Contemporary Crises 16: 199-212, 1991. �9 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Multinational corporations and foreign owned media in developing countries Lonrho and the Standard Newspapers in Kenya

PETER J.M. KAREITHI Centre for Journalism Studies, University of Wales College of Cardiff, 69 Park Place, Cardiff CF1 3AS, UK (present address: School of Communication, The American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W. , Washington, D.C. 20016 U.S.A.)

Abstract. This essay is concerned with the impact of foreign-owned media upon the body politic of Kenya. It is argued that foreign ownership undermines both national sovereignty and even the rudiments of political freedom. The primary focus is on the British corporate conglomerate, Lonrho.

Introduction

This essay is founded on Stephen Hymer's contention that political freedom and all other aspects of national sovereignty must be underpinned by economic independence. 1 It shall seek to establish that foreign media ownership is primarily market driven and, like all other forms of foreign investment, seeks to maximise profits for the foreign investor.

I shall try to establish how foreign-owned media form linkages with other foreign investments in the host country, and outline for themselves, as one of their primary functions, the creation and maintenance of a social and political environment within which they, and other foreign investment, can continue to prosper and exploit the host nation. I shall also demonstrate how, in the process of the creation and maintenance of this environment, the real needs of the media's audience - political, social and economic - become of secondary importance, if not of no significance at all, except where they coincidentally also serve the interests of foreign capital.

At a more specific level, this is an essay on the linkages between the foreign-owned press in Kenya and the multinational corporations operating in that country. It specifically seeks to establish how the foreign-owned press, as an agent of multinational corporations and other foreign investments, helps create and maintain a social, political and economic climate within which

All monetary units in this essay are in pound sterling.

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foreign capital can continue to dominate the national economy and set the political agenda for the country's leadership.

As a case in point, the essay shall focus on the relationship between Lonrho's Standard Newspapers Limited and the wide flung Lonrho economic empire in Kenya.

Foreign ownership of the media in Kenya

Virtually all major institutions of mass communications in Kenya have a substantial, if not the principal, portion of their equity under foreign control. The three largest newspaper publishing groups - the Standard, the Nation Newspapers Limited, and the Kenya Times Media Trust Limited- publish five daily and six weekly titles between them in both English and Kiswahili. The principal shareholder in the Nation is the Aga Khan, the Paris-based secular and religious leader of the Ismaili muslim community worldwide, with 42 per cent of the stock. The Standard is owned by Consolidated Holdings Limited, of which Lonrho controls 70 per cent; while Robert Maxwell is minority shareholder in the Kenya Times where he controls 40 per cent of its shares. The rest of the Kenya Times stock is owned by Kenya's only legal political party, Kanu. The Maxwell/Times group also owns the only domestic news agency, the Kenya News Agency (KNA).

Broadcasting is still largely government controlled with all radio and most television services under the ministry of information and broadcasting. In 1990, a new commercial television service, Channel KTN-62 was introduced. It too is owned by Maxwell/Kenya Times group.

Of Kenya's five largest advertising companies, three are foreign-owned. The two largest, Olgilvy & Mather and McCann-Erickson, are wholly owned subsidiaries of the American advertising and media-marketing multinationals of the same names. (O&M worldwide was recently taken over by the Amer- ican media giant, WPP). The third, Hill-Ayton, is British. There are numerous other smaller foreign-owned advertising companies in the country. The top three foreign-owned controlled 42 per cent of the total agency advertising placement in all media in Kenya 1988. 2 Crawford Ellis Associates (a member of Bunson's Group of Britain), Church Orr & Associates (an affiliate of Raitt Orr & Associates of London), and McCann's Epic dominate the local public relations consultancy, completely over-shadowing the scores of other local and foreign outfits operating in the country. In audio-visual and cinematics pro- ductions, Britain's Pearl & Dean and Andrew Crawfords Productions lead the field. Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox owns the second largest chain of cinema theatres in the country after the state-owned Kenya Film Corporation. Fox, however, has the largest film importation and distribution rights. Not

