Britain made a se­cret un­der­tak­ing in 1967 to de­fend Kenya in case of an in­va­sion by So­ma­lia, de­clas­si­fied doc­u­ments re­cently re­leased from the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice in Lon­don re­veal.

The deal, known as the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing”, was a re­as­sur­ance fol­low­ing a non-com­mit­tal state­ment made by Mr Dun­can Sandys, the British Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies, in 1964.

With­out mak­ing any con­crete com­mit­ment, Mr Sandys had told Kenya’s new gov­ern­ment that in case of an at­tack by So­ma­lia, it was prob­a­ble that Britain would in­ter­vene.

So­ma­lia, which was then con­sid­ered to have one of the re­gion’s most pow­er­ful armies equipped with so­phis­ti­cated So­viet-made weapons, had threat­ened to an­nex the north east­ern part of Kenya in pur­suit of its Greater So­ma­lia pol­icy. Pres­i­dent Jomo Keny­at­ta’s ad­min­is­tra­tion had since in­de­pen­dence in 1963 been grap­pling with a se­ces­sion­ist con­flict in the north east, known as the Shifta War, that was sup­ported by So­ma­lia. In­deed, So­mali Prime min­is­ter Muham­mad Egal had told British MPs in 1962 of the in­ten­tion to unite all ter­ri­to­ries oc­cu­pied by So­ma­lis in Kenya and Ethiopia

When So­ma­li­a’s ag­gres­sive ac­tion seemed likely to lead to an in­va­sion of Kenya in 1966, Pres­i­dent Keny­atta quickly dis­patched At­tor­ney-Gen­eral Charles Njonjo and Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Bruce Mcken­zie to Lon­don to pres­sure the British gov­ern­ment to not only give re­as­sur­ances of pro­tect­ing Kenya but also pro­vide more so­phis­ti­cated equip­ment.

DE­CLAS­SI­FIED DOC­U­MENTS

Ac­cord­ing to the de­clas­si­fied doc­u­ments, al­though the British gov­ern­ment turned down the re­quest for arms terming it “un­re­al­is­tic”, Prime Min­is­ter Harold Wil­son, in a pri­vate mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Keny­atta, com­mit­ted to con­sider pro­tect­ing Kenya from So­ma­li­a’s ag­gres­sion.

This pri­vate mes­sage marked “se­cret” was what came to be known as the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing”.

“If Kenya were the vic­tim of out­right ag­gres­sion by So­ma­lia, the British gov­ern­ment would give the sit­u­a­tion most ur­gent con­sid­er­a­tion. While the British gov­ern­ment can­not in ad­vance give the Kenya Gov­ern­ment any as­sur­ance of au­to­matic as­sis­tance, the pos­si­bil­ity of Britain giv­ing the Kenyans as­sis­tance in the event of or­gan­ised and un­pro­voked armed at­tack by So­ma­lia is not pre­cluded,” the mes­sage read.

Nine months af­ter the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing”, a key diplo­matic mile­stone was achieved when me­di­a­tion spear­headed by Zam­bian Pres­i­dent Ken­neth Kaunda led to the sign­ing of the Arusha Mem­o­ran­dum be­tween Kenya and So­ma­lia to end bor­der hos­til­i­ties.

But the So­ma­lia gov­ern­ment, which had signed the Arusha Mem­o­ran­dum, was over­thrown and re­placed by a mil­i­tary junta led by Gen­eral Siad Barre in 1969.

This re­sulted in ap­pre­hen­sion with se­nior Kenyan of­fi­cials fear­ing that Gen­eral Barre was more likely to re­vive and pur­sue the Greater So­ma­lia am­bi­tions ac­tively.

AN­OTHER BLOW

As if that was not enough, Kenya suf­fered an­other blow when the British Labour ad­min­is­tra­tion, which had made de­fence com­mit­ments through the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing,” was re­placed by the Con­ser­v­a­tives un­der Prime Min­is­ter Ed­ward Heath in June 1970, cre­at­ing fur­ther anx­i­ety.

This sud­den turn of events forced Pres­i­dent Keny­atta to send Mr Njonjo and Mr Mcken­zie with a pri­vate let­ter seek­ing reaf­fir­ma­tion from the new British Prime Min­is­ter on main­tain­ing the se­cu­rity un­der­stand­ing.

“I have asked them (Mr Njonjo and Mr Mcken­zie) to dis­cuss with you what we now here call the Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing. I hope that you will kindly dis­cuss this mat­ter with my min­is­ters who have my au­thor­ity to do so. I am keen that the un­der­stand­ing should be con­tin­ued with your gov­ern­ment,” read the let­ter dated Au­gust 30, 1970 and signed by Pres­i­dent Keny­atta.

