GROUP 6 PRESENTATION

HISTORY OF KENYA
ANALYZE THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY OF KENYAS POST
INDIPENDENCE ERA DURING
THE COLD WAR ERA
MATHEW LERIONKA NKAITOLE
MIZUKOSHI MARIO
DAVID MUTWOKI
THE COLD WAR

 The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the
United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc.
 The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two
superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in
1945
 In Kenya, the influence of the Cold War has most often been explored in the realm of domestic politics and
the factional disputes of the early 1960s between the American-backed Mboya, Minister for Economic
Planning and Development, and Vice President Oginga Odinga, who fostered relations with communist
countries
KENYAS ECONOMIC POLICY POST-
INDIPENDENCE

 African Socialism - Since independence in 1963 the Kenyan government has sought to pursue
Kenyanization of the economy in a capitalist framework
 Redistribution Through Growth - The articulation of this development strategy did not remain static. It
changed in response to changing conditions in the local and global political economies
 Structural Adjustment - The basic needs approach in Kenya was jettisoned in the face of the recession that
hit the international economy and engulfed Kenya in the late 1970s and ear 1980
 Social Services - The expansion of social services in Kenya since independence has been quite impressive.
The main social concern of the government at the time of independence was the elimination of the three
'enemies' of poverty, disease, and ignorane
KENYATTA GOVERNANCE POLICY

 With Kenya’s independence, many observers expected that the experiences of the Mau Mau uprising would
shape the new government’s policies.
 In fact, Kenyatta preferred not to reflect on the Mau Mau past, or prioritize the demands of the Mau Mau
fighters. Instead, he opted to pursue close relations with Britain and limit the possibility of radical politics.
 In the relationship between Britain and Kenya, the most important colonial legacy was thus not the brutality
of the British government’s response to the uprising, but rather an ongoing partnership.
ODINGA’s POLICTICAL MOVES

 Odinga offered a competing vision of Kenya’s future, leaning toward communist nations.
 His views, however, were not popular among Kenyan MPs, and he was eventually ousted. The politics of
these years speaks, perhaps, to another colonial legacy of political violence.
 This developed during the Mau Mau emergency and continued during Kenya’s early post-independence
years, involving detention without trial, political assassinations, and persecution of opposition.
 Kenyatta would remain president of a single-party state supported by Britain until his death in 1978. Odinga
remained in prison until then.
MOI’S FOREIGN POLICY

 President Moi emerged as a fiercely pro-West leader in the Cold War era. In 1964, Moi merged his Kenya
African Democratic Union (Kadu) with Jomo Kenyatta's Kenya African National Union (Kanu)
 Moi offered the United States military and naval bases in Kenya.
 His main focus was on non-alignment and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries
 During the 1992Jamuhuri celebration foreign dignitaries conducted a walk-out on Moi by all Western
diplomats. In the Cold war, Moi was the star, but in the 1990s the Sun came: a new crop of Africa’s “new
leaders” eclipsed Moi and Kenya.
DOMESTIC POWER STRUGGLES

 Before independence, British officials had been concerned by the activities and views of leading nationalist
Kenyatta.
 Prior to Kenyatta’s detention, he had spent substantial time in Britain and married an English woman. He
had also visited the Soviet Union, and was monitored by the British intelligence service MI5 from the early
1930s.
 The Cold War rivalry in Kenya in the years around independence centred on the divisions and factional
power struggles within the Kenya Africa National Union (KANU).
 This was largely a contest between Mboya and Odinga, both members of KANU and of the same Luo
ethnicity.
DOMESTIC POWER STRUGGLES

 Mboya had closer relations with the United States, organising an ‘airlift’ of students to study there in the
early 1960s. He seemed more ‘moderate’ to outside observers, and more committed to the West
 Odinga, by contrast, was the Kenyan nationalist who pursued the closest connections with communist
regimes. In 1965, the British Deputy High Commissioner in Kenya wrote that ‘the history of Communist
penetration of Kenya is largely that of Mr. Odinga’s political activities
 Odinga favoured diversifying Kenyan connections and expanding contacts with Eastern Europe, the USSR
and China. He also favoured policies of land redistribution, widely popular in Kenya
 He linked socialism to pre-colonial African practices, suggesting that ‘this traditional Luo farming was
halfway to socialism
DOMESTIC POWER STRUGGLES

 Odinga was not an ideological communist convert rather he practiced communist principles and philosophy
in area which would serve his interests
 Some Foreign High Commisioner suggested that ‘it was likely that the West had handled him badly and
pushed him into the arms of the Communists’ by supporting Mboya over him and not giving him an early
ministerial role
 Since Odinga pursued links to the USSR and China, this made Kenyatta’s choice easy as he saw that
working with the West would ensure the security of his government against domestic rivals
KENYA’S FOREIGN POLICY

 The Cold War was a crucial part of the global system in which decolonisation occurred and new states
emerged. It thus formed the context in which newly independent foreign policies were planned and
implemented.
 Kenya had less explicit involvement in the Cold War competition for influence than her neighbours.
 The Horn of Africa was one of the regions where the rivalries of the Cold War were most in evidence: the
Soviet Union supported Somalia and the United States Ethiopia until 1977,
 Kenyatta was at times suspicious of Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and Ugandan President Milton
Obote, as well as Somalia.
 Their connections to the communist powers may have encouraged such suspicion, and in turn discouraged
Kenyatta from working with their external communist partners.
KENYA’S FOREIGN POLICY

 Initially, Kenya opened only eight foreign missions: in Britain, France, West Germany, Egypt, the United
States, the UN, China, and the Soviet Union
 This indicates a desire to establish ties with the major communist and Western powers.
 By 1965, there were embassies in Kenya from China, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland
and Yugoslavia in addition to major Western powers.
 Kenya, like many former colonies in Africa and Asia, committed publicly to a policy of non-alignment;
‘defined as non-commitment to the world’s dominant ideological blocs’
 Non-alignment was, however, difficult to achieve and ‘ambiguous’ in interpretation as Kenya had already
developed ties with the west
KENYAS FOREIGN POLICY

 Certain African states made significant efforts to extend their external relationships and open ties with a
range of countries on both sides of the Cold War. Kenya did this officially in diplomatic representation, but
much less in economic or military terms, those areas where alignment could most closely be judged.
 Kenya also formally adopted a policy of African Socialism which came to symbolise Kenya’s ideological
standpoint
 The Cold War proved useful for Kenyatta, Mboya and others as it offered a way of using the idea of
socialism to limit criticism, and suggested that Kenyatta’s government was more left-leaning than it was
 The British government’s response to Kenya’s African Socialism was positive, seeing ‘generally sensible and
realistic policies’
THE COLD WAR ARMS RACE – A KENYAN
PERSPECTIVE

 Arms sales were a major element of competition for influence within Africa and Kenya was granted the
ability by western powers to purchase modern arms of that era
 The largest arms suppliers to Kenya Africa were France, the United States and Britain
 Britain remained Kenya’s largest arms supplier after independence, although Kenya’s military did not grow
as much or as quickly as many within the continent.
 Arms deals were of such significance because they entailed a longer-term relationship.
 As well as the British government supplying arms, a British military training team was stationed in Kenya
and Kenyan officers went to Britain for training