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even the theatre is spared this scourge of foreign domination. Of the top five commercial theatre companies and opera houses, four are foreign-owned - The Phoenix Players, Braeburn Theatre, Nairobi Players and Donovan Maule Theatre. The fifth, the Kenya National Theatre, and the Conservatoire of Music at the Kenya Cultural Centre, have been completely purged of national- ist (or so-called radical) influences and are now heavily dominated by the contributions of leading personalities in the foreign theatre. As a result, African theatre only exists at the amateur level in institutions of learning and community centres.

Multinational corporations in Kenya

The institution of the multinational corporation sparked off so much contro- versy in the 1970s that it became a clich6. Denounced by Chile's Allende at the United Nations and promoted by Henry Kissinger in negotiations with the Third World, it was probed by journalists fascinated by its global scope, and analysed exhaustively by social scientists of every view. As Hymer observed, much of this debate declined into over simplification. Many of the arguments, he noted, were not rooted in solid empirical data. And Langdon contended that "an even larger amount of the analysis was set in a narrow financial focus that avoided the broader, longer-run impact of the institution.'3

It is that broader, longer-run impact of the multinationals and their enabling foreign-owned press in Kenya that this essay seeks to discuss.

Kenya's is an economy heavily dependent on multinational corporations and other forms of foreign capital. The Kenya National Chamber of Com- merce and Industry estimated that in 1987 foreign investments in Kenya accounted for up to 54 per cent in large-scale industry production and 37 per cent in medium-scale manufacturing. 4 These foreign investments range from small obscure firms to the famous multinational giants like BAT, General Motors, General Electric, IBM, Delmonte, Nestle, Unilever, Shell, Exxon, Barclays, Citibank, British Petroleum, Coca Cola, Cadbury-Schweppes and, of course, Lonrho. In alliance with the dominant foreign-owned media, this arsenal of foreign capital was brought to bear in shaping Kenya's political economy thus influencing what Kenyans eat and drink, the way they dress, live and think.

The choice of Standard newspapers and Lonrho is well considered. The Standard is undoubtedly representative of the inherent dangers of a foreign- owned press. It also occupies the special position of being a corporate part of the largest foreign-owned industrial and commercial empire in Kenya; an empire whose interests and fortunes are intertwined with those of the Stan- dard. It helps to understand the thesis of this essay if discussions of Lonrho or

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the Standard are, in principle, considered interchangeable. It is also important to bear in mind that the hundreds of foreign firms and multinationals operating in Kenya since independence more or less share the same philosophy and objectives as Lonrho and the Standard. To that extent, the Standard, Lonrho and other multinationals are one and the same thing.

Lonrho in Kenya

Lonrho (London and Rhodesia Company) is one of the largest and most powerful British conglomerates in Africa. It was founded in 1909 to acquire mining rights and shares in companies in Southern Africa. In the first 50 years up to the 1960s, the company had expanded its interests and made further investments in property, ranching and agriculture, both in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. In 1961, Lonrho acquired mining and motor trading companies owned by Roland (Tiny) Rowland who became the joint managing director with A. Ball, from whom he was later to take over complete control.

From that point onward, the company expanded very rapidly, mainly through take-overs of existing companies, rather than investment in new plant. Pre-tax profits grew from s in 1962 to s in 1972; net assets from s in 1963 to s in 1967; and turnover doubled from s in 1972 to s in 1974. By then, Lonrho had 90,000 employees, only 3,000 of whom worked in the United Kingdom?

Swainson has documented how Lonrho acquired existing firms by using dubious means. Sometimes, companies were purchased by issue of shares and loan stock in Lonrho itself; at other times, Lonrho would buy a firm and pay in European currency at well below the value of the assets of that firm in Africa. From the time when Rowland took over control of Lonrho, the firm concen- trated most of its operations in Africa. Of its global turnover of s in 1974, s was generated in Africa, of which s was in East and Central Africa, most of it in Kenya. Those figures have more than doubled since.

