the Indian Ocean islands one Sunday morning in April 2004 as soon as I landed in the capital, Mahe.

My mission was to dig up a story on Kenya’s link in two military coups in the islands in the 1970s and the 1980s.

But the Seychellois weren’t amused that somebody was revisiting their murky past.

Communication with one of my sources having been intercepted beforehand, immediately on landing, I was whisked away from the immigration desk, put back on the Kenya Airways plane that I had travelled in, and warned never to be seen there again.

As old acquaintances, they had no problem getting down to business right away: “Chief”, the lead emissary said to Mancham, “our understanding is you have blessings for anyone who would overthrow that bastard (Albert Rene). That is good. We have a plan.”

The next day the three flew to Nairobi and were checked into the Hotel 680. The following day they were picked from the hotel for lunch at Njonjo’s Muthaiga home.

The lunch was also attended by Police Commissioner Ben Gethi, and deputy director of the CID (now renamed DCI), J.D. Irwin.

Most importantly, Njonjo wanted to be sure Mancham would be available once Albert Rene was “sorted”. That assured, the project moved to the next phase.

Njonjo got in touch with his friend Adnan Khashoggi. At the time, the latter was a “protected species” in Kenya.

He owned the 11,000-acre Ol-Pejeta ranch in Nanyuki and the adjacent 22,000-acre Sweet Waters camp, where he had a 14-foot bed.

Courtesy of Njonjo, Khashoggi would enter and leave Nairobi without his passport stamped, or cargo checked, and had officers from the GSU deployed to guard him.

For Khashoggi, facilitating a coup in the Seychelles – or anywhere else in the third world – was child’s play. He had the money, and he had the firepower.

In the Seychelles he wouldn’t only be reinstating a friend to power, but also settling a score with President Rene for having the “audacity” to confiscate his yacht, which was docked in the Seychelles on the night he overthrew President Mancham.

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Between August and October, Njonjo, Mancham, Khashoggi, and Mike Hoare held planning sessions in Nairobi and in Nanyuki.

When in the city, Mike Hoare would be holed up at the Hotel 680, where he quietly enjoyed the world-famous Kenya’s cold Tusker, seated in a favourite corner on the first floor.

I always sit at the same corner whenever I am at the Hotel 680. It is an inspiring place to remember the days gone by.

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Khashoggi would provide the 80 AK assault rifles for use by Mike Hoare’s “boys”, pay Mike Hoare mercenary’s fee, and take care of any other contingencies arising.

In turn, Njonjo would cater for a flight to the Seychelles by Mancham and his team once President Rene was ousted.

At six in the evening on November 25, the chartered jet landed at Mahe airport. On board were Mike Hoare and his 42 “boys”, all carrying identical bags.

At the control tower they were booked as “charity workers” from Britain on a mission to aid disadvantaged children. They had five bags of toys to be distributed to children’s homes in the Seychelles.

The hand luggage carried by the “charity workers” had tags to indicate they had gone through X-ray checks at South Africa’s Durban Airport and Swaziland’s Manzini Airport.

It was a lie as each of the bags had a false bottom concealing an AK-47 and 30 rounds of ammunition.

But on that day, Murphy’s Law that “whatever can go wrong will go wrong” applied.

All but two of Mike Hoare “charity workers” had cleared through immigration when hell broke loose. A traveller separating the two from the rest of the group had a bunch of bananas in his bag.

VIABLE OPTION

At the time the Seychelles had banned the importation of fruits in the islands to protect local farmers.

The immigration officers, angered by the passenger with bananas, demanded that the two passengers behind him also open their bags.

Cornered, the two “charity workers” reached for their hidden weapons and cocked, causing a huge commotion.

Mike Hoare and the group, now already cleared, rushed back, guns at hand, and a full-scale battle with the Seychelles security ensued.

Mike Hoare led his “boys” into the next viable option. They hijacked a plane at the airport and fled to South Africa, where they were awaited with long jail sentences. The coup had flopped.

Postscript: Early in the week when writing this story, I touched base with an acquaintance who was a security intelligence officer seconded to the judicial commission of inquiry that found Njonjo “guilty” of a plot to overthrow the Moi government in the 1980s.

He told me it is the latter’s role in the Seychelles affair that turned a poisoned chalice.

According to the retired intelligence officer, Moi, though he had sanctioned Njonjo’s involvement in the failed Seychelles coup, quietly reasoned that if the latter could so meticulously plot a coup in a foreign country, what would stop him from doing the same at home?

HIGH TREASON

And so “evidence” had to be found to implicate Njonjo in some “coup plot” at home, and use that to put him in a position where he would be no threat.

Subsequently, Raila Odinga, then in police custody for alleged role in the failed 1982 Kenyan coup, came in handy in Moi’s scheme of things.

He was brought to the Njonjo inquiry to testify that while he knew “nothing” of the coup he himself was implicated in, he had “information” that Njonjo intended to stage a coup against Moi at about the same time the August 1982 coup attempt took place.

The commission of inquiry believed him and found Njonjo “guilty” of high treason.

Eventually Moi “forgave” both Njonjo and Raila of their “involvement” in respective treasonable activities. Kenyan politics must be a knotty stuff to unravel.

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