Book reveals how Kanu officials plotted George Adamson’s death

Powerful government officials may have been involved in the murder of renowned British conservationist George Adamson, a book written by his former assistant has revealed.
The new revelations that Mr Adamson was targeted for harassment and elimination sharply contrasts the official account that he was murdered in a normal ambush by Shiftas at Kora National Park in 1989.

According to Mr Tony Fitzjohn, the man who spent 18 years with Mr Adamson in the Kora wild, they endured police harassment meant to frustrate their conservation work and force them out of the park.

“We were regularly ordered to drive to Hola to show our documents and permits to police, our radio communication system was confiscated and our camp was raided,” he says in his book Born Wild.

Mr Fitzjohn believes that Mr Adamson’s was murdered to stop his conservation work.
The Briton cites an incident in August 1987 where he was arrested and charged with running a tourist camp without a permit.
“ I had no option but to plead guilty to the charges and pay the fine,” he says.

In another incident, Mr Fitzjohn was arrested by rangers who were known to him and beaten up as his staff watched. He was then driven and locked up at Hola Police Station for alleged trespass in Kora yet he was Adamson’s assistant.

“On the way, the rangers told me that they would kill George if I didn’t leave Kora quickly. I was desperate as there was no access to any telephone to ask for help but luckily I was freed on bail the next morning” the book reads. His permit to keep leopards was revoked and he had to flee to Tanzania in 1988.

Mr Adamson who had put Kenya on the global conservation map through his pioneering work of rehabilitating orphaned lions in the seventies, was shot dead by bandits on August 20, 1989.

He and his wife, Joy Adamson are best known through their captivating movie, Born Free and best-selling book with the same title, which is based on the true story of Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lioness cub they had raised in Mwingi and later released into the wild.

APPROVAL OF TOP AUTHORITIES

Speaking exclusively to the Nation during Adamson’s 25th memorial at Kora two weeks ago, Mr Fitzjohn said the invasion of Kora by pastoralists who were involved in poaching and banditry had tacit approval of top authorities.

“It was apparent that the wildlife authorities, the police and the army watched as Somali herders took over Kora killing animals and reducing the park to barren bush” the book reads.

“The situation became tense after the 1988 murder of British tourist Julie Ward. Dr Richard Leakey the then KWS Director and his brother Philip who was an Assistant minister for Wildlife admitted that there was nothing they could do to help us,” he recalls.

However, Mr Fitzjohn writes that former Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, then a young MP for Kitui North which bordered Kora was concerned about the deteriorating situation.

“He personally intervened to have the then Commissioner of Police Philip Kilonzo send a team of elite GSU officers to protect Mr Adamson,” he says.

But the officers were later withdrawn and Mr Adamson killed a week later. “Some characters in government never understood the importance of conservation work to Kenya’s tourism,” said Mr Musyoka in an interview yesterday.