Volume 2 a

REPORT OF THE TRUTH, JUSTICE AND
RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
Volume IIA

© Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, 2013
This publication is available as a pdf on the website of the Truth, Justice
and Reconciliation Commission (and upon its dissolution, on the website
of its successor in law). It may be copied and distributed, in its entirety, as
long as it is attributed to the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission
and used for noncommercial educational or public policy purposes.
Photographs may not be used separately from the publication.
Published by Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC), Kenya
ISBN: 978-9966-1730-3-4
Design & Layout by Noel Creative Media Limited, Nairobi, Kenya

His Excellency
President of the Republic of Kenya
Nairobi
3 May 2013
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
By Gazette Notice No. 8737 of 22 July 2009 and pursuant to section 10 of the Truth, Justice and
Reconciliation Act No. 6 of 2008, the undersigned were appointed to be Commissioners of the Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation Commission. The Commission was established with the objective of
promoting peace, justice, national unity, healing, reconciliation and dignity among the people of Kenya.
Having concluded our operations, and pursuant to section 48 of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation
Act, we have the honour to submit to you the Report of our findings and recommendations.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration.
Amb. Bethuel Kiplagat
Chairperson
Tecla Namachanja Wanjala
(Vice Chairperson)
Judge Gertrude Chawatama
Amb. Berhanu Dinka
Maj. Gen (Rtd) Ahmed Sheikh Farah
Prof. Tom Ojienda
Margaret Shava
Prof. Ronald Slye

i
Volume IIA
REPORT OF THE TRUTH, JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
Table of Contents
Foreword..........................................................................................................................................iii
List of Abbreviations...................................................................................................................vi
CHAPTER ONE
Historical Context: A General Overview................................................................................................. 1
Introduction....................................................................................................................................1
British Colonial Era .......................................................................................................................3
President Jomo Kenyatta’s Era ............................................................................................. 17
President Daniel Arap Moi’s Era .......................................................................................... 24
President Mwai Kibaki’s Era................................................................................................... 27
Appendix
Selected major events in Kenya........................................................................................... 30

CHAPTER TWO
History of Security Agencies: Focus on Colonial Roots of the Police and
Military Forces ...................................................................................................................................................33
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 33
The Police ..................................................................................................................................... 34
The Military .................................................................................................................................. 72
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 99
CHAPTER THREE
The Shifta War................................................................................................................................................. 101
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................101
Origins...........................................................................................................................................103
Legal Framework .....................................................................................................................109
Socio-Economic Policy in Support of The War ...........................................................111
Fighting The War.......................................................................................................................113
Massacres During The Shifta War......................................................................................131
Assigning Responsibility.......................................................................................................137

ii
Volume IIA
Mass Graves, Burial Sites and Forensic Possibilities............................................. 142
War’s End - October 1964........................................................................................... 144
CHAPTER FOUR
Unlawful Killings and Enforced Disappearances...........................................................................147
Massacres............................................................................................................................................. 149
Political Assassinations................................................................................................................. 430
Extra-Judicial Killings and enforced Disappearances ................................................... 477
Annex: List of Massacre Victims.........................................................................................552
CHAPTER FIVE
Unlawful Detention, Torture and ill-Treatment.............................................................................. 589
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................590
Definitions and Legal Framework ....................................................................................590
Methodology ............................................................................................................................594
Detention and Torture during the Colonial Era .........................................................599
Detention and Torture during President Kenyatta’s Era..........................................602
Detention and Torture during President Moi’s Era....................................................605
Detention and Torture during President Kibaki’s Era ..............................................662
Annex: List of Victims of Detention, Torture and ill-Treatment............................664
CHAPTER SIX
Sexual Violence............................................................................................................................................... 707
Introduction ..............................................................................................................................707
Definition ....................................................................................................................................708
Methodology ............................................................................................................................712
Reporting of Cases on Sexual Violations........................................................................713
Sexual Violence during Peacetime ..................................................................................718
Sexual Violence during Conflicts.......................................................................................721
Sexual Violence in the Context of Interrogation .......................................................744
Sexual Violence during Forced Evictions.......................................................................746
Sexual Violence by the British Royal Army ...................................................................750
Impact of Sexual Violence on Victims and their Families ......................................753

iii
Volume IIA
Foreword
This Volume focuses on the major violations of bodily integrity rights that were
committed during the Commission’s mandate period. While most of the violations in this
volume are traditionally defined to require state action – extra judicial killings, enforced
disappearances, detention, torture – the Commission adopted a more expansive view of
these violations. This was for four reasons. First, while as a matter of law the distinction
between state and non-state action is important with respect to many of these violations,
many victims are less concerned about the official status of those who wronged them,
and more with identifying those individuals and addressing the consequences of the
harm they suffered.
Second, if the Commission were to strictly define these violations as requiring state
action, the experience and narratives of many victims would be lost. This would diminish
the ability of the Commission to provide an accurate, complete and historical record of
gross violations of human rights committed during the mandate period.
Third, while some of the violations described in this volume were not directly committed
by state officials, the failure of the state to provide adequate security to many of its
citizens provided an opportunity for such violations to occur. In seeking to understand
the circumstances, factors and causes of violations committed by militias and other non-
state actors, the Commission was inevitably drawn to an analysis of state inaction, and
in particular the failure of the state to provide, and appear to be providing, justice and
security.
Fourth, while the Commission does make recommendations with respect to the law and
legal structures, it is not a court of law, but rather a body dedicated to describing and
explaining historical injustices and gross violations of human rights. While accountability
is part of the Commission’s mandate, justice is one of three equally important pillars,
the other two being truth and reconciliation. In interpreting its mandate, therefore, the
Commission was sensitive to furthering the fulfilment of each of the three pillars, and
not giving undue weight to any one over the other two.
While much of this volume is focused on violations directly committed by the state,
it also includes descriptions of killings, severe injury and violence, sexual violence,
detention, and other similar violations committed by non-state actors.
The volume starts with a general overview of the political history of Kenya. This chapter
provides the overall political context for understanding not only the other specific

iv
Volume IIA
violations in this chapter, but also the violations and other materials in the rest of the
report. Because the political history focuses heavily on the state and its development,
we include it here in the volume that focuses most on some of the worst violations
committed by the state.
In the chapter on political history we also, as in other parts of the report, discuss some
of the practices and violations of the colonial government. While the Commission’s
temporal mandate formally commenced at independence, the Act also required us to
describe and analyze the ‘antecedents, circumstances, factors and context’ of violations
committed during the mandate period. There is no question that in order to understand,
for example, the newly independent government’s reaction to the Shifta War (not
to mention injustices related to land, state abuse of power, corruption, and many of
the other violations discussed in this Report), one needs to understand the policies
and actions of the colonial government, as well as the legal, political, and economic
structures they established and bequeathed to the newly independent government.
This general political overview is then supplemented by a description of the history
of the state security agencies. While other agencies of the state were responsible for
historical injustices and gross violations of human rights during the mandate period (see
e.g. Volume 2B which focuses on land, economic crimes, violations of socio-economic
rights, and corruption), the security agencies were both primarily responsible for many
of the acts of commission discussed in this volume, as well as the acts of omission (the
failure to provide security) that allowed many of the violations committed by non-state
actors to occur.
The next chapter focuses on the major armed conflict (in this case a non-international
armed conflict) within the Commission’s mandate, the Shifta War. As the defining
moment of the independence of the nation, the Shifta War acts as a bridge from the
violations committed by the colonial power prior to independence and the violations
committed by the newly independent government. The Shifta War had a profound
impact on the early development of the state, the effects of which are still being felt
today, not least by the survivors and their descendants in the north eastern part of the
country.
The remaining chapters are organized by class of violations. Unlawful killings and enforced
disappearances are divided into three separate parts: massacres, political assassinations,
and extra judicial killings. Detention, torture and ill treatment were unfortunately
present during all periods of Kenyan history. While the infamous Nyayo House torture
chamber is often the first thing that one thinks of with respect to the Kenyan government
and torture, this chapter illustrates how prevalent illegal detention, torture, and other
similar treatment continues to plague the nation. Finally, the chapter on sexual violence

v
Volume IIA
describes a particular form of violence committed against men and women, boys and
girls. It is only in the last three decades that the international community has become
more aware of the use of sexual violence as a systematic tool of oppression and armed
conflict. Sexual violence was prevalent during the colonial period, and unfortunately
continued unabated through independence to the present day.
Investigations related to some of the events in this chapter – e.g. the Wagalla Massacre;
the assassinations of, among others, Tom Mboya, J.M. Kariuki, and Robert Ouko – are
some of the most anticipated by many Kenyans. The report of the Task Force reported
the high interest in providing truth and justice with respect to these violations, and
the experience of the Commission was the same. The Commission was able to unearth
some new information regarding some of these events. But there is no question that
the Commission was unable to provide clear answers to all of the questions raised about
these injustices. A major cause of this inability was the difficulty the Commission faced
in securing documents and the cooperation of witnesses and other interested parties
with respect to these events. It is our hope that the information provided here will
re-emphasize the importance of the government coming clean and releasing all of the
information within its possession with respect to these and other historical injustices.

