• Probably the lowest point came at the start of the 1990s when the US changed its priorities in the region and now was pushing a multi-party agenda.
• In 1991 with agitation building up for the return of multi-party politics in Kenya, the US took sides backing opposition figures who were calling for change.
Image: PCS
During the last few months, Kenyans and those Americans and others who may have been interested, have been told a lot of stories about the state of relations between the two former British colonies.
The stories, seen through the prism of rose tinted glasses, became loudest just ahead of our president’s much trumped state visit to the White House, where, among other achievements, he sat at the famous Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
Of course, as a well-behaved guest, our president did not put his feet up on the desk, also known as the Hayes desk, in the manner of President Barack Obama and numerous of his predecessors.
Famously Obama stirred controversy in 2013 when he was photographed with his feet on the desk, even though previous occupants of the Oval Office had done exactly the same. Knowing the US it was probably because Obama was black. However, I digress.
Anyway, after all the recent schmaltzing about our friendship, I decided to look for the times when things between our governments weren’t as rosy as they appear today.
The thing about long-term friendships like Kenya’s and the US, is that they go through peaks and troughs and friends become enemies only to turn around and embrace again.
One of the first low points came shortly after the start of the relationship when William Attwood, the first ambassador to Kenya after Independence finished his tour of duty and wrote a memoir: “The Red and the Blacks: A personal Adventure”.
This book annoyed the Jomo Kenyatta government so much that it was banned and Attwood was declared persona non grata.
After the Attwood episode, the friendship returned to a more or less even keel and hit a high point after President Daniel arap Moi succeeded Kenyatta and got himself invited on a state visit to the Ronald Reagan White House.
Then as now, one of the things in play was the US military presence on the Indian Ocean.
In those days, the US, which already had a base in Somalia, wanted and got an agreement allowing US forces to use Kenyan ports and air bases in return for about $50 million in economic and food aid.
Probably the lowest point came at the start of the 1990s when the US changed its priorities in the region and now was pushing a multi-party agenda.
President Moi, who had been one of the USA’s best friends in Africa, suddenly found that the Americans wanted him gone.
In 1991 with agitation building up for the return of multi-party politics in Kenya, the USA took sides backing opposition figures who were calling for change.
There were even those who claimed that later that year, when the opposition coalesced into the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (Ford), it had been financed by the US government.
Meanwhile, even before Ford, Kanu and its then affiliate, the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu), were certain that the US was using money to destabilise the country’s institutions.
As an aside, I must mention that in May 1991 Cotu was an affiliate organisation of Kanu’s. This relationship only ended in the year 2000. That was when the Americans pressured the Kanu government to de-link itself from Cotu in exchange for a piece of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) pie.
Back to Cotu however. In 1991 Cotu’s Information Director was none other than current secretary general, Francis Atwoli.
Atwoli said in a statement that May that the US government was funding candidates for posts in Cotu.
These candidates, he said, would promote agitation among the workers for the multi-party cause and who would foment labour unrest if Kenya did not opt for multi-party democracy.
In an interesting twist, a decade later, in 2001 Atwoli, now Cotu leader, was responsible for withdrawing support from Moi and Kanu and asking the workers to back the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) at the 2002 election
On its website Cotu reports, “Partly because of the support Narc and Kibaki got from trade unions and workers across the country, they were able to end Kanu’s 40-year old rule following that year’s general election.”
Funny how times change.