Pio Gama Pinto

Pio Gama Pinto (31 March 1927 – 24 February 1965) was a Kenyan journalist, politician and freedom fighter. He was a socialist leader who was key in Kenya's struggle for independence. He was assassinated in 1965, leading many to consider him independent Kenya's first political martyr. Early years Pinto was born in Nairobi on 31 March 1927 to a Kenyan Asian family of Konkani Goan Catholic descent. Born to immigrant Goan parents hailing from the Indian Overseas Province of Goa, his father was an official in the colonial government of Kenya while his mother was a housewife. At age eight, he was sent to India for his education and spent the next nine years there, passing his matriculation exams at St. Joseph's High School, Arpora and then studying science at Karnatak College, Dharwar for two years before joining the Indian Air Force in 1944 as an apprentice ground engineer. He then took up a job in the Posts and Telegraph office in Bombay, participated in a general strike and became a founding member of the Goa National Congress whose aim was the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule. When only seventeen, he started an agitation in Bombay against the Portuguese colonial occupation of Goa. His political activism soon made it necessary for him to return to Kenya to avoid being arrested and deported to the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cape Verde. Political career In 1949 Pinto returned to Kenya and, after a succession of clerical jobs, became involved in local politics aimed at overthrowing British colonial rule in Kenya. In 1951, he co-founded the East African Indian Congress, a nationalist political party dedicated to building support for independence amongst the South Asian community of Kenya. Pinto also turned to journalism, writing for the Colonial Times, Daily Chronicle and The Uzwod. From 1952, he was also a regular contributor to the international services of All India Radio, where he produced a popular anti-colonial program named Goan Newsletter. He also worked closely with British anti-colonial activists, including the Independent Labour MP Fenner Brockway, to inform the world press of political developments in Kenya. This international activism, however, brought Pinto to the attention of Kenya's colonial authorities. In 1954, five months after his marriage to Emma Dias, he was rounded up in the notorious Operation Anvil and spent the next four years in detention on Manda Island.