| The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07. |
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| Kenya |
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(k n´y , k n´–) (KEY) , officially Republic of Kenya, republic (2005 est. pop. 33,830,000), 224,960 sq mi (582,646 sq km), E Africa. Kenya is bordered by Somalia on the east, the Indian Ocean on the southeast, Tanzania on the south, Lake Victoria (Victoria Nyanza) on the southwest, Uganda on the west, Sudan on the northwest, and Ethiopia on the north. Nairobi is the capital and largest city. | 1 | | | | Land and People | | The country, which lies astride the equator, consists of several geographical regions. The first is a narrow coastal strip that is low lying except for the Taita Hills in the south. The second, an inland region of bush-covered plains, constitutes most of the country’s land area. In the northwest, straddling Lake Turkana and the Kulal Mts., are high-lying scrublands. In the southwest are the fertile grasslands and forests of the Kenya highlands. In the west is the Great Rift Valley, an irregular depression that cuts through W Kenya from north to south in two branches. It is also the location of some of the country’s highest mountains, including Mt. Kenya (17,058 ft/5,199 m). Kenya’s main rivers are the Tana and the Athi. In addition to the capital, other important cities include Mombasa (the chief port), Nakuru, Kisumu, Thika, Machakos, and Eldoret. | 2 | | People of African descent make up about 99% of the population; they are divided into about 40 ethnic groups, of which the Bantu-speaking Kikuyu, Luhya, Kalenjin, Kamba, and Gusii and the Nilotic-speaking Luo are predominant. Small numbers of persons of South Asian and European descent live in the interior, and there are some Arabs along the coast. The official languages of Kenya are Swahili and English; many indigenous languages are also spoken. About 80% of the population is Christian; others follow indigenous beliefs and there are Muslim and Hindu minorities. | 3 | | | | Economy | | About 75% of Kenyans are engaged in farming, largely of the subsistence type. Coffee, tea, corn, wheat, sisal, and pyrethrum are grown in the highlands, mainly on small African-owned farms formed by dividing some of the large, formerly European-owned estates. Coconuts, pineapples, cashew nuts, cotton, and sugarcane are grown in the lower-lying areas. Much of the country is savanna, where large numbers of cattle are pastured. Kenya also produces dairy goods, pork, poultry, and eggs. The country’s industries include food processing, flour milling, horticulture, and the manufacture of consumer goods such as plastic, furniture, batteries, clothing, and cigarettes. Petroleum is refined and aluminum, steel, and building materials are produced. Industrial development has been hampered by shortages in hydroelectric power and by inefficiency and corruption in the public sector, but steps have been taken to privatize some state-owned companies. The chief minerals produced are limestone, soda ash, gemstones, salt, and fluorospar. Kenya attracts many tourists, largely lured by its coastal beaches and varied wildlife, which is protected in the expansive Tsavo National Park (8,034 sq mi/20,808 sq km) in the southeast. | 4 | | Kenya’s chief exports are tea and coffee; fluctuations in their world prices and periodic droughts have tremendous economic impact. Petroleum products, flowers, and fish are also exported. The leading imports are machinery, transportation equipment, petroleum products, motor vehicles, iron and steel, and plastics. Major trading partners are the United States, Great Britain, Uganda, and the United Arab Emirates. Kenya’s population growth continually exceeds the rate of economic growth, resulting in large budget deficits and high unemployment. The country’s well-developed transportation system has suffered from neglect in recent years. | 5 | | | | Government | | Kenya is governed under the constitution of 1963 as amended. The president, who is both head of state and head of government, is popularly elected for a five-year term and is eligible for a second term. The unicameral legislature consists of the 224-seat National Assembly or Bunge. There are 210 members who are popularly elected to serve five-year terms, 12 who are appointed by the president, and two ex-officio members. The Kenya African National Union (KANU) dominated the government from independence until 2002. Administratively, the country is divided into seven provinces and the capital area. | 6 | | | | History | | | | Early History to Independence | | During the 1950s and 60s, the anthropologist L. S. B. Leakey discovered in N Tanzania the remains of hominids who lived c.2 million years ago. These persons, perhaps the earliest humans on earth, most likely also inhabited S Kenya. In the Kenya highlands, the existence of farming and domestic herds can be dated to c.1000 B.C. Trade between the Kenya coast and Arabia was brisk by A.D. 100. Arabs settled on the coast during medieval times, and they soon established several autonomous city-states (including Mombasa, Malindi, and Pate). Farmers and herders traveled S from Ethiopia and settled in Kenya in c.2000 B.C. There is also evidence that Bantu-speaking people