vi
Volume IIA
List of Abbreviations
ADC Agricultural Development Consult
AFC African Finance Corporation
AP Administrative Police
ADCU Air Defence Control Unit
ASTU Anti- Stock Theft Unit
AMREF African Medical and Research Foundation
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
CBK Central Bank of Kenya
CJPC Catholic Justice and Peace Commission
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women
CID Criminal Investigation Department
CMS Church Missionary Society
COVAW Coalition of Violence against Women
CAT Convention against Torture and other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment
DSC District Security Committee
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DO District Officer
DSBO District Special Branch Officer
DTM December Twelfth Movement
EAR East African Rifles
EATC East Africa Transport Corps
FAO Food and Agricultural Organitzation
FERA February 18 Revolution Army
FEM February Eighteenth Movement
FGM Female Genital Mutilation
GSU General Service Unit
GVRC Gender Violence Recovery Centre
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia
IBEAC Imperial British East Africa Company
IMLU Independent Medico-Legal Unit
ILO International Labour Organization
IDPs Internally Displaced Persons
KAR King’s African Rifles
KR Kenya Rifles
KANU Kenya African National Union
KDF Kenya Defence Forces
KPU Kenya Peoples Union
KCB Kenya Commercial Bank
KADU Kenya African Democratic Union
KGGCU Kenya Grain Growers Cooperative Union
KPTC Kenya Posts and Telecommunications
Corporation
KAF Kenya Air Force
KHRC Kenya Human Rights Commission
KNHRC Kenya National Human Rights Commission
KNH Kenyatta National Hospital
KMC Kenya Meat Commission
KBC Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
KWS Kenya Wildlife Service
KIC Kenya Intelligence Committee
KDHS Kenya Demographic and Health Survey
KPLC Kenya Power and Lighting Company
KNUT Kenya National Union of Teachers
MoU Memorandum of Understanding
MoH Ministry of Health
MMB Meat Market Board

vii
Volume IIA
MP Member of Parliament
NCPB National Cereals and Produce Board
NFD Northern Frontier District
NTZ Nyayo Tea Zones
NBC Nyayo Bus Company
NTZDC Nyayo Tea Zones Development Corporation
NARC National Alliance Rainbow Coalition
NPPPP Northern province People’s Progressive Party
NFDLA Northern Frontier District Liberation Army
NSC National Security Council
NSIS National Security intelligence Service
NEP North Eastern Province
OLF Oromo Liberation Force
ODM Orange Democratic Movement
OCS Officer Commanding Station
OCPD Officer Commanding Police Division
OB Occurrence Book
PPSA Preservation of Public Security Act
PSBO Provincial Special Branch Officer
PPO Provincial Police Officer
PCIO Provincial Criminal Investigations Officer
PNU Party of National Unity
PRCT People for Rural Change Trust
PEV Post Election Violence
PC Provincial Commissioner
PSC Provincial Security Committee
RHA Royal Horse Artillery
SDO Special District Ordinance
SLDF Sabaot Lands Defence Force
SSAs State Security Agents
SYL Somali Youth League
SOA Sexual Offences Act
TJRC Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission
UAE United Arab Emirates
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization
UPI United Press International
UN United Nations
VOK Voice of Kenya
VOCA Victims of Coup Attempt

viii
Volume I  Chapter ONEVolume IIA
viii REPORT OF THE TRUTH, JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION

1
CHAPTER
ONE
Historical Context:
A General Overview
Introduction
1. On the eve of Kenya’s Independence Day, the Duke of Edinburgh said the following
to a people that about to become free citizens of a new African nation:
Tomorrow a new volume will be opened and an independent Kenya will start to write
a new story. The pages of this volume are still blank and empty; the story that is to be
written on them is still in the hands and minds of all the people of Kenya.1
2. The next day, 12 December 1963, independence was greeted with jubilation and
celebrations across the entire country. Immediately, Kenyans began to write the
country’s story. Almost 50 years later, Kenya’s story is a success story as it is a sad story.
It is a success story because, despite the many challenges that have bedeviled the
country, Kenyans have made huge strides in achieving the goals that had been set
forth at independence, chief amongst which is the eradication of poverty, diseases
and illiteracy. It is a sad story because it is burdened by ghastly accounts of gross
violations of human rights and historical injustices. It is mainly this sad part of Kenya’s
story that the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission was tasked to examine
and document.
1 Daily Nation, 13 December 1963.

2
Volume IIA Chapter ONE
3. This Chapter locates gross human rights violations and injustices that occurred in
Kenya between 1963 and 2008 in their historical context. It provides a composite
account or historical overview of the dynamics and factors that nurtured an
environment under which these violations and injustices thrived. The overview is
presented in a chronological order beginning from 1895 when the Kenyan state
was created to 2008 when it was at the edge of disintegration.
4. For analytical purposes, the historical period has been divided into four distinct
epochs. These epochs correspond with the four political administrations that
governed the country during the Commission’s mandate period:
 British colonial era (1895 to 1963);
 President Jomo Kenyatta’s era (1963 to 1978);
 President Daniel arap Moi’s era (1978 to 2002); and
 President Mwai Kibaki’s era (2002 to 2008).
5. As a historical overview, the scope and focus of this Chapter is limited to describing
and explaining key events in the political realm during these four epochs. As
such, it does not describe any particular violations and injustices in great detail.
Comprehensive descriptions of such violations and injustices are covered in
subsequent chapters and volumes of the Report.
6. In analysing these key events and their historical perspective, it is argued that the
violence generated in the context of colonialism was perpetuated in the post-
colonial period through unaltered colonial structures, institutions and mentalities.
Thus Kenya’s relatively long history of human rights violations cannot be explained
nor understood adequately without unravelling the country’s colonial experience.
Kenya’s story is a success story as it is a sad story. It is a
success story because, despite the many challenges that
have bedeviled the country, Kenyans have made huge
strides in achieving the goals that had been set forth at
independence, chief amongst which is the eradication
of poverty, diseases and illiteracy. It is a sad story
because it is burdened by ghastly accounts of gross
violations of human rights and historical injustices.

3
British Colonial Era
7. The creation of modern day Kenya dates back to 1885 when European imperial
powers assembled in Berlin, Germany, to partition Africa among themselves. At the
Berlin conference where these powers met, it was resolved that those interested in
Africa would declare their spheres of influence then follow such declaration with
effective control of the new territories. What followed was the partition of Africa,
with little knowledge of the continent, especially its hinterlands. In the end, some
roughly 10,000 African polities were amalgamated into 40 European colonies and
protectorates. These colonies and protectorates would later provide the basis for
the modern nation-states of Africa including Kenya. Some African societies with a
lot in common were rent apart while others with nothing or little networks were
fused together
8. To establish and consolidate their rule in Kenya, the British employed violence
on a locally unprecedented scale and with unprecedented singleness of
mind and purpose. The colonial violence was characterized by unimaginable
human rights violations and injustices which reached its zenith in the 1950s,
a time when communities in Kenya staged a fight for political and economic
self-determination.
9. The British, having earmarked Kenya for control, moved with speed to implement
the Berlin resolution. Within two years, the British East African Protectorate
(where most of the present Kenya falls) had been declared. Henceforth, most laws
applicable in England and its hinter territories such as India would be exerted in
the so-called ’protectorate’.
Rule by proxy: Imperial British East Africa Company
10. Initially, the British chose to administer its newly-acquired territory through a
proxy: the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC). The IBEAC was granted
a charter in 1888 to administer and develop the territory as it saw fit. It used this
authority to exploit natural resources such as ivory. The charter was exclusive but
the company faced numerous challenges in establishing its authority in Kenya.
Its agents have been described as ‘alcoholics’ who failed to establish working
relationships with the local populations with whom they were supposed to
trade.2
Moreover, the IBEAC lacked the finances to develop infrastructure and
was therefore unable to make the investments necessary to properly advance its
East African presence.
2 B Berman Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination (1990) 50.

4
11. In early 1890, the company started constructing the Mackinnon-Sclater road, which
was actually little more than cattle-track designed to link Mombasa and Busia.
The company also ordered a large steamship, the SS William Mackinnon, in the
hope that it would crisscross Lake Victoria and further stimulate commerce in the
region. Neither of these projects succeeded. Indeed the failure of these projects,
coupled with high profile political disputes and wrangles in Uganda, eventually
convinced the British government that the IBEAC’s charter should be cancelled.
Consequently, the charter was cancelled on 1July 1895. Administrative control of
the territory passed from the IBEAC to the British Foreign Office. In effect, Kenya
became a British protectorate.
From British Protectorate to British Colony
12. The declaration of Kenya as a British protectorate was primarily a diplomatic
gesture, aimed at the Sultan of Zanzibar, Germany, Italy and Ethiopia. It was a
declaration of exclusion of these powers from this political space that ran from
Jubaland to Lake Naivasha.3
This ‘diplomatic gesture’ proved a major obstacle to
the British settlers and the British Colonial Office in their attempts to secure cheap
loans under the Colonial Stock Act of 1900 for the development of the protectorate.
The Colonial Stock Act of 1900 only benefitted British colonies and dominions and
not protectorates.4
The crown agents, therefore, advised the colonial office to look
into ways to change the status of the protectorate to a colony.
13. It was this desire to change the status of the protectorate to a colony that exposed
the intricate political arrangement of the territory. It became clear that the
incorporationofthe10-milecoastalstripintothecolonywouldarouseinternational
conflicts from other countries that had entered into trading agreements with the
Sultan of Zanzibar.
14. The sultanate of Zanzibar for instance had signed treaties with various states:
United States of America in 1833, France in 1862, and Germany in 1886. These
treaties recognized the sovereignty of the Sultan. Of particular importance was
the 1886 Anglo-Germany treaty which internationally recognized the 10-mile
coastal strip as the rightful dominion of the sultanate of Zanzibar.5
As a result of
manipulation, persuasions and coercions, the Sultan accepted the proposal and
acknowledged that he:
3 Atieno-Odhiambo ‘Mugo’s Prophesy’ in W Ochieng’ (ed) Kenya: The Making of a Nation. A Hundred Years of Kenya’s History 1895-
1995 (2000) 7.
4 M John ‘The Ten Mile Coastal Strip: An Examination of the Intricate Nature of Land Question at Kenyan Coast’ (2011) International
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 177.
5 As above.

