- Pio Gama Pinto
Pio Gama Pinto (
March 31 ,1927 -February 25 ,1965 ) was aKenya n journalist and politician.Early years
At age eight, he was sent to
India for his education and spent the next nine years there. He studied the arts for two years before joining theIndian Air Force in 1944 for a short time. When seventeen, he started agitating against the system which kept so many people ofGoa in poverty.Political career
In 1949 he returned to
Kenya and, after a succession of clerical jobs, became involved in the local politics aimed at overthrowing colonialism. Kenya at that time was still under British rule. He turned to journalism and worked with the Colonial Times and theDaily Chronicle . In 1954, five months after his marriage, he was rounded up in the notorious Operation Anvil and spent the next four years in detention onManda Island . He was kept in restriction from early 1958 until October 1959 at the remoteKabarnet .In 1960 he founded the
Kenya African National Union (KANU) newspaper "Sauti Ya KANU", and later, "Pan African Press", of which he subsequently became Director and Secretary.He was actively involved in the 1961 Elections to make KANU victorious and, in 1963, was elected aMember of the Central Legislative Assembly . In July 1964, he was appointed a Specially Elected Member of the House of Representatives. Also in 1964, he worked late hours to establish the Lumumba Institute, which was principly used to train Party Officials. He was a member of theBoard of Governors and took keen interest in its functions.Assassination
In
Nairobi , onFebruary 25 , 1965, Pinto was shot down at very close range on the driveway while waiting for the gate to open. He was with his daughter in his car at the time of his killing.Kisilu Mutua was arrested for the killing. Kenyans widely believe that he was killed byKiambu mafia .Fact|date=December 2007At the time of his assassination, Pinto left his wife, Emma; his eldest daughter, Linda, age six; the second, Malusha, age four and a half; and the youngest, Tereshka, one and a half years old.
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