SPEECH BY AMB. (DR.

) AMINA MOHAMED CAV, EGH, CABINET SECRETARY,

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, DURING THE LAUNCH OF BOOK TITLED,
‘KENYA’S FIFTY YEARS OF DIPLOMATIC ENGAGEMENT: FROM KENYATTA
TO KENYATTA’, UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI, 28TH NOVEMBER, 2018, 6:00 PM

The Chief Guest, Hon. H.E. Kalonzo Musyoka,

Chairperson of Moran Publishers, H.E. Hon. Moody Awori,

UNDP and UN Resident Coordinator, Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee,

DVC Prof Julius Ogego

Former Head of Public Service & Secretary to the Cabinet, Amb. Francis Muthaura,

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Moses Wetangula,

Former Foreign Ministers and Principal Secretaries present,

Principal Secretary, State Department of Early Learning and Basic Education, Dr.
Belio Kipsang,

Vice Chancellor, University of Nairobi, Prof. Peter Mbithi,

COMESA’s Deputy Secretary General and Editor of this book, Amb. Dr. Kipyego
Cheluget,

Panelists and Contributors

Former and serving Ambassadors,

Members of the Diplomatic Corps

Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

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I am delighted to join you today as we launch this landmark book, titled, ‘Kenya’s Fifty
Years of Diplomatic Engagement: From Kenyatta to Kenyatta’ edited by Amb. Dr. Kipyego
Cheluget. I thank you for making time to launch this book which is an important contribution
towards strengthening our diplomatic service. We are truly honored by your presence, even
as we celebrate the documentation of our collective diplomatic history, and prepare the next
generation for a world to come.

In August, during the launch of the Trailblazers Award Ceremony and launch of Hon Phoebe
Asiyo’s memoir at State House encouraged Kenyans to document their stories, His
Excellency the President then directed that we at the Ministry create a unit to support that.
The unit is up and should be fully operational by end of January 2019. The Ministry of
Education supports and encourages such projects, learning from our history to chart our
future is a noble endeavor. It acknowledges without shame our mistakes, lays bare our
misgivings, celebrates our successes and provides a clear roadmap into the future. As Achebe
records in his writings, until the lion learns to write, the hunter will tell his tale of the
hunt. We are lions, as seen in our national emblems, and we must tell our stories. Today, we
insist on that and tell our tale.

Undoubtedly, the compilation of this book has involved painstaking research and extensive
interviews spanning more than ten years, beginning in 2007, when the idea of recording
Kenya’s diplomacy was first conceived.
I thank you, Amb. Cheluget, for your hard work and dedication as well as the sacrifices you
have had to make to bring this book into fruition. It is in this same spirit that I congratulate
you for having received the 2018 Presidential Alumni Award from Northwestern University
for your public service and scholarship. Hongera!
I also acknowledge and congratulate all those who have contributed various essays in this
volume. The list of contributors includes a very broad spectrum of outstanding foreign
affairs practitioners, scholars, and analysts spanning diverse specializations and experiences.
I am confident the experiences they share in this book, and the insights they offer, will be a
valuable addition to the understanding of our foreign policy.

This book will be of tremendous value to the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
practitioners and students of international relations in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and the
world.

I also appreciate the support of the Ford Foundation which funded two major events that
marked the inception of this book.

These events included the first Conference ever of former Ambassadors and High
Commissioners, as well as former ministers that generated the impetus for the documenting
of our foreign policy.

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Ladies and Gentlemen,
In this book, Amb. Cheluget and co-authors chronicle Kenya’s diplomacy from the early
days of Independence to 2013, when Kenya turned fifty.
In order to cover all the aspects of Kenya’s diplomacy, the book is divided into three major
sections. The first features contributions by the early actors in our Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, including Amb. Francis Muthaura, Amb. Bethuel Kiplagat, Amb. Denis Afande,
Amb. Inderjet Singh Bhoi and Amb. Leonard Kibinge.

The second part of the book comprises scholarly contributions on certain aspects of our
foreign policy by renowned academicians among them Prof. Macharia Munene, Amb. Dr.
Paul Kurgat, Prof. Kagwanja and Mr. Stephen Wright. These scholars offer in-depth
perspectives on key aspects of our foreign relations. The last part covers profiles of selected
former ambassadors and ministers, including Dr. Njoroge Mungai, Hon. Dr Robert Ouko and
Hon. Mark Too.
In our archives and in the memories of successive generations of ministers, diplomats and
officials are many important and interesting experiences, encounters and stories to be told
about our foreign policy. This is what this book avails: a record of the practical engagements
that have shaped our foreign policy as narrated by our foreign policy actors and scholars. The
book is an engaging and refreshing reading that will contribute to a better understanding of
the evolution of our foreign service and from which invaluable lessons can be drawn in the
conduct of our diplomacy moving into the future.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A country focused on playing a frontline role at the global arena must have a large diplomatic
footprint. Structurally, this means building an elaborate network of foreign missions and a
large number of Foreign Service officers. This imperative partly summarizes the evolution of
our Foreign Service over the first fifty years of independence.

As a Republic, we have come a mighty long way. As Amb. Muthaura narrates in the opening
chapter of the book, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973 occupied just two floors, on the
ground and the first floor of Harambee House - as just a section in the Office of the President.
At that time, there were only about eight embassies around the world.

In terms of personnel, there were very few Foreign Service officers who worked under
immense pressure to meet Foreign Service demands.