5
was the child of His Majesty’s government and was always ready loyally to carry out its
wishes. If His Majesty’s government considered the alienation desirable, he was quite
prepared to agree to it.6
15. Thus, in July 1920, the territory of the East Africa Protectorate was annexed to
the British Crown under the new name Kenya Colony. From then onwards, the
former protectorate became the Kenya Colony. The British colonialists imposed
the state structure on collections of ethno-political communities in Kenya that
historically lacked the inter-communal coherence. The communities which lived
independently from each other were forced to live together in newly-created
colonial Kenya7
. This imagined or invented political community superimposed into
much older alignments and loyalties has continue to be a fault line of ethnic socio-
political mobilization and conflict till today.
Resistance and military expeditions
16. The conquest of state and territory for British settlement and exploitation in Kenya
was achieved through colonial violence.8
To force Africans into submission, the
colonial administration in Kenya conducted ‘punitive expeditions’ in the 1890s
against what they called ‘recalcitrant tribes’. There were military expeditions
against the Nandi in 1901, 1905, and 1906, against the Embu in 1905, against the
Abagusii in 1904, 1908, and 1914, against the Kipsigis in 1905 and against the
Abagishu and Kabras in 1907.
17. Even the ‘angels’ within the British administration who recommended peaceful
methods of expansion discovered that the majority of the African people were
not willing to forgo their independence without some military show.9
Sir Arthur
Hardinge, the first protectorate commissioner, could even remark: ‘These
people must learn submission by bullets - it’s the only school; after that you
may begin more modern and humane methods of education’.10
The aftermath
of such violence was destruction of property, rape, torture, death, and destruction
to property.
6 As above.
7 N Peter ‘Colonialism and Its Legacies in Kenya’, Lecturer Delivered During Fulbright Hays Group Project, July 6th
to August 6th
2009, Moi University-Kenya; O Bethwell “Introduction” in W Ochieng’ (ed) Kenya: The Making of a Nation. A Hundred Years of
Kenya’s History 1895-1995 (2000).
8 This study borrows from Tirop Simatei’s Work “Colonial Violence, Postcolonial Violations: Violence, Landscape and Memory in
Kenyan Fiction”. Here colonial violence is understood to mean relationships, processes, and conditions that attended the practice
of colonialism in Kenya and that violated the physical, social, and/or psychological integrity of the colonized while similarly impacting
on the colonizer.
9 W Ochieng’ A History of Kenya (1985) 89-90
10 For details se J Lonsdale ‘The conquest state, 1895-1904’ in O William (ed) (1989) A Modern History of Kenya, 1895-1980
(1989) 11.

6
18. Having been appointed as the first commissioner, Sir Hardinge later realized
the need to convert the external, costly and destructive force of conquest into
internal, negotiable and productive power.11
In order to set up an administrative
and judicial system, Hardinge fell back on the IBEAC administrators, retaining
people like Charles Hobley and Martin the Maltese. He proceeded to divide the
land into provinces and districts. And since administrative boundaries tended
to be based on ethnic or linguistic units, they froze cultural development and
population mobility at a certain point in time, thus fossilizing situations which
had been fluid.12
But more importantly, the administrative creativity of Hobley
witnessed the planting of seeds for ethnic hatred as communities started to
establish ownership of their territories to the exclusion of others. Hardinge:
had low opinion of the Africans, whom he regarded as barbarous races and he therefore
hoped to rely on the Arabs and to a lesser extent, the Swahili people … who according
to him were a civilizing influence for local administration. The process of dividing the
Kenyan people into primitive tribes and civilized tribes had begun … and intensified as
the administration spread into the interior”13
.
19. Sir Arthur Hardinge was succeeded as a commissioner by Sir Charles Elliot,
who had an even lower opinion of the Africans. His first task was to consolidate
British control within the protectorate and to formulate administrative policies
and structures suitable for white settlers. Unlike his predecessor, his actions
witnessed not only grave injustices against Africans, but also widespread
fighting between different African ‘tribes’ in the second half of the 19th Century.
The tribal units thus created and defined were encased in district boundaries,
but many of these classifications were arbitrary in some cases dividing groups
more sharply than they had been previously while in others they combined
groups that were originally distinct. As Ogot aptly concludes, ‘new and bigger
tribes such as the Luhya, the Kalenjin, and the Mijikenda had been invented …
by the Africans themselves to safeguard the interest and welfare of smaller units
against possible domination by the larger groups’. This kind of balancing action
has tended to intensify ethnic chauvinism and the struggle for the capture of the
post-colonial state14
.
20. On the ground, the British sought to establish alliances and loyalties of Africans.
In so doing, the British sought to manipulate, subvert and at times circumvent
the existing indigenous systems of authority. As Atieno-Odhiambo explains:
11 As above.
12 Ogot Bethwell (2000:21) ‘Boundary Changes and the Invention of Tribes’ in William Ochieng’ (ed) Kenya: The Making of a Nation.
A Hundred Years of Kenya’s History 1895-1995 (2000) 21.
13 As above.
14 As above.

7
‘the politics of this time were at one level the politics of conquest, but the more
enduring heritage was the politics of manipulation’.15
Such were evident as the
British manipulated leaders of the Maasai namely Olonona, Ole Galisha, and
Ole Masikonti. The British too manipulated the power equation in Luhya land
by inventing empires for Mumia in Wanga and for Sudi Namachanja in Bukusu.
This was followed by imposition of new leaders such as Karuri wa Gakure and
Kinyanjui wa Gathirimu among the Kikuyu. In the coastal region, the Sultan of
Zanzibar was manipulated by Sir Edward Northey and the British residents in
Zanzibar to allow annexation of his 10-mile coastal strip to be part of the new
colony.16
21. Practically everywhere in Kenya, as was the case in the rest of Africa, the
imposition of colonial rule was resisted. Such resistance inevitably provoked
military retaliation from the colonial powers. Better armed and employing crack
shot mercenaries, colonial powers imposed their rule by violence and/or military
expeditions. This was particularly the case between 1895 and 1914; a phase of
pacification of ‘recalcitrant tribes’ fighting for the preservation of their political,
cultural and economic independence.17
The period was thus characterized by
an unimaginable degree of human rights abuses against defenceless Africans.
The military expeditions were accompanied by crimes such as theft, rape,
death and destruction of property by the colonial soldiers or their associates.
Such actions defy the view that the British colonialist used humane and
gentle methods to impose their rule in Kenya.18
22. Examples abound of how the British used brutal force to impose its rule. On the
Kenya coast, Swahili chiefs like Mbaruk were famous for resisting alien rule. When
the British took over Kenya, the Mazrui chiefs resisted British rule as they had
repeatedly done in the past. They knew that they could not win pitched battles
against an enemy who was far more powerful and better armed than they. So
they concentrated on fighting limited engagements and making lightning attacks,
and they sustained a fairly successful resistance movement for some time. But the
British were in Kenya to stay. They therefore imported Baluchistan regiments from
India to crush the African resisters.19
Mbaruk, the leader of the resistance, fled to
Tanzania, only to fall into German hands.
15 Atieno-Odhiambo (2000:7) “Mugo’s Prophesy” in William Ochieng’ (ed) (2000) Kenya: The Making of a Nation. A Hundred Years of
Kenya’s History 1895-1995. Maseno University: Institute of Research and Postgraduate Studies.
16 Mwaruvie John op.cit, pg 177
17 S Kiwanuka From Colonialism to Independence: Reappraisal of Colonial Policies and African Reactions 1870- 1960 (1973) 20.
18 As above, 21.
19 As above, 21.

8
23. Heandfourotherleadersdiedinexile.20
ThesamefatebefelltheOgadenSomaliin1889,
when they too attempted to resist British rule. Their opposition to British colonialism
forced the British to resort to more violent methods. Convinced that the best‘tutors’to
make the Ogaden see reason were bayonets and machine guns, the British in Kenya
movedagainsttheOgadenwiththehelpofIndianregimentsin1889.Ogadenresisters
were smashed and hundreds of their cattle confiscated by the British.21
Similarly, while
forcing theTaita to submission, Captain Robert H. Nelson remarked:
In a few minutes the men cleared out, leaving some fifteen dead on the spot and I have
no doubt that a good many received fatal wounds. I then marched on to the village of
the men who had been fighting us, burning the surrounding villages and seizing the
sheep and goats belonging to them.22
24. In the Mount Kenya region, Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen also led many bloody
expeditions between 1902 and 1906, in which many Kikuyu and Tharaka people
were killed and about 11,000 head of stock captured.
25. British soldiers, porters and other associates made more injustices in western
Kenya, particularly among the Kisii and the Luo people. When a message arrived
in 1905 of the Kisii revolt, a detachment of a hundred African Police under Robert
Foran and a company of the Third King’s African Rifles (KAR) under captain
Jenkins were immediately dispatched to quell it. This is how Foran described the
encounter:
The machine gun was kept in action so long during this sharp engagement that it
became almost red-hot to the touch. Before then … they left several hundreds dead
and wounded spearsmen heaped up outside the square of bayonets. This was not so
much a battle as a massacre, but wholly unavoidable under the circumstances. It was an
urgent case of decimating the determined attack or else being completely wiped out by
the Kisii warriors.23
26. In 1908, the British organized another expedition, when the Kisii ambushed and
speared a colonial administrator, Northcote. One of the relief patrols headed by Foran
sent to Northcote’s aid explained that ‘… the African Rifles were putting in some
strenuous work – burning villages, devastating standing crops, capturing livestock
and hunting down the bolting warriors’24
A series of telegrams conveyed the results
of the expeditions to the colonial office in London. On 1 February 1908, a telegram
received by the colonial office read in part:‘Result of operations in Kisii to 28 January -
20 Ochieng’ William A History of Kenya (1985) 90.
21 As above.
22 As above, 91.
23 For details see W Audrey Rural Rebels: A Study of Two Protest Movements in Kenya (1977) 25.
24 As above.