and Nilotic speakers from the S Sudan settled in Kenya between 500 B.C. and A.D. 500. | 7 | | The Portuguese first visited the Kenya coast in 1498, and by the end of the 16th cent. they controlled much of it, including Mombasa. However, in 1729, the Portuguese were permanently expelled from Mombasa and were replaced as the leading power on the coast by two Arab dynasties: the Busaidi dynasty, based first at Masqat (in Oman) and from 1832 on Zanzibar, and the Mazrui dynasty, based at Mombasa. The Busaidi wrested Mombasa from the Mazrui in 1837. From the early 19th cent. there was long-distance caravan trading between Mombasa and Lake Victoria. | 8 | | Beginning in the mid-19th cent., European explorers (especially John Ludwig Krapf and Joseph Thomson) mapped parts of the interior. The British and German governments agreed upon spheres of influence in E Africa in 1886, with most of present-day Kenya passing to the British. In 1887, a British association received concessionary rights to the Kenya coast from the sultan of Zanzibar. The association in 1888 was given a royal charter as the Imperial British East Africa Company, but severe financial difficulties soon led to its takeover by the British government, which established the East Africa Protectorate in 1895. A railroad was built (1895–1901) from Mombasa to Kisumu on Lake Victoria in order to facilitate trade with the interior and with Uganda. | 9 | | In 1903, the first settlers of European descent established themselves as large-scale farmers in the highlands by taking land from the Kikuyu, Masai, and others. At the same time, Indian merchants moved inland from the coast. In 1920, the territory was renamed and its administration changed; the interior became Kenya Colony and a coastal strip (10 mi/16 km wide) was constituted the Protectorate of Kenya. From the 1920s to the 40s, European settlers controlled the government and owned extensive farmlands; Indians maintained small trade establishments and were lower-level government employees; and Africans grew cash crops such as coffee and cotton on a small scale, were subsistence farmers, or were laborers in the towns (especially Nairobi). | 10 | | In the 1920s, Africans began to protest their inferior status. Protest reached a peak between 1952 and 1956 with the so-called Mau Mau Emergency, a complex armed revolt led by the Kikuyu, which was in part a rebellion against British rule and in part an attempt to reestablish traditional land rights and ways of governance. The British declared a state of emergency and imprisoned many of the colony’s nationalist leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta. After the revolt, Britain increased African representation in the colony’s legislative council until, in 1961, there was an African majority. | 11 | | | | Modern Kenya | | On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya (including both the colony and the protectorate) became independent. In 1964 the country became a republic, with Kenyatta as president. The first decade of independence was characterized by disputes among ethnic groups (especially between the Kikuyu and the Luo), by economic growth and diversification, and by the end of European predominance. Many Europeans (who numbered about 55,000 in 1962) and Asians voluntarily left the country. Boundary disputes with Somalia resulted in sporadic fighting (1963–68). In 1969, Tom Mboya, a leading government official and a possible successor to Kenyatta, was assassinated. More than 70% of the country was affected by the sub-Saharan drought of the early 1970s. Kenyatta’s silencing of opponents led to further unrest domestically. Throughout the 1970s relations with neighboring countries deteriorated as well; there was a territorial dispute with Uganda, and Tanzania closed its border with Kenya when Kenya harbored several of Idi Amin’s supporters after the fall of his regime. | 12 | | After Kenyatta’s death in 1978, Vice President Daniel arap Moi succeeded him as president. Moi promoted the Africanization of industry by placing limits on foreign ownership and by extending credit to African investors. Domestically, he rejected demands for democratization and suppressed opposition. With economic conditions worsening, rumors of a coup led Moi to dismantle the air force and order the imprisonment of those suspected of involvement. Throughout the 1980s, Moi consolidated power in the presidency and continued to conduct periodic purges of his administration. | 13 | | Rioting erupted in 1988 after several outspoken proponents of a multiparty democracy were arrested. Bowing to pressure at home and abroad, in 1991 the legislature passed a constitutional amendment legalizing multiparty democracy. In 1992, Moi was reelected president in Kenya’s first multiparty election in 26 years. Opponents denounced the election as fraudulent, and the government was subsequently accused of human-rights violations. The 1990s saw tens of thousands of refugees flee fighting in Somalia to NE Kenya. Moi was reelected in 1997, but the governing party lost several seats in parliament. In Aug., 1998, a terrorist bomb exploded at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, killing some 250 people. | 14 | | Forced under the constitution to retire, Moi engineered the