Lonrho moved into Kenya in 1967 with the formation of Lonrho East Africa and its acquisition of Consolidated Holdings Limited, a large printing and transportation firm with several subsidiaries including the Standard Newspa- pers Limited (then called the East African Standard Newspapers). By 1974, Lonrho had established itself as the single largest multinational firm operating in Kenya in terms of asset value. Today, Lonrho's interests in Kenya include printing, publishing, stationary and paper manufacturing, vehicle distribution and assembly transportation, travel services, real estate, assembly and distri- bution of agricultural machinery and implements, coffee, tea, cotton and sisal

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production, wattle production and extraction, and investments management services (see Appendix A, p. 212).

Lonrho in political context

The centrepiece of Lonrho's empire in Kenya is Standard Newspapers Limit- ed, publishers of the daily Standard and the Sunday Standard. The Standard, which is the oldest surviving newspaper in Kenya, was founded in 1902 by colonial settlers and served the interests of the British colonial administration and the settler community before Kenya's independence. It changed little after independence, shunning African nationalism in favour of the expanding expatiate community which followed the foreign investments that came in the wake of the emergence of the new nation (largely from Western Europe and North America) and the remnants of the former British settlers.

At the time its take-over by Lonrho four years after Kenya's independence, the Standard was in every sense a replica of the average British provincial broadsheet, including lay-out, presentation style and even content. More than two-thirds of the paper was devoted to politics and social life in Britain. The Standard's power and influence in Kenya's political and economic scene from the late 1960s through to the mid-1980s belies its position in Kenya's newspa- per circulation tables. Once the largest selling newspaper in the country, it was over-taken by the Nation in 1969 and now runs a very poor second, selling 71,000 copies daily against the Nation's 205,000 and 78,000 copies on Sundays against the Nation's 250,000. To understand the Standard's clout, it is impor- tant to examine the political context of multinational investment in Kenya, and especially Lonrho's, since the mid-1960s. Swainson demonstrates how the way in which Lonrho cultivated political alliances in Kenya and elsewhere in black Africa illustrated the strategy of multinational firms in an advanced stage of imperialism. But while not unique in this, Lonrho's style was unusually flam- boyant, backed by its mouthpiece - the Standard. Soon after entry into the Kenyan economic scene, Lonrho forged partnerships with the Kenyan govern- ment and financial agencies in the formation new projects. These partnerships were undertaken for reasons of political protection as well as financial conve- nience, as is common with most foreign investments in developing economies. That many such joint projects later folded (such as the Nanyuki Textile Mills which was liquidated in 1977 while under Lonrho management) mattered little in the years to come.

The second state of this strategy involved the appointment of a carefully selected African elite to senior positions in the multinational's conglomerate hierarchy. In most cases, such Africans were members of, or had close links to,

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the families of the ruling class. Thus in Kenya, President Kenyatta's son-in- law, Udi Gecaga, was appointed managing director of Lonrho East Africa. Later he was to become executive chairman in charge of Lonrho operations in all East and Central Africa. This stage of the strategy had several objectives. Firstly, it helped consolidate political protection for the multinational. (When Kenyatta died in 1978, Udi was removed from Lonrho in disgrace the follow- ing year. A few months later, Mark Too, a surrogate son of the new President Moi was appointed deputy chairman of Lonrho). Secondly, this strategy helped create and expand an indigenous African bourgeoisie loyal to the philosophy of capital that the multinational corporations espoused. Such highly-placed African executives and their local associates had access to credit and the means to accumulate their own business assets. It is of interest to note that when Udi Gecaga was chairman of Lonrho, the largest multinational in Kenya in terms of assets value, his father, G.M. Gecaga, was, and still is, the executive chairman of BAT Kenya Limited, the largest multinational in Kenya in terms of profits and the second largest manufacturing concern in the country. His mother, Jemimah, was a nominated member of parliament and her brother, Njoroge Mungai, the foreign minister. Mungai's brother, Ng'ethe Njoroge, was Kenya's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Udi's sister-in- law, Margaret Kenyatta, was the mayor of the capital city, Nairobi; her brother, Peter Kenyatta, was a deputy foreign minister, and her cousin, Ngengi Muigai, was the chief executive of Makenzie Kenya Limited, a subsidi- ary of Inchcape Corporation.