9
cattlecaptured5,636sheepandgoats3,281and100Kisiikilled’.Twodayslateranother
telegram reported the number of Kisii dead had risen to 160.25
Manipulations
27. The British colonialists’injustices against the people of Kenya were not only limited
to the 1895-1914 military expeditions. British administrators and functionaries
used manipulation, colonial laws and policies, and continued to use violence
and harassment to appropriate both human and natural resources from Kenya
throughout the colonial period.
28. Manipulations were more evident in the signing of treaties involving British
administrators and African leaders to create frontiers for European settlers from
Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. One such ‘treaty’ which
easily comes to mind was the first and the second Maasai Treaty of 1904 and 1911.
Thefirsttreaty,signedwithouttheknowledgeoftheMaasaipeople,agreedtomove
the Naivasha Maasai en masse to the Laikipia plateau, together with their cattle.
Such a move enabled white settlers to occupy the whole of the Rift, Zedong and
Gong. But even this grave injustice committed against the Maasai by the colonial
government did not satisfy the appetite of the white settlers for more productive
land. They pressed that the Laikipia Maasai should be moved again to a southern
reserve so that the Maasai tribe could be together in a United Maasai Reserve. On
4 April 1911, the second Maasai agreement was signed according to which the
northern Maasai had agreed to move to the southern reserve. Subsequently, the
new Maasailand was declared a closed area and the policy of reservation for the
new tribe continued throughout the colonial period. As such, attempts to further
alienate Maasai land during the post-colonial period engendered strong ethnic
feeling among the people.26
29. It was not only the Maasai who suffered colonial manipulations, the same was
the case in the Kiambu-Thika area from 1903 to 1908, central Rift Valley 1904
to 1914, and lastly in the Kericho to Nyeri/Nanyuki areas through the soldier
settlement schemes following the First World War. This last scheme left the
Kipsigis without Kimulot, the Nandi without Kipkarren valley, the Sabaot without
the Trans-Nzoia pastures and made the Samburu, Meru and Kikuyu squatters in
the Timau-Nanyuki areas.27
25 As above.
26 For details, see O Bethwell ‘Boundary Changes and the Invention of Tribes’ in William Ochieng’ (ed) Kenya: The Making of a
Nation. A Hundred Years of Kenya’s History 1895-1995 (2000) 21; Ochieng’ William A History of Kenya (1985) 90.
27 Atieno-Odhiambo (n 3 above) 8.

10
Chiefs and forced labour
30. British officials, with African submission to their authority after pacification, were
pressed by the reluctant metropolitan taxpayers to find means of making the
colonial territories self-financing. They achieved this through the creation of
the office of the chief as agents of local administration and tasked them with
the responsibility for tax collection, maintenance of law and order and more
importantly to supply cheap labour for public and settler requirements. It was
the assignment of these tasks which put the colonial chiefs at the forefront in the
abuse of human rights.
31. During the mobilization of labour for Europeans, chiefs were empowered by a
series of labour laws to call out any number of able-bodied persons to labour
without pay on public works28
. This mandate was extended at the outbreak of
World War 1 to finding able-bodied manpower for the First World War, a war that
caused the death of over 50,000 Africans and left thousands more wounded.
Astonishingly, most Africans who were recruited into the war had very limited
understanding of why the Europeans were fighting. In 1919 the Northey Circular
spelt out its extension to embrace the directive on African labourers to work for
settlers at very low wages. These aspects of chief authority were backed by force.
Chiefs had retainers who in the process of tax collection, punitively confiscated
peoples’ animals and produce, seized their women and routinely whipped the
young men.29
Such coercive chiefly authority, supervised and approved by the
district commissioners, brought in the intense hatred of the system, even in the
post-colonial period.
32. In his 1936 report on Kenya’s finances, Sir Alan Pim identified two potential
opportunities for corruption - the counting of huts for hut tax, and the enforcement
of tax payment by chiefs. The hut counters responsible for determining tax liability
were, certainly not of a type likely to be exempt from the temptation to make a
little money; they used both influence and bribery to exempt some who were
required to pay and to extort taxes from those who were not. Additionally, due to
limited staffing at the district level, collection was largely enforced by employing
the services of the chiefs or headmen with their various satellites. This unavoidably
gave opportunities for the abuse of authority, either in the direction of using
improper means to enforce payment, or in connection with applications for
exemption.
28 Ochieng’ William A History of Kenya. Nairobi (1985) 16.
29 Atieno-Odhiambo (n 3 above) 8

11
Land alienation
33. After the First World War, the colonial administration was keen at increasing the
numberofsettlers,increasingsettlerlandholdingandboostingsettleragriculture
by providing them with good infrastructural services. Needless to say, the land
alienated to the settlers was carved out of the most fertile regions, land which
was inhabited by the Africans. Therefore, the main injustice on Africans after
the First World War focused on land alienation and the creation of the African
squatters, both in Central and the Rift Valley regions of colonial Kenya.
34. In enforcing this injustice, the colonial administration introduced the Crown
Lands Ordinance of 1915,30
which declared all ‘waste and unoccupied’ land in
the protectorate ‘Crown Land’ subject to the governor’s powers of alienation. In
the British imagination, such land included any empty land or any land vacated
by a native.31
The protectorate administration gave no cognizance to customary
tenure systems, and by 1914 nearly 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of land had
been taken away from Kenyan Africans, mostly from the Kikuyu, Maasai and Nandi
communities. It created the reserves for‘natives’and located them away from areas
scheduled for European settlement. These developments witnessed the creation
of what Mamdani refers to as ‘citizen’ (settlers) and ‘subject’ (Africans) – a dual
system of land tenure and land administration to consolidate colonial rule.32
35. Colonial appropriation of land and alienation of a large section of the African people
produced a situation where by 1930, probably more than 15 000 Kiambu Kikuyu had
lost their land ownership, while a similar number lost their communal or ‘tenant at
will’ use of land. Thus, approximately 30,000 Kikuyu had lost land rights in Kiambu
district alone. About half that number lost land rights in Murang'a and Nyeri districts.
The total loss of land among the Kikuyu could therefore involve well over 45,000
people. Annual reports for the period indicate that there were 41,156 Africans in
European-settled areas of Nakuru and Naivasha and these would seem to support
our estimates, given that the majority of Africans in these areas were Kikuyu.33
36. Other ‘troublesome communities’, like the Talai, were in 1934 forcibly evicted from
Kericho/Nandi areas on accusations of being extortionist and sent to open jails in
Lambwe, a tsetse-flies infected area in a valley where sleeping sickness was rampant.
30 S Wanjala Essays on Land Law: The Reform Debate in Kenya (2002).
31 Syagga Paul (undated) Public Land, Historical Land Injustices and the New Constitution. Society for International Development
(SID): Constitution Working Paper No. 9
32 M Mamdani Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of the Late Colonialism (1996).
33 Alila Patrick Kinyanjui Kabiru, and Wanjoyi Gatheru (Rural Landlessness in Kenya (1985) 2.

12
It was described as the‘Valley of Death’where 30 years earlier, 60 percent of Lambwe
valley inhabitants had been killed by diseases.34
37. By 1945, there were about 203,000 people rendered squatters and labourers in
European farms, with 101,000 Kikuyu as resident labourers on European farms and
about 21,000 more employed mainly in the government’s department of forestry. A
substantial number of Africans in the settled area were not enumerated in this labour
census and the total number of the Kikuyu in the alienated area must have been a
lot more than 150,000 by 1945. No wonder, three years later, in 1948, the number of
Kikuyu recorded as living outside their ‘native reserves’ was more than 294,000 or
nearly 29 percent of the total Kikuyu population. Some of them lived in towns or in
other African reserves, but nearly all of them had been effectively uprooted by the
process of alienation. They were outside their reserves in search of work and or new
land as a means of subsistence.35
38. The creation of reserves in areas deemed unsuitable for European settlement had
far-reaching implications, both for the natives and the colonial administration.
Underlying them was a policy of exploitation and oppression against the
colonizedpeopleaccentuatedbylandalienation,forcedmalelabourmobilization,
overcrowding, insecurity, stagnation in African agricultural production, massive
landlessness and rapid land deterioration due to fragmentation, over-stocking
and soil erosion.
39. In the long term, the problems in the reserves led to unrest and eventually to a
political uprising – the Mau Mau resistance movement that organized around
the issue of foreign rule, land alienation and political and economic inequality.36
The colonial state’s answer to the unrest was to initiate an ambitious project of
land tenure reform in the reserves that would serve as a bulwark against rural
radicalism. The colonial agronomist’s thought about the individualization of land
tenure was first contained in the less well-known JH Ingham Report published in
1950. However, the blueprint that was to destroy the indigenous/communal access
to land was formulated by Roger Swynnerton in what was to be known as the
1954 Swynnerton Plan. The architect of this plan argued persuasively in support of
individualization of tenure in Kenya as a pre-condition for enhanced agricultural
production37
.
34 D Anderson ‘Black Mischief: Crime, Protest and Resistance in Colonial Kenya’ (1993) 36 The Historical Journal 36, 851-877
35 For details see: A Patrick et al Rural Landlessness in Kenya (1985) 2.
36 S Okuro Land Reforms in Kenya: The Place of Land Tribunals in Kombewa” in Elisio Macamo ed. Negotiating Modernity (2005).
37 Studies have shown that those on whose names land was registered as principal landholders-men, assumed exclusive individual
rights in given pieces of land at the expense of women, widows and juniors whose rights to land remained either secondary or
usufruct.