nomination of Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s first leader, as the Kenya African National Union (KANU) candidate for president in 2002. Mwai Kibaki, who had run against Moi in 1992 and 1997 and once was his vice president, was the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) candidate and the most prominent of the four opposition candidates. The December election, although not free of vote rigging, was the most credible multiparty election since independence and resulted in a significant opposition victory. Kibaki was elected president with 62% of the vote, and NARC won a majority of seats in the national assembly. | 15 | | A constitutional conference was convened to revise the constitution, but when it approved (Jan., 2004) reducing the president’s powers and establishing an executive prime minister, the government withdrew from the conference. Kibaki, who had supported such a proposal while in the opposition and had called for a new constitution to be in place 100 days after his election, saw his coalition divide over the issue. In July he let the conference’s mandate expire and appointed a new committee to continue the work. Also in July he expanded his cabinet, bringing representatives of KANU and another opposition party into the government and demoting coalition members who had supported reducing the president’s powers. By the end of 2004 a three-way division had developed in the NARC coalition, and a factional split in KANU resulted (Feb., 2005) in two separate executive councils claiming control of the party. The KANU factions continued to fight for control of the party through 2006. | 16 | | In Aug., 2004, some Masai begin to mount protests over land on which they said the lease, signed 99 years ago with the British, had expired. The government challenged that assertion, but the Masai actions brought to the fore the inequity of many long-term leases (some more than 900 years long) that the British forced on the indigenous peoples of Kenya. The issue of the very-long-term leases was one that the stalled constitution might have resolved. Early 2005 saw outbreaks of fighting between Masai herders and Kikuyu farmers over scarce water resources. | 17 | | The issue of corruption, which Kibaki had promised to attack but left to fester, roiled the government in 2004 and 2005 when the British ambassador accused Kenyan officials of “massive looting.” The president’s chief anticorruption adviser resigned out of frustration in Feb., 2005, and the Law Society accused the current vice president, attorney general, and finance minister of graft. In March the government said that it had identified in British bank accounts about $1 billion stolen from government project under the Moi administration and was making efforts to recover the money. | 18 | | Parliament approved a draft constitution in July, 2005, that included the office of prime minister, but most executive powers remained with the presidency. Some members of the cabinet called for its defeat in the required referendum, as did former president Moi, while Kibaki called for its approval. Voters solidly rejected the document in Nov., 2005, in a blow to Kibaki’s presidency. Kibaki subsequently dismissed the entire cabinet and suspended the opening of parliament; in December he appointed a new cabinet dominated by allies, but some ministers and deputies he nominated rejected the posts. Drought and crop failures in NE Kenya in 2005 led to food shortages and deaths due to starvation late in the year; the government was accused by some of responding slowly to the problem. | 19 | | By Feb., 2006, two corruption scandals had resulted in the resignation or removal of four cabinet members, including the finance minister, and accusations of corruption had also been leveled at the vice president, who denied the charges. In March elite Kenyan police raided Kenya’s oldest newspaper and its television station; copies of the newspaper were burned by police during the raid and the station was forced off the air. The government raid, which appeared to be an attempt to intimidate a critical media outlet, was denounced by opposition figures and by many cabinet members. The same month Kibaki finally reopened parliament. Kenyan and Ethiopian soldiers clashed in Apr., 2006, when the Ethiopians crossed the Kenyan border in pursuit of Oromo rebels. The fighting in Somalia in 2006 drove some 30,000 refugees into NE Kenya by mid-2006, adding to the 130,000 who had arrived since 1991. A cabinet reshuffle in Nov., 2006, largely undid the earlier ministerial resignations brought about by corruption scandals; only the former finance minister remained without a cabinet post. | 20 | | | | Bibliography | | See R. A. Oliver et al., ed., History of East Africa (3 vol., 1963–76); C. G. Rosberg and J. C. Nottingham, The Myth of “Mau Mau”: Nationalism in Kenya (1966); M. P. K. Sorenson, The Origins of European Settlement in Kenya (1969); C. Leo, Land and Class in Kenya (1984); M. G. Schatzberg, ed., The Political Economy of Kenya (1987); W. R. Ocheing, ed., Themes in Kenyan History (1990). | 21 |
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| | | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. |
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