This multinational-insider symbiosis was taking shape at a time when Kenya was undergoing a highly profitable import-substitution industrialisation. The industrialisation process spawned a growing urban working class, but the multinational-insider alliance conspired against the working class which was reacting against the heavy surplus appropriation by the multinationals. In- tensive propaganda campaigns were carried out in the media, glorifying the ideology of capital and principally intended to persuade the working class that it did not pay to be critical of the structure of political economy supporting it. Multinationals and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) conspired to foster a wage-oriented, apolitical labour movement through the Kenya Federation of Labour led by the late Tom Mboya, and to fight radical trade unionism championed by the Kenya Labour Congress. Government interventionism was strongly encouraged through the foreign- owned press, especially the Standard, then the largest circulation daily under the editorship of a conservative Briton, Kenneth Bolton. Elite-oriented politi- cal conflicts were highlighted to inhibit the growth of a class conscious labour movement. In many of its editorials under Bolton, the Standard lauded government repression of left-wing politicians and radical labour leaders as reasonable measures of safeguarding national political and economic stability.

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The more prominent Africans that multinationals like Lonrho pulled into direct and indirect partnerships, the more privileged government access and market conditions they received. These privileges helped generate high prof- its. This, in turn, accelerated the partnerships between the multinationals and the African elite and helped strengthen the emerging bourgeoisie as it grew in size, increased its access to surplus and added to its growing assets. Despite the intensive propaganda campaigns in the media, public discontent began to emerge.

By the time Lonrho was emerging as the largest multinational operating in Kenya, the alliance with the local elite began to weaken the emerging bour- geoisie politically. Criticism of both the government and the political economy was intensifying in the backbenches in parliament and among the intelligensia in the universities. Labour unions were making ominous rumblings. And Lonrho was a major target in the gathering campaign against foreign capital. As far back as 1967, when Lonrho began taking over Kenyan companies, the opposition party, Kenya Peoples Union (KPU) strongly attacked the "change in the management and ownership of the East African Standard newspaper group to a company with South African connections."6 The issue was brushed aside until 1969 when the opposition party leader, Oginga Odinga, took up the question of the company's adverse effects on the Kenyan economy. Similar attacks were also coming from sections of the petty bourgeoisie struggling to become a part of the bourgeoisie itself and, therefore, opposed to the benefits which a section of the ruling group was obtaining from its alliance with foreign capital.

These attacks against Lonrho and the Standard were initially not accompa- nied by any calls for nationalist control over the firm. In 1972, however, the Capital Issues Committee of the Treasury attempted to restrict Lonrho's moves to take over more local firms. In some cases the restrictions were effective, in others not. Recognising the ominous signs, Lonrho decided to secure its protection once and for all by adding Kenyatta's son-in-law, Udi, to the Lonrho's parent board in London, in addition to his executive chairman- ship of Lonrho East Africa.

That appointment, and others like it made by Rowland elsewhere in Africa, were to save Rowland his job as chief executive of Lonrho during the 1973/74 "boardroom crisis" which led the then British prime minister, Edward Heath, to label Lonrho's mode of operation as "the unacceptable face of capitalism." The crisis was triggered by an investigation in the City of London regarding Lonrho's 1971 take-over of an East African firm, Slater-Walker Securities, involving an issue of 1.2 million fully paid up Lonrho shares to the owners of that firm. A group of directors in London tried to remove Rowland from the company's leadership, saying he was mismanaging the firm and causing liq- uidity problems within the company. The alliances Rowland had built with the

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African elite came to the rescue in his time of need. He called upon the support of three African directors on the London Board - Udi (Kenya), Tom Mtine (Zambia), and Gil Olympio (Ivory Coast) - to give evidence in his favour. This defence was successful and the shareholders voted for Rowland's continued management and large scale moves into black Africa.