13
Mau Mau War
40. The Mau Mau war, from 1952 to 1955, marked the climax of African resistance to
British colonial rule in Kenya. It was a key event in Kenya’s history. Recent studies
by Caroline Elkins, David Anderson and Charles Hornsby have demonstrated the
extent of British atrocities hitherto undocumented in Kenyan History.
41. In contrast to the conventional notion that the counter-insurgency was aimed
at the Mau Mau militants, Elkins recognizes that the British interned practically
the entire Kikuyu population as Mau Mau. Key to this was turning the insurgency
inward, into a battle of Kikuyu militants against Kikuyu loyalists, thereby turning
Mau Mau insurgency into civil war. The turning point came on the night of 26
March 1953, at Lari, which was the site of two successive massacres, the first by
the Mau Mau and the second by homeguards. During this massacre, Anderson
describes how the Mau Mau militants herded Kikuyu men, women and children
into huts and set them on fire, hacking down with pangas anyone who attempted
escape, before throwing them back into the burning huts. The vast majority of the
400 killed at Lari were women and children.
42. But even more importantly, the Mau Mau started to target, less and less the settlers
on the highlands or even less the colonial power itself, but increasingly those they
perceived as local beneficiaries of colonial power, turning neighbours and relatives
against each other in a rapidly brutalizing civil war. This was not the only massacre;
the colonial administration also committed a similar massacre in Hola in 1959 in
which 11 detainees were clubbed to death, with 77 having permanent injuries.38
The submissions of Michael Gerard Sullivan, the colonial officer in-charge of Hola
camp to the commission investigating the death of the detainees revealed the firm
instructions from Compell, the deputy commissioner of prisons, to torture the Mau
Mau detainees by denying them drinking water for a number of hours, weeding
rice fields with bare hands and use of batons on the non-cooperative ones.39
43. Elkins has indeed demonstrated the injustices meted on the Mau Mau by the colonial
police and the loyalist. For example she argues that electric shock was widely used, as
well as cigarettes and fire. Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin,
and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening
teams whipped, shot, burned and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather
intelligence for military operations and as court evidence.
38 M Wunyabari Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt (1993).
39 KNA, Documents related to the death of 11 detainees at Hola camp in Kenya. Reference No. K967.62

14
44. Between 150,000 and 320,000 Africans were detained for varying lengths of time
in more than 50 detention and work camps. The treatment in the camps, staffed
by little trained non-Kikuyu, loyalists and European settlers, was often brutal. The
information about what was happening there was carefully controlled and the
colonial office and the governor systematically denied reports of mistreatment.
Elkins’ extended descriptions of the regime of torture, one is struck by its
predominantly sexual nature. Male detainees were often sexually abused‘through
sodomy with foreign objects, animals, and insects, cavity searches, the imposition
of a filthy toilet bucket-system, or forced penetrative sex’. Women had ‘various
foreign objects thrust into their vaginas, and their breasts squeezed and mutilated
with pliers.’Variations abounded, with sand, pepper, banana leaves, flower bottles
(often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs being thrust up
men’s rectum and women’s vaginas. A common practice during interrogation was
to squeeze testicles with pliers. Josiah Mwangi Kariuki (popularly known as J.M
Kariuki) was detained in 14 detention camps between 1953 and 1960. In his book
‘Mau Mau Detainee’, he wrote that his experience at Kwa Nyangwethu detention
camp was the worst:
Kwa Nyangwethu was, however, particularly bad and was notorious not for mere
beatings, but for castration. I have seen with my own eyes that Kongo Chuma whom
I first met in Nakuru before he was detained and who is now living at Kianga in
Embu district, has been castrated. He had not been like this when he was in Nakuru
but when we met in the detention camp at Athi River he told me it has been done to
him by the screeners at Kwa Nyangwethu. He also told me that bottles of soda water
were opened and pushed into the uterus of some women to make them confess.
Kongo said these things were done by the Africans but the European officers knew
what was going on.40
45. The Mau Mau fighters were also responsible for unspeakable atrocities. Contrary to
African customs and values, they assaulted old people, women and children. The
horrors they practiced included decapitation and general mutilation of civilians,
torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning
victims alive, gouging out of eyes and splitting open the stomachs of pregnant
women41
. Mau Mau officially ended with the capture and execution of Dedan
Kimathi, the uprising’s most senior leader in October 1956. While the figures are
debatable, the Mau Mau are said to have caused the death of at least 14,000
Africans, 29 Asians and 95 Europeans.
40 JM Mwangi Mau Mau Detainee (2009) 30.
41 O Bethwell Alan ‘BRITAIN'S GULAG Histories of the Hanged: Britain's Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. By
DAVID ANDERSON. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005. Pp. viii+406 (ISBN 0-297-84719-8). Britain's Gulag:
The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. By CAROLINE ELKINS (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005). Pp. xiv+475". The
Journal of African History (Cambridge University Press) 46: 493–505.

15
46. To establish the root causes of Mau Mau, the colonial administration appointed
the Corfield Tribunal, which relied extensively on psychologist JC Carothers
and in their report recorded 11,503 Mau Mau dead. It was understandable that
the number was under-estimated to disguise the ferocity of the colonial office
response to Mau Mau. A thousand were hanged upon being convicted by courts,
while more were killed by troops in the forest. There were also extra-judicial
executions by the colonial police and homeguard units. Moreover, the beating
and torture of Kikuyu suspects was commonplace, and the security forces
murdered hundreds. The Mau Mau war did not only mark the end of the African
resistance against colonial rule, but it was the climax of colonial atrocities on
Africans suspected to be members of Mau Mau.
47. In 1999, a few former fighters calling themselves the Mau Mau Original Group
announced that they would attempt a £5 billion claim against the UK, on behalf
of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans for ill-treatment they said they suffered
during the rebellion. In November 2002, the Mau Mau Trust - a welfare group
for former members of the movement - announced it would attempt to sue the
British government for widespread human rights violations committed against
its members. With the assistance of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, in
2011, the Mau Mau group succeeded in suing the British after a British court
ruled that the Kenyans could sue the British government for their torture.
48. After the Mau Mau War, the colonial government not only relaxed the ban on
the formation of African political parties, but also attempted to increase African
representation in the colonial administration. The colonial administration
permitted the re-establishment of African district- based political parties and/
or associations and disallowed national organizations. The first to be registered
was the Nairobi District African Congress in April 1956, with Mau Mau lawyer
Argwings Kodhek as the president. The other district-based associations that
emerged at this time were the Mombasa African Democratic Union, the African
District Association, the Abagusii Association of South Nyanza District, the South
There were also extra-judicial executions by the colonial
police and homeguard units. Moreover, the beating and
torture of Kikuyu suspects was commonplace, and the security
forces murdered hundreds.

16
Nyanza District African Political Association, the Taita African Democratic Union,
the Nakuru African Progressive Party, the Nakuru District Congress, the Abaluhya
Peoples Association and the Nyanza North African Congress42
.
49. One of the legacies of these district-based political associations was that the pace
of political developments among the various districts continued to be uneven
and parochialism rooted in ethnic loyalties was encouraged at the expense of
African unity.43
It provided the foundation of alignment of political orientation and
ethnicity. The other effect was the emergence of local powerful figures that would
resist attempts at political centralization by colony wide political organization such
as the Kenya African National Union (KANU).
50. The process of increasing African and other races’ representation into the colonial
administration was initiated by the British Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttleton
in 1954. In his advice to the administration, he said ‘it is prudent to have all the
inhabitants of the colony to share in the responsibility of government, albeit at a
subservient level’. His advice resulted in the enactment of the Lyttleton Constitution
in 1954, which put in place institutional structures to curb anti-colonial revolts,
establish a multi-racial society and provide a timetable for independence. But
in reality it asserted minority interests while the language of democracy was
employed to hoodwink the majority.44
The War Council created by the constitution
was racially exclusive and emerged as the supreme organ with powers to enact
legislation to deal with the Emergency without reference to the legislative council.
Even the Council of Ministers was by and large in the hands of a handful of settlers.
The contradictions emanating from the dispensation of the Lyttleton Constitution
culminated in protracted political struggle in which Africans, Arabs and Asians
demanded an all-inclusive political process. The political crises after the 1957
general election witnessed the enactment of another constitution, the Lennnox
Boyd Constitution in 1956.
51. While the Lennox Boyd Constitution increased the number of African representatives
in the Legislative Council, it did not adequately address the Africans’ grievances.
However,itsharpeneddivisiveracialandethnicpoliticalintereststhatspilledoverinto
the 1960 Lancaster House Constitutional Conference where a new constitution was
negotiated. Therefore the Lancaster House conferences became a space for contest
by various racial groups and emerging political elites and commitment to democratic
and social change remained abstract.45
42 Ogot Bethwell and Ochieng William (eds) Decolonization and Independence in Kenya (1995) 52.
43 As above.
44 For details see: Samwel Alfayo Nyanchoga et al Constitutionalism and Democratisation in Kenya, 1945- 2007 (2008).
45 As above.

