Pio Gama Pinto

PIO GAMA PINTO 1927 -1965, SOCIALIST AND FREEDOM FIGHTER

EARLY CHILDHOOD

Antonio Rudolfo Jose Pio Gama Pinto was born on 31 March 1927.

31 March 1927 - 24 February 1965

RETURN TO KENYA

In 1949 Pinto returned to Kenya and took up a job with the Magadi Soda Company before settling in Nairobi.

By now, Kenya was in political ferment.

Marriage & Detention

9 January 1954 – Pio Gama Pinto married Emma Christine Dias of Goa who was educated in India.

Focus On Independence

1961 KANU won the Parliamentary Elections. Membership was open to Africans only initially.

Pinto with Chanan Singh, KP Shah and others formed the Kenya Freedom Party to harness South Asian support in the freedom struggle. The KFP merged with KANU in 1963.

Assassination

Pinto in the driving seat waited for the gate to be opened, assassins riddled him with bullets

Pinto’s detractors labelled him as a ‘leftist firebrand out to oust Kenyatta’

Funeral

Pinto in the driving seat waited for the gate to be opened, assassins riddled him with bullets

Pinto’s detractors labelled him as a ‘leftist firebrand out to oust Kenyatta’

IOJ Award

Aware of the importance of information and communication in a liberation struggle, he became editor of the Daily Chronicle.

Over the years he produced a plethora of newspaper articles, campaign slogans, posters, memoranda, press statements, pamphlets, leaflets and general correspondence.

Killer Arrested ?

After serving 35 years in jail, President Moi pardoned Kisilu Mutua and ordered his release on 4 July 2001. He was 22 years old when he was arrested.

Emma & Family

‘My husband’s views on current affairs were often published in “Letters to the Editor” in the East African Standard under pseudonyms...

Tributes

General Politics by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Vice-President of Kenya. Pio was a solid Kenyan patriot … His assassination leaves a gap in our struggle for complete freedom that few men - none that I know – can fill.

MALCOLM X AND PIO GAMA PINTO

When the American leader, Malcolm X, visited Kenya in 1959, he found he had a lot in common with Pio Gama Pinto. Both men were keenly aware of imperialism’s exploitative role and control of their societies, African and African American and the third world generally, and the capitalist system which operated for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the majority.

TJRC

The commission finds that the assassination of Pio Gama Pinto was motivated by ideological differences

Mainstream Media Coverage

Resources

AwaaZ Voices: Issue 1, 2005

Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965

Kenyan Organic Intellectuals Reflect on the Legacy of Pio Gama Pinto

PINTO EXHIBITION BOOKLET

1 file(s) 4.00 KB

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