The offices of German wartime commander Adolf Hitler had slick floors and limitless open halls. No carpeting. When their feet gave way on the slick marble floors, visiting diplomats could not reach the walls for support. This insured that the VIPs arrived at the Fuhrer scared and humiliated.
It was an effective kind of coercion employed by tyrants, including communist Russia, whose government funded the New Nyanza Provincial General Hospital in Kenya, at the time known as ‘Russia’ It is now known as the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, as it was Jaramogi, then vice president and socialist sympathizer in capitalist Kenya, who requested “development assistance” from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
At the height of the Cold War, eager to establish a socialist presence in East Africa, the Soviets put Sh140 million building the Russia hospital, a 200-bed facility in Odinga’s hometown of Kisumu.
From 1965 to 1969, the Russian engineers VL Usenko, NA Novikov, and VI Belov supervised the construction of the hospital’s medical and surgical wards, children’s emergency department, and infectious diseases unit. Later, more than Sh8.5 million worth of medical equipment was installed in the facility under the supervision of S Nicouline of Soviet Economic and Technical Cooperation.
Local company Panesar Ltd was the primary contractor, however all iron rods and 15 doctors who assisted for two years were imported from Russia. Did you realize, though, that the ceilings were made in a communist fashion to scare patients? When light bulbs “burned out,” the Russians replaced them. The distrustful communists could not have faith in anything from the capitalist West! A European manufacturer’s light bulb might as well be a listening and surveillance gadget!
In addition, all floors were built by relocating personnel throughout the duration of construction. Long after the Russians had left, few local electricians could figure out how the concrete-encased wiring was installed!
The September 1969 inauguration of Russia by President Jomo Kenyatta was not without of political undercurrents. Tom Mboya was slain two months previously. Kikuyu Nahashon Njenga Njoroge was arrested for the murder of Mboya. Kenyatta I, another Kikuyu, presided over a government that sent Oginga to political Siberia three years after his resignation as vice president.
Hostile Luos demanded to know, “Where is Mboya?” while Kenyatta I issued an assortment of insults. As the crowd attacked the president’s motorcade with rocks and rotten eggs, his security team hurried him to safety out of fear for his life. Four children, five adults, and two police people perished as a result of the gunfire fired into the crowd. Hundreds were injured in the “Kisumu Massacre”
Massacre,’ and with it, the long-standing political animosity between the Kikuyus and the Luos, whose cultures are radically different, do not help matters.
Throughout his administration, Kenyatta I closed his diaries on Kisumu due to Russia’s opening. Later, Jaramogi was detained. A hospital in Russia was neglected and lacked medications, physicians, nurses, and clinical officers. Medical services deteriorated. The Luos were relegated to socioeconomic and political obscurity until Kenyatta I was “executed” on August 22, 1978.