17
President Jomo Kenyatta’s Era
52. On 12 December 1963, Kenya got independence from British rule with Jomo
Kenyatta as the Prime Minister. A year later, Kenya became a Republic with Jomo
Kenyatta as the President and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga as the Vice President.
Within a short period into independence, gradually returned to the ways of the
colonial master. The government and the ruling political party, Kenya African
National Union (KANU), not only retained repressive colonial laws, but also became
increasingly intolerant of political dissent and opposition. Political assassinations
and arbitrary detentions were turned into potent tools for silencing dissenting
voices and ultimately for dismantling opposition political parties. For the larger
part of Kenyatta’s reign Kenya was a de facto one-party state.
Official amnesia
53. TheattainmentofKenya’spoliticalindependenceonthe12December1963,with
Jomo Kenyatta as the first Prime Minister, marked the culmination of 68 years of
anti-colonial struggles waged by Kenyan Africans to free themselves from British
domination, oppression and exploitation. However, in his independence speech,
Jomo Kenyatta did not suggest any substantial change in the colonial structures.
Thecolonialstatewouldremainintact–despitethefactthatthefightfornational
independence had been dominated by demands for social justice, egalitarian
reforms, participatory democracy, prosecution of those who had committed
mass killings and other forms of crimes during the war of independence, and
the abolition of the colonial state and its oppressive institutions.
54. Also, in his independence speech, Jomo Kenyatta never mentioned the
heroism of the Mau Mau movement.46
No Mau Mau freedom songs were
sung, no KLFA leaders was allowed to speak during the historic day. Instead,
Kenyatta asked the people to forget the past – to forgive and forget the
atrocities committed against them by the British and their Kenyan supporters
during the war of independence47
. He became no radical on nationalization
of foreign-held assets including land and often remarked: “I regard titles as a
private property and they must be respected … I would not like to feel that
my shamba (smallholding) or house belongs to the government. Titles must
be respected and the right of the individual safeguarded48
”. In this way, the
Kenyatta administration provided a relief to the settler community that their
land will not be taken away from them without compensation.
46 The usage of KLFA to refer to Mau Mau is rather problematic in literature. KLFA is not simply another name for Mau Mau: it was the
name that Dedan Kimathi used for a coordinating body which he tried to set up for Mau Mau. It was also the name of another militant
group that sprang up briefly in the spring of 1960; the group was broken up during a brief operation from 26 March to 30 April
47 Maina wa Kinyatti (2008:363) History of Resistance in Kenya, 1884-2002 (2008) 63.
48 For details see Daniel Branch Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 (2011)

18
55. The attainment of political independence shadowed several tensions and
cleavages which occupied the new ruling elites prior to and immediately after
independence.49
For example, the radicals represented by Oginga Odinga and
Bildad Kaggia who favoured nationalization of foreign owned corporations,
seizing of white settler farms without compensation and following more pro-
Eastern foreign policy. Odinga persuasively argued that “I understand that
in communist countries the emphasis was on food for all. If that was what
communism meant then there was nothing wrong with that50
”. He as his
supporters opted to look to Soviet Union, China and their allies for backing.
On the other hand, conservatives led by Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya - the
nationalists who espoused a constitutionalist and reformist approach and
were after independence concerned with the maintenance of the colonial
legacy. As the struggle raged for control of the state, decisions based on short-
term expediency were interspersed with fundamental directional choices.
56. Kenya soon returned to a command and control leadership model strikingly
similar to that of the colonial era. Decisions about development, money and
military protection drove foreign relations, domestic policy and land policy,
which in turn drove greater centralization and a conservative social and
political model that combined individual accumulation with a partisan and
interventionist state.51
The struggle for power saw the abandonment of the
Majimbo Constitution, which conceded much autonomy to the regions for a de
facto one party state. The dissolution of the Kenya African Democratic Union
(KADU) was a critical moment, setting the stage for three decades of single-
party dictatorship and prioritisation of the maintenance of public order by the
Kenyatta administration.
Dealing with Mau Mau
57. Jomo Kenyatta took over power in a country which was already polarized by
the Mau Mau issue over land and more importantly“ownership of the fight for
independence”. The reason for this was the expectation that those who fought
for Uhuru (independence) should exclusively eat the fruits of independence52
.
This debate thrived even in the context of the revelations that Kenya had many
powerful voices in the anti-colonial movement. Indeed Bethwell Ogot has
demonstrated the roles and responsibilities of all the communities in Kenya, in
anti-colonial movements53
. Therefore the first issue which Jomo Kenyatta had
to deal with was the Mau Mau – a movement whose main agenda revolved
49 For details see: Hornsby Charles Kenya: A History Since Independence (2012)
50 For details see Branch (n 48 above) 36. 2011
51 As above.
52 E Atieno Odhiambo ‘Matunda Ya Uhuru, Fruits of Independence: Seven Theses on Nationalism in Kenya’ in E Atieno Odhiambo
and John Lonsdale (eds) Mau Mau and Nationhood: Arms, Authority and Narration (2003).
53 O Bethwell ‘Mau Mau and Nationhood: Untold Story’ in ES Odhiambo and J Lonsdale (eds) Mau Mau and Nationhood: Arms,
Authority and Narration (2003).

19
around land and the colonial land alienation among the Kikuyu, which had
created a special group of Kikuyu without land54
. Before independence,
Kenyatta had pardoned the remaining Mau Mau detainees in prison and
issued an amnesty for Mau Mau fighters to leave the forest and surrender their
weapons. More than 2,000 did so in the first weeks after independence far more
than the British had expected55
. But after the amnesty for Mau Mau expired in
January 1964, the government started treating the remnants as criminals.
58. By early 1965, most of the remaining Mau Mau hard-core fighters had been
captured and killed by the new independent government. The Mau Mau who
made good their threat to return to the forest under the slogan of ‘Not yet
Uhuru,’ Baimungi, were quickly executed. Kenyatta’s message in the 1960s
was clear - there would be nothing for free. In the 1970s, it was politically
imprudent to be called Mau Mau. Although on paper, Kenya acknowledged the
role Mau Mau had played in the struggle for independence; his government
persistently downgraded its importance and did nothing to reward the those
who had suffered. Despite President Kenyatta’s promise in 1964 that the land
confiscated during the Emergency would be returned, nothing happened.
59. TheBritishremovedandhidmostrecordsofthewarontheeveofindependenceto
protect loyalists from reprisals and themselves from demands for compensation
for atrocities. Ex-Mau Mau were given no preferential treatment in access to land
and jobs.56
60. The ex-Mau Mau fighters were thus short-changed after independence. Even
when the settlement schemes were initiated between 1963 and 1967, the
Maasai whosufferedthemostgotnothingandthe Kalenjin receivedsmall areas
around Sotik and Nandi. The squatters were not any better in their continued
demand for cultivatable land across the highlands. Those living in the former
White Highlands were evicted. In the majority of the settlement schemes in
Nakuru and Nyandarua, the existing squatters were simply removed by force,
with new claimants chosen to occupy the plots. The situation of the landless
did not improve with the sale of larger farms under the ‘willing buyer, willing
seller’model. A decade after the implementation, one sixth of the settler lands
were found to have been sold intact to the emerging African elite comprising
Kenyatta, his wife, children and close associates. These elites did not even need
much money to buy settler farms, as they were also able to raise loans from
government bodies such as the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) and
the Land and Agriculture Bank.57
54 M Patrick The Land Question and the Mau Mau today (2005) IFRA: Kenya Studies, IFRA ~ Les Cahiers, N° 28
55 The Times, 19th
December 1963
56 Hornsby Charles (2012: 117) Kenya: A History Since Independence. London I. B. Tauris
57 As above.

20
Shifta War
61. After dealing with the Mau Mau issue, the next issue that the emergent
fragile state had to deal with was the Shifta War. Before independence, the
Somali had maintained a constant attack on police posts and army camps in
Somali-inhabited regions. Two days after independence, the Somalia staged
five more incursions, forcing the government to declare a state of emergency
on 25 December 1963. The government became convinced that Somalia was
training and providing bases for up to 2,000 shifta (bandit) guerrillas. While the
shifta used guerrilla tactics, including hit-and-run attacks and mining of roads,
the Kenya government adopted British counter-insurgency techniques used
during the Mau Mau uprising, including the establishment of collective villages
surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by troops. There were widespread
beatings and killings of civilians and mass confiscation of livestock. As with
the Kikuyu in 1953 to 1955, every Somali was seen as a potential shifta and
treated accordingly, although, there was no equivalent of the detention camp
pipeline, and the loyalists were not so well rewarded.
62. The government used its ability to detain without trial anyone it believed
to be helping the shifta. No official death figures were published for the
conflict, which received little international attention. The conflict established
patterns of suspicion and hostility between ethnic Somali and other Kenyans
that has endured for decades. Development in the colonial era in North
Eastern where the Somali live had been non-existent and this changed little
after independence. The state treated the Kenyan Somali as subjects rather
than citizens and the region as a military-ruled colony.
Consolidation of power
63. On 24 January 1964, there was a strike by several hundreds of soldiers of
the Kenya Rifles 11th
Battalion, based in Lanet near Nakuru. The mutineers
were driven by disgruntlement over pay, working conditions, and fear of
their future under the KANU government which held on to British expatriate
officers. With increasing internal tensions and external threats, the Kenyatta
regime became even more repressive after the January 1964 mutiny. With no
reference to the cabinet, Kenyatta appealed for and received the support of
the British Army units to restore order without significant bloodshed.
64. But to make an example to mutineers, 43 soldiers were court-martialed, and
the military court jailed 16 ring leaders for a total of 197 years. To consolidate
power, the Kenyatta regime supported constitutional amendments between
1964 and 1969 whose objective were to destroy democratic institutions while

