The 'Shifta War' was an inhumane conflict fought in northern Kenya between 1963 and 1967. Short thread.
The conflict pitted Jomo Kenyatta's KANU government--which insisted on the unity of Kenya--against Somali secessionists. Here's a clip from Mandera & Wajir, Aug. 1967. 1/
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Secessionists saw the Northern Frontier District as a part of Somalia & predicted a unitary Kenya would bring 'oppression, servitude, civil war and other evils'.
Clip: Northern Province People’s Progressive Party resolves not to participate in Kenya's elections, March 1963.
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Mogadishu & Hargeisa radio broadcast poetic invocations calling on Somalis to unify, across the Kenya boundary, to seek the unity of greater Somalia.
Clips below from British intelligence.
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British authorities anticipated a separate future for the NFD: according to one plan it would have remained under British administration.
But Kenyatta's new regime--pushed by protests like the one shown in this clip--insisted that Kenya's territory was inviolable.
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Kenyatta, in a May 1962 essay titled 'Pan African Unity and the NFD Question in Kenya':
'We in Kenya shall not give up even one inch of our country to Somali tribalists, and that is final'.
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There followed a massive military deployment into the NFD.
Drawing from models developed by the British during the Mau Mau war, the Kenya govt. interned pastoralists in military-run villages--a way of cutting off support for guerillas.
Clip: shiftas surrender, Aug. 1968.
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The 'Shifta War' ostensibly came to an end in 1967, when Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda brokered a peace deal between Kenyatta's govt. and the govt. of Somali PM Mohamed Egal.
Here's the signing ceremony in Arusha, Oct. 1967.
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The Somali threat, however, remained a potent resource for Kenya's government: a way to inspire militant patriotism, an excuse for demagoguery & saber-rattling.
Report below from the Nation, Feb. 1976.
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All clips from @Reuters.
I've written about secessionist projects in Kenya in the essay below.
And check out @KerenWeitzberg's lovely @OhioUnivPress book 'We Do Not Have Borders
Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya'.
oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/o…
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