Kenya is located in east-central Africa on the coast of the Indian Ocean. It borders Somalia to the east, Ethiopia and Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest.
Kenya became a British protectorate in 1890 and became a crown colony in 1920, when it went by the name of British East Africa. Anticolonialist sentiment began to break out in earnest following the Second World War. The Mau Mau movement began a rebellion against the British government in 1952, and the fighting lasted until 1956.
Kenya became an independent nation on December 12, 1963, with Jomo Kenyatta as the first president. Kenya was formally a republic with a unicameral legislature, but Kenyatta’s party, the Kenya African National Union, was the only polical party allowed to operate. Opponents of the one-party regime were vigorously suppressed.
The early years of Kenyan independence were not happy. Border disputes with Somalia lead to some sporadic fighting between 1963 and 1968. In 1969, Tom Mboya, a leading government official and a possible successor to Kenyatta, was assassinated, and his death set off widespread rioting. There was friction with Uganda over the border, and Tanzania briefly closed its borders with Kenya when Kenya gave shelter to some of Idi Amin’s supporters after the fall of his regime in Uganda. The country was severely affected by the sub-Saharan drought of the early 1970s.
Kenyatta died in 1978, and was succeeded in the presidency by Daniel Arap Moi. As president, Moi promoted the Africanization of key industries and imposed limitations on foreign ownership. Domestically, demands for democratization and reform were rejected, and political opposition continued to be suppressed. However, demonstrations and disturbances pressured Moi to allow for multiparty elections in 1992. Nevertheless, Moi was reelected as president in an election widely criticized as being fradulent, and was re-elected again in 1997.
Throughout the 1990s, the Kenyan economy has steadily declined, with the infrastructure rapidly disintegrating and offical graft and corruption becoming more and more rampant. A series of floods and epidemics have erupted, and ethnic classes between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin groups have broken out in the Rift Valley.
Following its independence from Britain in 1963, Kenya has long maintained a pro-Western stance and has been given substantial military aid from both Britain and the United States. As a result of the war over the Ogaden region between Ethiopia and Somalia and tensions with neighboring Uganda, the Kenya Air Force ordered ten F-5Es and two F-5Fs in 1976. Deliveries took place in 1978. The Kenyan F-5s operate from the base at Laikipia formerly known as Nanyuki. They give Kenya’s air force an interceptor capability for the first time in its history. Two F-5Fs were delivered as attrition replacements in July of 1982.
On August 1, 1982, a group of junior air force officers staged an unsuccessful coup. As a result, President Moi officially disbanded the Kenya Air Force, and those persons suspected of complicity in the coup were jailed. However, it was later reformed under a different name–the so-called ’82 Air Force. In 1994, it resumed its former title.
10 F-5E.3, F-5EM, and 23 F-5Fs were purchased from the Royal Jordanian Air force, and were upgraded to F-5EM standards before delivery to Kenya.
Kenyan F-5s remain on operational duty. Starting on 16 October 2011 during Operation Linda Nchi, Kenyan AF F-5s are supporting the Kenyan forces fighting in Somalia against Al Shabab Islamists. They have been bombing targets inside Somalia and spearheading the ground forces.
Sources:
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Northrop F-5/F-20, Jerry Scutts, Ian Allan Ltd, 1986.
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F-5: Warplane for the World, Robbie Shaw, Motorbooks, 1990
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Northrop F-5, Jon Lake and Robert Hewson, World Airpower Journal, No.
25, 1996.
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Lycos Infoplease encyclopedia on Kenya history.
- Northrop F-5, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-5#Ethiopia