21
protecting the KANU-led government and the interests of the comprador
class.58
Selected constitutional amendments (1963-1969)
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Act No. 14 of 1965
This Amendment Act reduced the threshold for amending the Constitution from 90
percent to 65 percent in Senate and 75 percent to 65 percent in the National Assembly.
It also increased the days within which Parliament should approve a state of emergency
from 7 to 21 days. Importantly, it reduced the threshold for approval of state of
emergency from 65 percent to a simple majority
The Amendment Act introduced the rule that a Member of Parliament would lose his
seat in Parliament if he missed 8 sittings or was imprisoned for a period of over six
months. This amendment was intended to deal with KANU ‘rebels’ and those who had
joined KPU. The amendment also increased the President’s powers to rule by decree in
North Eastern Province.
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) (No. 2) Act No. 17 of 1966 (Turn Coat Rule)
UnderthisAmendmentAct,aMemberofParliamentwouldbylawlosehisparliamentary
seat of he defected to another political party. The amendment was meant to deal with
Members of Parliament who had defected from KANU to KPU.
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) (No. 3) Act No. 18 of 1966
This Amendment Act increased the period for National Assembly’s review of emergency
orders from 2 to 8 months. It permitted greater and wider derogation powers of
fundamental rights and freedoms. It also removed the provision calling for reasonable
justification for such derogations. This amendment was intended to allow for detention
of KPU members who had defected from KANU.
This Amendment Act was intended to clear doubt over section 42A which spelt out the
Turn Coat Rule. It backdated the effect of the Fifth Amendment to 1963.
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) (No. 2) Act No. 16 of 1968
Under this Amendment Act, independent candidates were barred from participating in
elections.The amendment also removed parliamentary approval for state of emergency
declaration.
This amendment Act consolidated all the constitutional amendments as at February
1969 thereby resulting in a revised Constitution of Kenya in a single document which
was declared to be the authentic document.
58 For details see: Samwel Alfayo Nyanchoga et al (2008) Constitutionalism and Democratisation in Kenya, 1945- 2007. Catholic
University of Eastern Africa

22
65. The polarization of the country between the radicals and the conservatives
continued to remain a threat which Kenyatta had to handle. The first attempt
to deal with this situation was the development of Sessional Paper Number 10
of 1965, which was a mix of the socialist and capitalist models, rejecting both
Marxism and laissez-faire capitalism, and stressing African traditions, equity and
social justice. Kenyatta made it clear in his introduction to the paper that the
intent was not to stimulate discussions on Kenya’s economic policy, but to end
it. However, Oginga Odinga and his camp instructed Pio Gama Pinto to prepare
a competing paper to mobilize for the rejection of the government sessional
paper. But before Pinto could prepare the parallel paper, he was murdered on
24 February 1965 outside his home in Nairobi by people believed to have been
auxiliaries loyal to Kenyatta. The killing of Pinto marked the process of political
assassinations under the Kenyatta regime.
66. The year 1966, marked the turning point in Kenya’s political history and
witnessed the introduction of the motion of confidence in the president by Tom
Mboya without the knowledge of Oginga Odinga, who was then the leader
of government business. The year also saw the holding of the KANU National
Delegates Conference in Limuru, which created a new position of eight new
provincial vice-presidents. These actions forced Odinga and his supporters to
pursue the constitutional opposition by forming a political party, the Kenya
Peoples Union (KPU). On 14 April 1966, Odinga resigned as vice-president and
together with his supporters joined KPU. In his resignation statement, Odinga
argued that he refused to be part of a government “ruled by underground
masters serving foreign interests”, and accused the Limuru Conference of being
rigged in favour of Kenyatta and his allies. The Kenyatta regime also passed the
Preservation of Public Security Act in 1966, which provided the state with wide
powers for detention without trial and allowed control of free movement, the
imposition of curfews and press censorship. The Act was used effectively from
1966 to 1968 in dealing with those perceived to be critical of the Kenyatta regime,
particularly in the jailing without trial of Odinga and KPU supporters.
67. Next was the assassination of Tom Mboya on 5 July 1969 in the current Moi
Avenue.59
As with Pinto’s death, the apparent culprit was a petty crook with
connections to the intelligence service who was charged with the murder on 21
July the same year. Facing a revolt from the Luo and the growing support for
change among many Kenyans horrified by Mboya’s assassination, Kenyatta’s
closest allies reverted to their ethnic bailiwicks, through oathing to force Kikuyu
voters to return sitting members of parliament in the election.
68. KPU MP Okelo-Odongo claimed that those being oathed were stripped naked,
tied with a rope around their neck and forced to swear to fight the Luo and not
59 Other prominent leaders and academicians who died in politically controversial circumstances included but were not limited to
Argwings Kodhek (1969) and Ronald Ngala (1972)

23
to allow any other tribe to lead Kenya.60
The worst came on the 25 October
1969, when Kenyatta visited Kisumu to open the Russia-built Nyanza Provincial
General Hospital. The opening of this health facility coincided with the Kisumu
District sports day, with a huge number of students attending. Odinga was not
invited, but he and his supporters came in force shouting Dume (Bull, the party
symbol of KPU).
69. In the ensuing commotion, a full-scale riot erupted, the presidential escort
and the dreaded crack paramilitary General Service Unit (GSU surrounded
the president, shot their way through the threatening crowd and continued
shooting 25 kilometres outside the town. When the dust settled, the ‘Kisumu
Massacre’of 1969 was complete, with many shot dead, including school pupils,
by the presidential security. Virtually all the films of the incident was seized
and destroyed. Odinga and his supporters were arrested and detained without
trial and KPU, the party associated with Odinga was banned. A curfew was
imposed in Central Nyanza and Siaya and hundreds were arrested.
70. Although KPU was banned and its leaders arrested, after 1969 Kenyatta’s
legitimacy and that of his government was still being questioned by left-
wing politicians. Kenyatta himself became more intolerant of dissent and the
centralization of power around him encouraged sycophancy, exploitation
and the creation the so-labeled ’Kiambu Mafia‘ Josiah Mwangi Kariuki was
the government’s most influential critic between 1970 and 1974. ‘J.M’ Kariuki
catalysed the wishes of the poor, landless and those unhappy with the direction
that Kenya was taking. It was Kariuki who coined the phrase“we do not want …
a Kenya of ten millionaires and ten million beggars”. He was also at the forefront
of the fight against corruption and the social policies of the government. As
assistantministerfortourismandwildlife,hewasprobablyinvolvedinrevelations
about poaching and ivory smuggling.61
71. Under a state orchestrated fear on 3 March 1975, Maasai herdsmen discovered
JM’s tortured and mutilated corpse on the slopes of Ngong Hills near Nairobi.
His fingers had been cut off and his eyes gouged out before he was shot. The
killers had burnt his face with acid to prevent identification of the body and his
fingerprints were gone. JM’s death also joined the long list of unresolved political
assassinations during the Kenyatta era. To respond to Kariuki’s murder and to
rebuild his authority, the Kenyatta regime continued arresting and jailing those
he labelled troublesome MPs such Jean Marie Seroney, Martin Shikuku, Chelagat
Mutai, Peter Kibisu, Mark Mwithaga and George Anyona on dubious grounds
even within the precincts of Parliament Buildings. As Kenyatta departed from
the political scene with his death in Mombasa in August 1978, he left a handful
of unaddressed issues including: corruption, tribalism, state orchestrated
repression, political assassinations, and land distribution policies.
60 Okelo- Odongo East Africa Standard 12 August 1969.
61 For details see Daniel Branch Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 (2011)

24
President Daniel Arap Moi’s Era
Following in Kenyatta’s footsteps
72. Daniel arap Moi assumed the presidency after Kenyatta’s death in 1978.
On assuming power, President Moi promised that he would follow in Jomo
Kenyatta’sfootsteps.InDecember1978,PresidentMoireleasedallthe26political
detainees across the ethnic spectrum, most of whom had been languishing
in jail for years (Shikuku, Seroney, Anyona, Koigi wa Wamwere, and Ngugi wa
Thiong’o). He also reassured Kenyans that his administration would not condone
drunkenness, tribalism, corruption and smuggling – problems which were
already deeply entrenched in Kenya under President Kenyatta’s administration.
This was partly a strategy geared towards the achievement of specific objectives,
namely, the control of the state, the consolidation of power, the legitimisation
of his leadership and the broadening of his political base and popular support.62
President Moi was well aware of his own underlying problems, especially the fact
that he was from a minority community. Leading the country to independence
had brought President Kenyatta economic opportunities that had permitted
him to rule over a period of prosperity.63
73. President Moi’s first priority was to secure his position and to weaken not only
his most vociferous Kikuyu opponents, but also those he perceived to be critics
of his regime. To achieve his objective, President Moi under the cover of an
anti-corruption crusade, systematically started replacing President Kenyatta’s
courtiers with his own to topple the Kikuyu ascendancy. Like his predecessor,
he also resorted used the law to consolidate his power.
74. To bolster his grip on power, President Moi also embarked on the gradual
‘Kalenjinisation’of the public and private sectors from the 1980s. President Moi is a
Tugen, one of the smaller Kalenjin ethnic groups. He began to "de-Kikuyunize" the
civil service and the state-owned enterprises previously dominated by the Kikuyu
ethnicgroupduringPresidentKenyatta'sadministration.HeappointedtheKalenjin
to key posts in, among others, the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC),
Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation
(KPTC), Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Kenya Industrial Estates (KIE), National Cereals
and Produce Board (NCPB), Nyayo Tea Zones (NTZ), Nyayo Bus Company (NBC),
Nyayo Tea Zones Development Corporation (NTZDC) and the Kenya Grain Growers
Cooperative Union (KGGCU).64
This process marked the rise of the Kalenjin elite,
who strategically positioned themselves to benefit from state resources.
62 Korwa G. Adar and Isaac M. Munyae ‘Human Rights Abuse in Kenya under Daniel arap Moi 1978-2001’ (2001) 5 African Studies
Quarterly 1.
63 Hornsby Charles Kenya: A History Since Independence (2012) 334.
64 Ibid

