Kenya Army - History
Like those of most Sub-Saharan countries that achieved independ ence in the 1950s and 1960s, Kenya's military establishment was derived from the indigenous armed force maintained by the former colonial authority. First under the Imperial British East Africa Company and after 1895 under the direct control of the British government, indigenous armed forces under British officers were raised for keeping law and order. Designated in 1902 the King's African Rifles (KAR), these units comprised a total of six battalions of foot soldiers apportioned among the colonial territories of Kenya, Uganda and, after World War I, Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania). Assigned separately to the territories and recruiting from among the local populations, the KAR units each established a distinct territorial identity.
Beginning in World War I (and later in World War II), the KAR battalions were used in military operations outside their home areas. Wartime experience established the reliability and combat effectiveness of African colonial forces. At the beginning of World War I Africans had been employed chiefly as laborers attached to regular British forces; by the end of World War II KAR units had the status of regular combat units fully integrated into Commonwealth of Nations military operations in places as far-flung as Burma. As such, they had acquired a distinctive military tradition and a reputation as seasoned fighters. After the outbreak of the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, the KAR was employed for a time with the colonial police and British forces in suppressing the insurgency.
The British command in East Africa did little during the colonial era to advance Africans into the officer grades. The authorities made a start in 1956 when a new grade of effendi (warrant officer) was created for Africans. A special school for regular African officer candidates opened in Nairobi in 1958, about 10 years behind similar developments in British West Africa. The first East Africans were admitted to Britain's Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst only in 1959.
In December 1963 the three Kenya-based battalions of the KAR —the 3d, 5th, and 11th battalions — and their equipment were turned over to independent Kenya under the general transfer of powers and administration from the colonial authority. The approximately 2,500 men of the three battalions, renamed the Kenya Rifles, became the new country's army. At the same time, Britain provided additional grants equivalent to US$9.8 million in arms and equipment, US$23.8 million in installations and other assets, and US$3.6 million in assistance to establish a navy. Two militia units that were established during the colonial period—the white-dominated Kenya Regiment and the Kikuyu Guard—were disbanded at national independence, while naval and air force cadres were established shortly thereafter.
The three KAR battalions transferred to Kenya upon its independence were dependent in the middle and senior ranks almost entirely on regular British officers. By agreement of the two countries, these personnel were seconded to their former units. The desire of the civil leadership to retain the services of British officers appeared to stem in part from the belief that their retention would provide continuity and stability in the new army during the transition period and would give the government time to cope with the political and ethnic strains that Africanization would bring. There was also the pragmatic matter of a dearth of experienced African officers.
At independence the Kenyan army had 80 African commissioned officers, who constituted 48.5 percent of the total officer corps. The bulk of these were former effendi, most of whom had been given regular commissions after 1961; others were noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who had undergone a short officer training course. The new African officers were nearly all of junior rank, but one African lieutenant colonel commanded a battalion.
The disadvantages of British dominance of the officer corps were made clear in the first month of independence when a mutiny broke out among some men of the 11th Battalion on January 24, 1964. The immediate cause was disgruntlement over pay and the retention of expatriate British officers. The action may also have been sparked by a similar incident in the army of neighboring Tanzania. At the request of the Kenyan government, the mutiny was quickly quelled with the help of a contingent of British troops in the vicinity.
Kenyatta immediately reassured the army and the country of his general confidence in the military but moved decisively against those involved. Some 170 were court-martialed or summarily dismissed from the service; the leaders were sentenced to prison terms of up to 14 years; and the 11th Battalion was disbanded (but was reconstituted later as the 1st Battalion). Steps were also taken to remedy the grievances and to step up the professional training of the army. The January mutiny, although a transitory incident that posed no threat to national unity, pointed up the problems of ambivalent loyalty within the army and the urgent need for restructuring a still essentially mercenary colonial force into a national army.
Despite increased political pressure to "Kenyanize" the armed forces, the upsurge of guerrilla activity on the part of ethnic Somali in northeast Kenya dictated the retention of experienced British officers. The campaign against the shifta, which continued until late 1967, gave the army the opportunity to cast itself in the role of defender of the national honor and integrity against a threat that had some element of foreign instigation. The shifta challenge also heightened the civilian leadership's understanding of the need for an effective military force.
Although British officers were retained during the shifta conflict, the political fallout of the 1964 mutiny did accelerate the Kenyanization of the armed forces. The small elite officer contingent produced at Sandhurst, at Mons Officer Cadet School, and in other Commonwealth countries was inadequate to meet the army's revised staffing requirements in the 1960s. For a time in the mid-1960s, a number of young men received specialized officer training in other countries, such as Egypt, China, the Soviet Union, and Bulgaria, under private arrangements between these countries and political factions in Kenya. Many of these hopefuls, however, found upon their return to Kenya that their credentials for a commission were unacceptable to the Ministry of Defence, which regarded their officially unsanctioned foreign training as politically suspect. Israeli-trained personnel were accepted, but only after they retrained in Kenya.
The great majority of new officers had to be commissioned from the ranks. A side effect of the rapid production of African officers was a lasting shortage, which became acute in several areas, of the experienced senior NCOs and technical personnel who had been the backbone of the colonial forces. It took much less time to turn NCOs into officers than to produce their replacements.
The British presence in Kenya's armed forces was only gradually reduced. A British army general continued to serve (on secondment) as army commander and as chief of the Defence Staff until 1969. The large British Army Training Team was withdrawn in 1970 and finally, in 1973, a Kenyan major took over command of the air force from a British officer to complete the Kenyanization process.
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