In Kenya, however, things were threatening to get out of control. A maver- ick deputy minister, J.M. Kariuki, produced evidence in parliament to show that Lonrho had borrowed millions of pounds locally to buy out Kenyan firms. Kariuki even repeated his accusations on British television in London. Back in Kenya, he developed the conspiracy theory that Lonrho was "an organisation created to penetrate African politics by using businesses to gain power.'7 Besides the Standard and its other investments in the region, Lonrho at this time also owned the leading daily newspapers in five countries in East and Central Africa and which have since been nationalised: The Tanganyika Standard in Tanzania (now the Daily News), the Argus in Uganda (now the New Vision), the Times of Malawi, the Daily Herald of Zimbabwe, and the Times of Zambia.

Kariuki proposed a radical solution; that the government should act imme- diately in order to "see the firm's balance sheets to ensure that the monies earned in Kenya did not go outside the country and, if need be, nationalize all the companies that had been bought by Lonrho. ''8 In the heat of battle, the Standard strongly came out in support of its owners, even putting words in the Kenyan government's mouth to "reassure" British investors of the "stable" climate of the Kenyan economy. The newspaper commented:

The Kenyan government has not found it necessary to pronounce itself on the Lonrho affair despite the fact that the Lonrho group has considerable interests in Kenya. In spite of this non-committal attidue, Kenya's name has been dragged into the Lonrho affair by the mass media insinuating a partic- ular stand. This has inevitably created a certain amount of anxiety in financial and commercial circles on the broader issues concerning Kenya's investment policy... It remains the cardinal principle of the Kenyan govern- ment's policy to attract foreign capital and expertise in developing the country. 9

These events led to a stormy debate in Kenya's parliament which lasted for several weeks and drew out the divisions within the local bourgeoisie. Lonrho only weathered the crisis by calling in every favour it was owed by the ruling class. In paying back the favours, as well as in defence of its privileged position, the ruling class pulled out all the stops. By early 1975, all organised opposition to Lonrho's and other multinationals' operations in Kenya had been effective-

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ly silenced. The opposition party, KPU, had been already banned in 1969 and all its leaders detained. Now radical labour leaders and university dons were either similarly detained or fired from their jobs. Dissenting MPs within the ruling party were ostracised, and the more outspoken ones, like J.M. Kariuki, were assasinated. (A parliamentary select committee on Kariuki's assasina- tion implicated high ranking politicians and senior government and police officials in the murder.) The crackdown on the critics of the government and the political economy undermined Kenyatta's credibility as well as that of his ruling party and its leadership. While it neutralised organised opposition, it left behind widespread resentment. When the next opportunity presented itself to hit at Lonrho, the first shots this time came from the government's own side. Lonrho, which had began investing heavily in the Middle East, especially Kuwait and Oman, had reached a "secret" deal with the secretary general of the Organisation of African Unity to act as an intermediary between Arab nations and OAU member countries during the early stages of the oil em- bargo. When it came to light, the deal was severely criticised by many OAU member countries who cited Lonrho's South African and Rhodesian connec- tions. In Kenya, the then vice-president (now president) Daniel Arap Moi commented:

Signing an agreement of this nature would be against the leadership of the OAU and Kenya was not a party to i t . . . it would be further contrary to the UN sanctions against Rhodesia if we, independent African nations, who have made a big noise against Rhodesia would now accept Lonrho, a firm deeply rooted in Rhodesia and South Africa, to be oil agent between us and the Arabs. 1~