25
Constitutional amendments
75. President Moi’s government sponsored a series of constitutional amendments in a
bidtoconsolidatepowerinthepresidency.TheConstitutionofKenya(Amendment)
Act No. 7 of 1982 introduced Section 2(A) which had the effect of transforming
the country into a de jure one-party state. Moreover, Parliament reinstated the
detention laws which had been suspended in 1978. The application of a number
of laws had the effect of denying citizens’ enjoyment of human rights. These laws
included the Chief's Authority Act, the Public Order Act, the Preservation of Public
Security Act, the Public Order Act, and the Penal Code.The parliamentary privilege,
which gave representatives the right to obtain information from the Office of the
President, was also revoked. Parliamentary supremacy became subordinated to
the presidency and the ruling KANU party.65
76. Moreover, the provincial administration became highly politicized and provincial
administrators wielded wide discretionary powers. In 1981, President Moi banned
all ethnic-centred welfare associations. The president also outlawed the civil
servants union and the university academic staff union.
Selected Constitutional amendments, 1982 -1991
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Act No 7 of 1982
This Amendment Act introduced Section 2A that changed Kenya from a de facto to de
jure one party state. It also abolished the Turn Coat Rule.
This Amendment Act removed security of tenure of the Attorney General and Auditor
and Controller General
This Amendment Act made all capital offences non-bailable
This Amendment Act made it lawful to detain capital offenders for 14 days before they
could be formally charged in a court of law. It also removed the security of tenure of
constitutional office holders
The Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Act 1990
This Amendment Act reinstated the security of tenure of constitutional office holders
This Amendment Act repealed Section 2A of the Constitution hence bringing an end
to the de jure one-party rule in Kenya. It also reintroduced the Turn Coat Rule. The
nomination procedure leading to elections of the National Assembly and Presidency
were amended to accommodate multi-party system of governance.
65 Weekly Review, Nairobi, 8 May 1987. See also, Ogot, B. A., "Politics of Populism", pp. 187-213, in Ogot and Ochieng,
op. cit., 187-213.

26
Attempted Coup and the aftermath
77. On 1 August 1982 there was a military coup attempt by Kenya Air Force (KAF)
officers.The attempted coup was however brutally quashed by Kenya Army officers
who were loyal to President Moi. It was put down at an estimated cost of 600 to
1,800 lives lost in addition to other human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests,
detention and torture. The coup attempt and the punitive reaction accelerated the
process of the control of the state and solidified President Moi's authoritarian rule.
In 1986, Parliament amended the Constitution to remove the security of tenure of
the Attorney General and of the Auditor and Controller Genera. This was followed
in 1988 by another constitutional amendment that removed security of tenure of
constitutional office holders. The amendment also made it lawful to detain capital
offenders for 14 days before they could be formally charged in a court of law
Limitations on the independence of the judiciary, with far-reaching human rights
violations. By this time, Parliament was functioning largely as a rubber stamp of
policies initiated by the presidency.66
78. Following the attempted coup, the government resorted to even more vicious and
repressive ways of dealing with dissent. Political activists and individuals who dared
oppose President Moi’s rule were routinely detained and tortured. This led to the
formation of dissident groups whose main focus was to agitate for opening up of the
democratic space, social justice and respect for human rights.The best known of the
dissidents groups is Mwakenya movement. The government moved to quash this
movement with brutal force. In 1986 alone, 100 people were arrested and detained
for their alleged association with Mwakenya. Moreover, between March 1986 and
March 1987, at least 75 journalists, academics, and university students were jailed for
crimes such as the possession of seditious literature. In the 1990s, the government
used the same tactics to denounce and quash the February Eighteenth Movement
(FEM), which was accused of planning attacks on Kenya to be launched from Uganda.
Multi-party and ethnic clashes
79. But as government’s crackdown of pro-democracy activists intensified so did the
pressure on government increased. In 1991, in response to local and international
pressure prompted by the end of the Cold War, President Moi yielded to demands
for a multi-party state. However, political and ethnic violence, reportedly
orchestrated by the state became integral to multi-party elections held in 1992 and
1997. Ethnicity was used as a political tool for accessing power and state resources
and for fuelling violence.
66 Korwa G. Adar and Isaac M. Munyae ‘Human Rights Abuse in Kenya under Daniel arap Moi 1978-2001 (2001) 5 African Studies
Quarterly 1.

27
80. From various independent human rights reports, the 1992 and 1997/1998
ethnic clashes in the Coast, Rift Valley, and Western Provinces were deliberately
inflamed for political purposes by members of the government. Violence spread
in the Likoni-Kwale (Coast Province) prior to and after the 1997 elections, in areas
where opposition to KANU was strong. These clashes led to the displacement of
many people from their lands in the Rift Valley. Reports by the KHRC indicates
that the 1991 to 1997 election-related clashes displaced more than 600,000
people in the Coast, Rift Valley, Nyanza and Western provinces.67
81. The displacements, which were occasioned by the ethnic clashes in the Rift
Valley has been used to explain the emergence of Mungiki in Kenya.68
Most of the
Mungiki members, are victims of land clashes in the Rift Valley region who were
affected by ethnic conflicts on the eve of the 1992 multi-party General Election
in Kenya, the majority of whom are either Standard Eight or Form Four school
dropouts composed mainly of low-income earners in the Jua Kali (hot sun) sector.
However, in the rest of the country, the ethnic clashes and the use of private
militias witnessed the rise of the so-called “armies of the elders” known at least
to be backed by an ethnic leader. For example, during the multi-party era there
were the Taliban, Jeshi la Mzee, Jeshi la Embakasi, Baghdad Boys, Sungu Sungu,
Amachuma, Chinkororo, Dallas Muslim Youth, Runyenyes Football Club, Jeshi la
King’ole, Kaya Bombo Youth, Sakina Youth, Kuzacha, Kamjesh, Charo Shutu, Sri
Lanka and the Banyamulenge.69
President Mwai Kibaki’s Era
Goodwill
82. On 30 December 2002, Kibaki was inaugurated as Kenya’s third President.
Presidents Kibaki’s NARC government had huge goodwill, both domestically and
internationally. NARC had to come to power on a platform that promised to curb
and ultimately eliminate the political transgressions and human rights violations
that had been regularised during the 39 years of KANU’s rule. NARC had also
pledged to address and rectify historical injustices. The first few months of its
operations the NARC Government initiated numerous legislative and institutional
reforms and a range of activities aimed at redressing past injustices.
67 Kenya Human Rights Commission Justice Delayed: A Status Report on Historical Injustices in Kenya (2011).
68 Grace N Wamue ‘Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines Through Mungiki” (2001) 100 Africa Affairs (2001) 454.
69 Okuro Samwel “Thinking Through the Chequered History of Mungiki in Kenya. A Historiographical interrogation” (2006) Journal of
Historical Association of Kenya

28
Sliding back to old practices
83. However, before long, President Kibaki’s government started to renege on its
promises.70
The emerging“Mount Kenya Mafia”behaved as its predecessor had done:
corrupt,intolerantandethnicallychauvinistic.AsputacrossbyDanielBranch,“behind
the scenes, the newly-appointed ministers and their supporters had quickly eased
themselves into positions at the top of corruption networks’ and that ‘the apparent
hypocrisy of the government, whose ministers continued to attack Moi’s regime for
its corruption, angered many in KANU”. These corruption networks crystallized into
what became known as the ’Anglo-Leasing Scandal‘. As was the case with President
Moi, the new Kibaki administration soon began to ‘Kikuyunise’ the public service.
In essence, despite NARC’s many promises, the new government soon adopted the
practices of its predecessors, and while the economy improved, it unable to reduce
corruption and human rights abuses.
84. Moreover, during the first term of President Kibaki’s administration, insecurity
remained high, particularly between 2005 and 2008. In January 2005, more than
50 Kenyans lost their lives in various clashes between communities over grazing,
access to water and cattle raiding. In July the same year, Boran cattle raiders attacked
Gabbra village in Turbi, in which over 50 people were killed (many of them children)
at Turbi primary school.71
2005 Constitutional Referendum
85. Thestateofinsecurityworsenedasthecountrypreparedforthe2005constitutional
referendum. The constitutional referendum seems to have shattered the dreams
of key players in the NARC coalition. At the Bomas constitutional conference
there were two contentious issues on which the coalition partners sharply
disagreed on - the powers of the president and devolution. In return to Raila
Odinga’s endorsement of Kibaki as the NARC presidential candidate in 2002, he
was promised the position of the prime minister. The coalition collapsed when
the Kibaki side of the coalition reneged on the coalition’s two key pillars.
86. And when the resultant constitution (with clauses promising devolution and
dilution of presidential powers removed) was put on the referendum in November
2005, it was overwhelmingly defeated. The main architect of the crusade against the
watered down constitution Raila Odinga and his supporters joined with some KANU
leaders and other dissatisfied members of the government and campaigned for a
‘No’vote. The‘No’campaign was triumphant, claiming 57 percent of the vote.
70 See Chapter One of Volume 1 of this Report.
71 For details see Daniel Branch Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 (2011).

Volume 2 a

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (17)

Semelhante a Volume 2 a

Semelhante a Volume 2 a (20)

Volume 2 a