When Kenya experienced an attempted coup in 1982, rumours emerged that it had been supported by the British government. Poppy Cullen discusses the coup attempt and looks at whether such rumours have any foundation based on newly released British archival sources.
On 1 August 1982, Kenyans woke to the news, broadcast on the Voice of Kenya radio station, that a coup had taken place. During the night, the Kenya Air Force had mutinied, arrested their officers, and seized control of the airport, central bank, post office, and national broadcaster. The Voice of Kenya broadcast, made by a group calling themselves the People’s Redemption Council, called for the release of political detainees and an end to corruption. They criticised the single-party state and highlighted grievances in the Kenya Air Force about welfare, housing, and low salaries.
This was a first for Kenya. Widely seen by international observers as a paragon of stability in Africa, the country hadn’t witnessed a single coup attempt since its independence in 1963, in marked contrast with much of post-colonial Africa.
The coup’s failure
Despite its early success, the coup was badly planned. The coup’s leaders did not secure the support of members of the government and simply told the police to stay off the streets. They attempted to detain President Daniel arap Moi, but he was not in Nairobi. Although the exact details are unclear, in the power vacuum that followed resulted in deaths, sexual violence, and substantial looting across the capital, with Kenya’s Asian minority particularly targeted.
The relatively junior non-commissioned officers who led the coup seem to have had little plan for what would happen once they gained control. With limited coordination, their prospect for success were always small.
The army moved against them and fought to secure control of the institutions that had been seized. By 11am, the Voice of Kenya radio station broadcast that the coup had been put down. By the end of the day, although fighting continued in Nairobi, it was clear that the coup had failed.
Rumours about the coup
There has been much speculation since about this attempted coup. Some connected it to Oginga Odinga, who had been a rival to the regime for decades, or to his son, later presidential candidate Raila Odinga. Many of those involved in the attempted coup were Luo, the second largest ethnic group in Kenya who were largely excluded from political power. The Odingas, too, were Luo, and there were allegations that Raila Odinga had previously met with some of those involved. He was arrested and detained. Some speculated that the government was aware of the coup plot beforehand and allowed it to happen to provide an excuse to clamp down on opponents. Rumours emerged that this was only one of three coups being planned at the same time, and that its failure helped prevent others, which may have been more successful.
One particularly persistent rumour was that the British government was aware of the coup plot beforehand, and perhaps even in support of it. This fits a wider trend of seeing British neo-colonialism directing events in Kenya. British relations with the Kenyan military and the fact that many officers trained in Britain seemed to support the idea. Research in the British National Archives shows that there had been a time in 1971 when some British policymakers had considered the prospect of a coup by the army after President Jomo Kenyatta’s death. Back then, they believed they had strong allies in the military and that the beneficial Anglo-Kenyan relationship would remain intact if Kenya were run by the military. But by 1982, this type of thinking was no longer prevalent in the British government, and there is no evidence they were involved in the attempted coup.
The British response
The immediate response of the British government was shock. Their first awareness that a coup attempt was in progress came from British Airways. One of the company’s planes had been turned away from Nairobi airport, after it had been seized by the Kenya Air Force. For several hours, this was all anyone in Britain knew about events in Nairobi, as communications out of the city were unavailable. By the time real information reached London, it was already clear that the coup would fail and that the army and government would maintain control.
While some Kenyans blamed the British, in London, officials questioned whether the Soviet Union had played a role in provoking the attempted coup. Such Cold War concerns were typical of the time. Various rumours about Soviet involvement circulated but were unsubstantiated. As always, views of external involvement limit the agency of the airmen themselves, who did not need direction from a foreign power.
After the coup, the British sought to bolster Moi’s presidency and assure him of their support. Quickly, a message was sent to Moi from British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In the months following the coup attempt, several British ministers went to Kenya to provide a show of support for the government. While British officials had reservations about Moi and viewed him less favourably than Kenyatta, Moi was the sitting president, and this fact far outweighed other concerns. Although they were wary about the army becoming more involved in politics or more coup attempts in the future, greater support for Moi was their response.
The coup increased Moi’s authoritarian stance. He became more concerned about potential enemies and surrounded himself by those he saw as allies. Yet many of these trends had existed before, with Kenya becoming a de jure one-party state earlier in the year. The increasingly authoritarian nature of the regime was part of what sparked the coup attempt.
The British were not involved in the August 1982 coup attempt. They also dismissed rumours of other coups being planned at the same time, seeing no evidence for these, and certainly not being involved in them. Rather than a plot by the British, the reality appears simpler: the coup had been attempted by discontented men from the Kenya Air Force facing real grievances both in their individual circumstances and in wider society. Its failure resulted in more of the behaviour that sparked it in the first place. Moi was eventually removed from power after he lost a democratic election, but not until 2002.
Photo credit: Alan Wilson used with permission CC BY-SA 2.0