To avoid further adverse publicity in the African countries in which it oper- ated, Lonrho quietly withdrew from the deal a few months later. But the incident had brought back into public focus the contradictions that existed within the Kenyan leadership regarding Lonrho. Economic nationalists in Kenya who wished to see a greater proportion of the national economy under domestic control hoped that the political alignments emerging after Kenyatta's death in 1978 would change Lonrho's privileged political position. It did not; not even with Moi as Kenyatta's successor. Udi Cecaga, Kenyatta's son-in- law, was removed from the chairmanship of Lonrho and a Briton, M.W. Harvey, appointed the new chairman. Moi's surrogate son, Mark Too was appointed the new vice-chairman. He also sits on Standard's board. So much for Moi's criticism of the evil capitalist giant with roots in South Africa. Lonrho is stronger in Kenya today than ever before.

Tiny Rowland called his style of investment and management in Africa and

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elsewhere in developing countries "revolutionary capitalism". In a magazine interview in 1975, he said: "If you have that, you will not get nationalised... and there is no greater opportunity than in independent black Africa."H

The role of the Standard

The Standard shared this view of its proprietor. When the government owned Voice of Kenya radio in a commentary made reference to the inherent dangers of a foreign-owned press and implied that the press in Kenya, by virtue of being owned, was susceptible to external influences, 12 the foreign-owned press, catching the scent of what it figured must be would-be-nationalisers, reacted angrily:

This is a flagrant undermining of the foundations on which Kenya's stability as an independent nation has been built. The government of Kenya has gone out of its way to invite foreign investors to operate in this country. It is still doing so. These people who have helped give Kenya the image of stability it currently enjoys have come here because they know they enjoy constitu- tional guarantees in the same way as any Kenyan. That has been the key to our nation's s u c c e s s . 13

Such was the arrogance of the foreign-owned media. They spoke in their foreign masters' voice, but in the same breath claimed to speak for both the Kenyan people and their government. This arrogance has often irked even the most senior government officials. The former attorney general, later minister for constitutional affairs, Charles Njonjo, once remarked that "it is impossible to imagine that these papers are published here in Kenya." Former permanent secretary for information and broadcasting, Darius Mbela, now minister for housing and physical planning, found it even more exasperating saying that,

None of the press in this country can claim to have Kenya's and only Kenya's interests at heart. You only need to read the newspapers more closely and a visit to the editorial offices of these newspapers will confirm our suspicions that the editorial policies of these newspapers do not come from Nairobi, Kisumu or Mombasa but from places outside Kenya. You will no doubt have read a campaign by one of the local dailies on behalf of a foreign government with which we have broken diplomatic relations... We should all wonder as to why I would want to start a newspaper in London, Paris or Moscow, unless I had some interests other than informing the people. 14

In retaliation, the Standard retorted that evidence was not wanting "to prove

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that Kenya's newspapers and magazines outside government control have in fact been the republic's most vocal and persistent supporters.'15 That may be so for some of the other newspapers and magazines, especially those that are indigenously owned. In the case of the Standard, it obviously confused its own support of foreign domination and political repression with supporting the republic.

For years, the Standard made editorial and financial capital out of condemn- ing the government's critics and radical labour leaders and intellectuals. It has in the past openly editorialised in support of detention without trial for dissidents. When once its short-lived Kenyan editor-in-chief, George Githii, published an editorial in 1982 condemning detention without trial, he was fired by the Lonrho board with much fanfare and pomp. The Standard was also one of the strongest supporters of the constitutional amendment in May 1982 to make Kenya a legal one party state. Mbela was, of course, right about what a visit to the newspapers' editorial offices would confirm. The notice boards in Standard's editorial offices in 1989 still openly displayed memos instructing Kenyan journalists and editors to clear all "sensitive" editorial copy with Lonrho's ranking expatriate executives. Senior editors are hired on the basis of compliance with such instructions and the managing director, always British, is the "de facto" editor-in-chief. Journalists who fell afoul of the government while working for the Standard usually ended up without a job. Many of the issues closest to the heart of Kenya's indigenous press and to the Kenyan people, are taboo at the Standard. Such subjects as the "indigenisation" of the economy and land reforms are out, with Lonrho owning large tracts of agricul- tural and forest land in a country where millions of citizens are landless. (When Kenya built its third public university, named after President Moi, it was Lonrho that "donated" the 1,000 hectares of land it was built on.) Politicians who advocate such reforms are either ignored or derided in the Standard's columns.