Mr Mcken­zie, who was on sick leave in Britain, booked the ap­point­ment with the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Of­fice (FCO) to de­liver the let­ter to Num­ber 10 Down­ing Street, the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence in Lon­don.

The ap­point­ment was con­firmed for Sep­tem­ber 8, 1970 at 11 am.

A BRIEF

Four days be­fore the meet­ing, a brief was for­warded to Prime Min­is­ter Heath by the FCO warn­ing that Pres­i­dent Keny­atta was go­ing to be un­happy if Britain re­fused to carry on with the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing”. The brief ar­gued that Kenyans were among the most mod­er­ate on the “Arms for South Africa” is­sue — in ref­er­ence to Britain sell­ing weapons to the Apartheid gov­ern­ment de­spite wide­spread op­po­si­tion from many African coun­tries — mak­ing it cru­cial for the new British gov­ern­ment not to an­tag­o­nise them.

In the brief that was writ­ten in the con­text of the Cold War be­tween the West­ern and East­ern blocs, the Prime Min­is­ter was also ad­vised to raise British con­cerns with the Kenyan emis­saries about the So­viet Union’s at­tempts to pen­e­trate East Africa. There was also to be the clincher that the for­mer colo­nial mas­ters were will­ing to co-op­er­ate on the de­fence prob­lem so long as British sol­diers were al­lowed con­tin­ued ac­cess to Kenyan mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties.

Bi­o­graph­i­cal notes an­nexed to the brief fur­ther give in­sights on how the British viewed the two Kenyan min­is­ters.

Mr Njonjo was de­scribed as one of the clos­est and friend­liest min­is­ters to the British High Com­mis­sion in Nairobi. Al­though he lacked po­lit­i­cal will or the grass­roots sup­port to win the pres­i­dency, he was viewed as a lead­ing ar­chi­tect in the Keny­atta suc­ces­sion.

ALSO IN­FORMED

The Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice was also in­formed that Mr Njonjo loved to have mid-morn­ing tea with hot milk but there should also be In­dian tea with cold milk and Chi­nese tea with lemon.

In their brief, the British of­fi­cials, how­ever, sneered that Mr Njon­jo’s un­do­ing in the Kenyan po­lit­i­cal con­text was that he was “ob­vi­ously pre­sent­ing a very West­ern im­age po­lit­i­cally and per­son­ally even to the ex­tent of a black jacket and striped trousers and a rose but­ton­hole daily”.

On his part, Mr Mcken­zie was de­scribed as a “dy­namo of the Kenya Gov­ern­ment ma­chine” whose in­flu­ence ex­tended far be­yond his Agri­cul­ture min­istry. He was also de­scribed as a mem­ber of Pres­i­dent Keny­at­ta’s in­ner cir­cle who had gained the re­spect of the Kenyan Eu­ro­pean com­mu­nity with whom he pre­vi­ously had a dif­fi­cult re­la­tion­ship.

“But he al­ways puts Kenya’s in­ter­est first. Tries to be gen­uinely non-aligned when it serves Kenya’s in­ter­ests,” added the FCO brief.

How­ever, Kenya had a spe­cial re­quest to make: It wanted Mr Njon­jo’s pres­ence in Lon­don and the ex­is­tence of the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing” kept se­cret.

Not even the Kenyan High Com­mis­sioner in Lon­don was sup­posed to know about the mis­sion, ac­cord­ing to a con­fi­den­tial let­ter from a Mr Mc­Clauney of the FCO to the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice.

STATE­MENT RE­LEASED

Mr Mc­Clauney, how­ever, ad­vised that if Mr Njon­jo’s visit leaked, a state­ment should be re­leased that he had brought a per­sonal mes­sage from Pres­i­dent Keny­atta and that it was not the prac­tice to dis­close the con­tents of such mes­sages. And if the me­dia as­sumed that the sub­ject of the meet­ing was sell­ing arms to South Africa, then this as­sump­tion should be al­lowed to stand.

The se­crecy of the meet­ing was em­pha­sised to Prime Min­is­ter Heath by the British Sec­re­tary of State: “While I un­der­stand that you wish in gen­eral for pub­lic­ity to be given to your dis­cus­sion with African and other Com­mon­wealth lead­ers, we feel that in this case it would be right to re­spect the Kenyan re­quest, in so far as we can do so with­out ap­pear­ing disin­gen­u­ous.”

