Kenya Batallion in Namibia

Kenya Batallion in Namibia

Kenya Battalion in Namibia is a debut book of note by a retired Kenya Army officer. The book is ground-breaking because in the highly secretive military service in Kenya, rarely do we hear army officers tell about their exploits in the service. It is an entertaining account that gives us a slice of how life was for the Kenyan Army officers in Namibia between 1989 and 1990. As it does so, it explains the forces at work during the period preceding Namibian freedom in 1990. The analytical narrative is by a disciplined soldier who does not want to be rude to his motherland. It showers glowing praise on such valiant soldiers as Brigadier Daniel Opande and Lieutenant-Colonel Kithinji. But, like all texts, Kenyan Battalion in Namibia can be politically fascinating when read against the grain. Its praise for foreign land is in a way criticism of mother land. Its political statements about Kenya can be found in the fascination it has for Namibia. Kenyan towns are dirty, the text says without saying, as he praises the cleanliness of Namibian town, which a Kenyan "could not help noting" because of "the gaping difference" between foreign towns and Kenyan ones. "Namibian towns were so clean that a person could easily pick an orange from the pavement and eat it without a second thought about germs," the writer says. The potholes in Nairobi are also a subject directly addressed by hyperbolic praise of Namibia. "Roads too were a sight to behold," the amazed writer notes. "They were spacious, accommodating and had no potholes." In describing the language problem the Kenya Army encountered in Namibia with respect to Afrikaans, the text is suggesting that the officers should be trained in different and foreign languages. The book is humorous, and although it is factual, it is imaginatively conceived and written. The ceremonies Kenyans performed to enhance their identity are described in detail. These include the Madaraka Day celebration that were attended by Kenyan traditional dances and pomp. The operation was not a bed of roses. The writer remembers an accident in July 1989 when Kenya lost two officers. The media reports in which a Kenyan officer was said to expend his urges of the groin on a Namibian woman are revisited, and a detailed clarification given. The suspect was said to have a big hole in the ear lobe, and this was associated with the Kenyan cultures which pierce their ear lobes. The text intervenes on the Kenyan officers who had become the butt of Namibian press regarding an above-average appetite for other people's spouses. Kenyan soldiers were also open to attack by sections of Namibians. The text gives the case of a Lieutenant-Colonel Kamau who was stabbed several times in an attack. "Hostility from sections of Namibians (who thought the Kenyan Battalion was partisan) was endemic," the book says. "Accusations and other intimidating mechanisms were the order of the day. For Kenyans, danger was lurking in the veld, in houses and along lonely streets." Spine-chilling tales the brutality of Boar soldiers are retailed with favour when on one occasion a white soldier is killed in combat. Boers, it was said, would hunt down black people, torture them to death in a most bizarre way before giving animals a treat. "Properly cooked, a man's fresh flesh is delicious food for Boer's pigs," a white man is quoted as having remarked. The book explains the reason why our soldiers had to fly to Namibia. The Kenya army was not called to Namibian aid because Namibia did not have enough forces, it says. There was bad blood between the Apartheid South African-trained forces of the colonial government, and the guerilla freedom fighters. Both were military competent, but ideologically incompatible, the book says. Kenya which had "many of the necessary credentials" was called in to help foresee a smooth transition where the two groups would work together in defence of their newly-independent country. The book is angry with political elite who use the army to achieve their selfish ends. In a politically bold statement, the author bashes political leaders who forget other departments to please the army so that, in turn, it can prop them into power. "Generally the forces are maintained as a watchdog to prop unpopular regimes which would otherwise be voted out of office by a most dissatisfied electorate," Mwarania says. "Inevitably the masters of such armies have resulted to playing on the tribal factors in their quest for dominance." The author does not say whether these problems exist in Kenya, but he pulls no punches in criticising "African" political establishment. "Conventionally, most of Africa's defence forces fit as tribal home guards or at best as political party brown shirts employed to secure the interests of their masters," says Mwarania. "They cannot defend the very nation that feeds and sustains them." It is the book's secret anger that makes it an allegory of our system. One wishes Mwarania could write a novel which would allow him more freedom to deploy stylistic strategies with which he would fight the national enemies of Kenya. He has the potential, a fact not lost on University of Nairobi's Prof. Chris Wanjala in a foreword to the 153-page book. "Ben Mwarania is a writer to note," says Prof. Wanjala, Kenya's most authoritative and strictest literary critic who will not praise you for nothing. "It will not be surprising if one day he writes a novel." There are a few editorial lapses, but the text is fairly well edited."

Ben Mwarania

Media Document Supplies

1999

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English