In reward for the Standard's commitment to the defence of the domination of the national economy by foreign capital, multinationals in Kenya ensure that the newspaper continues in financial strength. It is pampered with ad- vertising funds funnelled through fellow multinational advertising agencies such as Olgivy & Mather and McCann-Erickson. The Standard's columns are the classic example of what highly successful newspaper advertising looks like.

Commenting on BAT's opposition to recent efforts by the Kenyan govern- ment and medical authorities to curb aggressive cigarette advertising in Ke- nya, the communications director of Ogilvy & Mather in Nairobi, Bernard Barnett, was quoted in the Sunday Times of London saying, "Our view is that if you can buy something freely, the manufacturer should be able to advertise it. ''16 O&M handles the BAT advertising accounts in 21 countries, including Kenya. The 1989 Kenya Media Survey showed that the Standard alone ac-

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counted for 34 per cent of the total BAT's product advertising expenditure in the print media in Kenya in 1988. The Standard has occasionally been called upon to use its financial clout in the service of foreign capital and its allies within the local ruling class to keep smaller indigenous publications in line. Many such publications, often short of their own capital resources, have printing and distribution contracts with the Standard. Desperate for advertis- ing revenues, they often depend on Standard to put in a kind word for them in the multinationals' ear; a system where most of the "adspend" is generated by the multinationals and controlled by foreign advertising agencies. Embracing the "wrong" kind of editorial policies (the kind often referred to as "hostile to business") can just as easily lead to an unkind word in the multinationals' ear - and dire economic consequences for such publications. Some "offending" publications have had their contracts revised to put the squeeze on them.

Conclusion

I have demonstrated how the Standard, a newspaper owned by Lonrho, has been at the forefront of the campaign by Lonrho and other multinational corporations in Kenya to manipulate both the Kenyan people and the coun- try's leadership to impose political and economic policies fashioned abroad in order to create and maintain an environment favourable to the domination of the national economy by foreign capital. As we have seen, Lonrho East Africa Limited, a British multinational corporation in which the Standard Newspa- pers Limited is the flag carrier, moved into Kenya in the mid-1960s under the guise of foreign investment. In fact, Lonrho brought with it little or no foreign investment to Kenya. Instead, it took over existing businesses in the country; borrowed heavily in local currency to finance this take-over of Kenyan firms; and did not invest in new plant initially. It only invested in new plant using profits generated locally after its first ten years of operation and continued to repatriate most surplus to the "home country". On the political front, Lonr- ho's operations corrupted the local political leadership through economic bribes, partly in the form of partnerships of convenience, and contributed to the formation of serious economic inequalities through poor distribution of national wealth and inequitable access to capital such as land and sources of credit. It also helped maintain unpopular leadership in power and mute the voices of popular dissent. At the journalistic level, the implication of the operations of Lonrho and the Standard was to set a standard of self-censorship which the authorities in Kenya came to expect from other publications in the country. This exposed publications committed to more professional standards of journalism and made them more vulnerable to official repression.

These manipulations by multinational corporations and their supportive

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foreign-owned media undermined, and continue to undermine, the political and economic sovereignty of the Kenyan nation.

Acknowledgement

I wish to acknowledge valuable guidance from the Director of Research at the Centre of Journalism in Studies, University of Wales College of Cardiff, for his guidance in the preparation of this essay.