Arrange­ments were, there­fore, made for Mr Njonjo and Mr Mcken­zie to en­ter the British Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice through the Cab­i­net of­fice in­stead of the main en­trance to avoid pub­lic at­ten­tion.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, the de­clas­si­fied doc­u­ments in­di­cate, Mr Mcken­zie pointed out the im­por­tance of reaf­firm­ing the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing”. In re­turn, the British forces would be free to con­tinue us­ing Nairobi Air­port, the Mom­basa port as well as mil­i­tary train­ing fa­cil­i­ties in Kenya. They also had great in­ter­est in re­tain­ing the British spe­cial forces who were train­ing Kenya’s Gen­eral Ser­vice Unit com­man­dos and the Spe­cial Branch. The vis­it­ing min­is­ters linked the work the British spe­cial forces were do­ing in Kenya to the se­cu­rity arrange­ment against So­ma­l­i’s ag­gres­sion.

NOTH­ING WRONG

In re­sponse, the British Prime Min­is­ter said that in prin­ci­ple he saw noth­ing wrong in reaf­firm­ing the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing” but promised to have the is­sue fully con­sid­ered and a re­ply sent to Pres­i­dent Keny­atta.

Prime Min­is­ter Heath also promised to con­sider the re­quest to have the spe­cial forces re­main in Kenya and pointed out his gov­ern­ment did not wish to re­duce the use of Kenyan mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties by British troops. He, how­ever, warned that British mil­i­tary re­sources were stretched at the time be­cause of in­sta­bil­ity in North­ern Ire­land.

But the dis­cus­sions went be­yond de­fence mat­ters, ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments. Mr Njonjo and Mr Mcken­zie also dis­cussed de­vel­op­ment and diplo­matic is­sues. For ex­am­ple, they said that while they ap­pre­ci­ated Britain’s sup­port, there were prob­lems with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the aid pro­gramme since con­di­tions laid down by the pre­vi­ous Labour gov­ern­ment were in­flex­i­ble, pro­jects were de­layed and im­por­tant pay­ments also held up longer than nec­es­sary.

Mr Mcken­zie sug­gested it would be help­ful if Kenya’s Fi­nance min­is­ter Mwai Kibaki, who was at an In­ter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund meet­ing in Copen­hagen, passed through Lon­don to meet the British min­is­ter for Over­seas De­vel­op­ment.

SPE­CIAL IN­TER­EST

The two also felt that Kenya no longer en­joyed close con­tacts with British gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and urged Prime Min­is­ter Heath to ask one of his ju­nior min­is­ters to take a spe­cial in­ter­est in Africa and get to know the con­ti­nen­t’s lead­ers per­son­ally.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, British of­fi­cials em­barked on draft­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­ply. But they also se­cretly noted Mr Mcken­zie’s and Mr Njon­jo’s ig­no­rance on the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing” for link­ing it to the pres­ence of British spe­cial forces and ac­cess to Kenyan mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties.

While the arrange­ment for British forces to use Kenyan mil­i­tary fa­cil­i­ties, air­ports and har­bours was agreed upon at in­de­pen­dence with Mr Sandys, who was the British Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies, and the train­ing of the GSU com­man­does came into ex­is­tence in De­cem­ber 1964, the “Bam­buri Un­der­stand­ing” was in Jan­u­ary 1967.

But British For­eign Sec­re­tary Sir Alec Dou­glas-Home did not think it was worth get­ting into an ar­gu­ment on the three is­sues in the Prime Min­is­ter’s let­ter to Pres­i­dent Keny­atta.

IN EX­IS­TENCE

As late as May 1981, the agree­ment was still in ex­is­tence, ac­cord­ing to a brief pre­pared for Mar­garet Thatcher, the first fe­male British Prime min­is­ter (1979-1990), when she met Kenya’s then For­eign Min­is­ter Robert Ouko in Lon­don.

“Kenya has our friend­ship/​sup­port. Kenya pol­icy to stand on her own feet mil­i­tar­ily is right. We will con­tinue to help Kenya ab­sorb new equip­ment,” said the brief.

It added that in case So­mali at­tacked Kenya “UK would give all help it could, but it is un­likely our re­sponse could in­clude com­mit­ment of com­bat troops. Nor in­deed do we sup­pose that Kenya would wish for this.”

Iron­i­cally, de­spite the fears in the 1960s, it was the Kenyan De­fence Forces that would go into So­ma­lia decades later, in Oc­to­ber 2011, to pur­sue al-Shabaab ter­ror­ists. The Kenyan forces are now part of the African Union Mis­sion in So­ma­lia that is try­ing to re­store se­cu­rity in the coun­try that has been grap­pling with civil war since the col­lapse of the Barre regime in 1991.