Mr. Leonard Kibinge has related in the book, Foreign Diplomats ‘were often perplexed to
engage one or two Assistant Secretaries attending to a motley of issues touching on politics,
protocol, economy, accreditation and diplomatic first arrival privileges.

Amb. Denis Afande relates that at this time, each of Kenya’s seven Missions had only two
Foreign Service Officers - the Ambassador/High Commissioner and one officer. In Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, where Amb. Afande opened the Embassy in February 1977, he was alone there

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for four months before other officers, who included Amb. Chirau Ali Mwakwere, as First
Secretary and Amb. Mwabili Kisaka were deployed.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

From these humble beginnings, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today occupies a whole
block, has over 54 missions across the world and a huge pool of professional diplomats.
Kenya’s diplomatic footprint is now indeed significant.

More than 50 years later, we have also now accumulated a substantial corpus of principles,
norms and experiences that form the core of our foreign policy.

This book provides not only an insider’s perspective but also an expert’s view of the actual
happenings that have shaped our foreign policy to date.
In this book, we follow some of our diplomats in offices, boardrooms and conference halls in
engagements with leaders, diplomats and officials of various countries, regional groupings
and multilateral institutions.
These engagements shaped most of the bilateral relations we now have as well as our
membership and role in various regional groupings and multilateral institutions; including the
East African Cooperation (EAC), the African Union (AU), the Inter-Governmental Authority
on Development (IGAD), Common Market for East and South Africa (COMESA), the Indian
Ocean Rim Association, the Non-Aligned Movement, the South-South Cooperation and the
United Nations (UN).
Through these engagements, we have in the last fifty years elevated our country’s profile in
the international arena.
As Senator Moses Wetangula narrates “through our early diplomacy, Kenya managed to be,
and remains, the only host in the Third World of UN offices – HABITAT and UNEP, and
now UNON. We still carry that pride on behalf of the developing countries”.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The book also clarifies and dispels misconceptions about our foreign policy.
For example, it has been a constant claim in some quarters that Kenya has never had a foreign
policy. As Amb. Francis Muthaura has clearly demonstrated in his account of negotiations to
host UNEP in the country, that this was not the case.
Hon. Wetangula has reinforced this view by demonstrating that Kenya’s engagement with,
for example, EAC countries were an act of conscious and deliberate actions.
We of course subsequently launched a comprehensive and written foreign policy in 2013 and
diaspora policy in 2014.

In his contribution to the volume, Hon. Wetangula narrates how President Jomo Kenyatta
loved to drive from Nairobi to the capitals of East Africa, Kampala and Dar-es-Salaam, to
develop and cement regional co-operation. “As a little boy in primary school”, Hon.
Wetangula writes, “I saw him drive through Bungoma on his way to Kampala. He also

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occasionally travelled to Addis Ababa, where he personally supervised the construction of the
Kenyan Embassy there.”

This aspect of purposeful policy direction is further evidenced in how President Kenyatta (Sr)
handled the competing ideologies during the cold war.

Prof. Macharia Munene narrates that Kenyatta managed the two competing ideologies in
what then Foreign Minister, Hon. Munyua Waiyaki, described as a “dynamic compromise.”

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

Kenya’s outstanding role in peace diplomacy also speaks of purposeful diplomacy by a
responsible member of the global community of nations. Hon. Wetangula writes that “as
early as 1975, the protagonists in the Angolan conflict - Agostino Neto, Jonas Savimbi and
Holden Roberto - came to Nakuru to consult with President Jomo Kenyatta on how to get
together and find a mechanism for working together for the sake of their country. We have
carried forward this tradition as evidenced by our involvement in the search for durable peace
in Somalia.
“When Uganda was on fire in the 1980s,” Hon. Wetangula writes on, “President Yoweri
Kaguta Museveni, then as a guerrilla fighter, President Tito Okelo, and all the internal
protagonists, spent time in Nairobi to talk on how to re-create peace in their country. We have
hosted our brothers and sisters from Ethiopia and Sudan during their dark days. We literally
are the midwives of the Sudan peace.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The authors of this volume recognize that Foreign Policy is dynamic and international
relations are therefore works in progress. The authors therefore offer highlights on key
changes that have occurred in the international arena and proffers insights into tackling the
dynamics of 21st Century diplomacy.

I take pride in the honour of being part of this history, having worked in the Foreign Service
for the better part of my life. I have been privileged to write the foreword to this volume; but
beyond what I have written, I have many inside stories, experiences and encounters from
which invaluable lessons can be drawn. I hope to share these experiences more elaborately,
perhaps in a future edition.

I strongly recommend this volume to the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and to
practitioners and students of international relations in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa and the
world. As the Spanish born American author, George Satayana, once noted, “Those who
cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” may we remember where we have
come from, to prepare for the future.

In conclusion, it will be remiss of me not to underscore the sentiments captured by Dr. Joyce
Nyairo in her critique on the book, published last Saturday in the Daily Nation: we need more

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women voices captured. This book presents the face of foreign service in the past. We must
take a snap shot of how it is in the present.

I challenge the young lady scholars in diplomacy to seek out those who have gone ahead of
them, and also document their stories. As men are the embodiment of strength, and thus
power and possibly symbols of war, women are naturally the symbols of diplomacy as
relationship builders and communicators. Let the lionesses now speak.
With this few remarks, it is my distinct honor and pleasure to welcome one of my
predecessors both as Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Education, His Excellency
Kalonzo Musyoka, to address us.

Karibu.