Notes and References

1. S. Hymer, "The Multinational Corporation and the Law of Uneven Development," in H. Radice (ed.), International Firms and Modern Imperialism (New York: Penguin, 1975), 37-56.

2. The Kenya Media Survey 1989 (Nairobi: Steadman & Associates). 3. S. Langdon, Multinational Corporations in the Political Economy of Kenya (London: McMil-

lan, 1981), 1. 4. The Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nairobi, Annual Report, 1989. 5. Lonrho, Annual Report and Accounts, 1974. 6. Daily Nation, Nairobi, 12 June, 1967. 7. East African Standard, Nairobi, 10 May, 1973. 8. Daily Nation, Nairobi, 18 May, 1973. 9. East African Standard, Nairobi, 31 May, 1973.

10. Sunday Nation, Nairobi, 17 February, 1974. 11. R. Rowland, as quoted in an article in African Development, London, June 1975. 12. The Way It is, Voice of Kenya, Nairobi, 16 August, 1977. 13. Daily Nation, Nairobi, The Ministry Biased Rantings, 18 Aug. 1977. 14. D. Mbela, in a speeck to the 19th session of the Unesco General Conference in Nairobi, 11

August 1977. 15. The Standard, Nairobi, 13 Aug. 1977, The Irascible Mr Mbela. 16. Sunday Times, London, 13 May, 1990, Africa: The World's Ashtray.

Financial Review, Nairobi, Kenya (now under official government ban). N. Garnham, Capitalism and Communication (London: Sage, 1990). S. Hymer, The Multinational Corporation: A Radical Approach, B. Cohen (ed.), (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1979). D. Hunt, The Impending Crisis in Kenya: The Case for Land Reform (London: Gower, 1984). R. Kaplinsky, Readings on the Multinational Corporation in Kenya (Nairobi: Oxford, 1978). G.N. Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenya: The Making o fan African Petite Bourgeoi-

sie (1905-1970), (London: Yale University Press, 1980). S. Langdon, Multinational Corporations in the Political Economy of Kenya (London: McMillan,

1981). C. Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism 1964-1971

(London: Heinemann, 1975).

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P. Mwaura, Communication Policies in Kenya (Nairobi: Unesco, 1980). National Council of Churches of Kenya, Who Controls Industry in Kenya? (E.A. Publishing

House, 1968). N. Swainson, The Developmental Corporate Capitalism in Kenya 1918-1977 (London: Heine-

mann, 1980).

Appendix A. Lonrho's Corporate Empire in Kenya.

Firm Main activities

Under Consolidated Holdings Ltd

The Standard Newspapers Limited Kenya Papermills Limited Kenya Stationers Limited Stationery & Office Supplies Ltd Standard Properties Ltd Chancery Investments Ltd Express Kenya Ltd Printing & Packaging Corporation Paragon Forms Limited

Under Motor Mart Group Limited

Toyota Kenya Ltd Kenya Motors Ltd Bruce Trucks & Equipment Ltd Farm Machinery Distributors Ltd Associated Vehicle Assemblers Ltd Burns & Blane Engineering Ltd Rhino Motors Ltd Multispares Limited Neon & General Signs Ltd Metalock (E.A.) Limited Motor Mart Investment Corp. Ltd

Under Lonrho E. Africa Limited

E.A. Tanning & Extraction Co. Litd Tancot Limited

Newspaper publisher & distributor Paper manufacturing Stationery makers & distributors Office equipment & stationery Real estate Investment management Transport, freight and travel Printing, packaging & engraving Business forms and computer paper

Vehicle distribution Vehicle distribution Trucks, construction equipment Tractors, harvestors, etc. Vehicle assemblers Trailers & farm implements Motor servicing Automobile spares & accessories neon gas and general signs Tools, locks and safes Investment & property management

Wattle production & extraction Cotton, coffee, tea & sisal production