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Conflict in the Horn of Africa: The Kenya-Somalia Border Problem 1941-2014 . By Vincent Bakpetu Thompson . Lanham, MD : University Press of America , 2015. Pp. xv + 405. £59.95/$100.00, hardback (ISBN 978-0-7618-6527-8 ); £29.95/$46.99, paperback (ISBN 978-0-7618-6525-4 ).
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Kenya: A Social History of the Shifta Conflict, c. 1963-1968 . By Hannah Whittaker . Leiden, Netherlands : Brill , 2014. Pp. ix + 176. [euro]69.00/$89.00, paperback (ISBN 978-90-04-28267-4 ).
Reviews of Books
The two books under review take up the post-independence struggle known as the 'Shifta Conflict' in which a substantial segment of the population of northern Kenya fought to be incorporated into the nascent Somali Republic rather than the Republic of Kenya. These carefully documented books could not be more different from each other: one is a diplomatic history, while the other privileges the perspective of local people. If names and dates had been fictionalized, the reader would not be able to tell that they deal with the same conflict.
Vincent Bakpetu Thompson's admirably rich account of the 'Shifta' crisis in northern Kenya from the 1960s focuses particularly upon the Ogaden war in the late 1970s as well as, to a far lesser degree, later developments. 'Shifta' refers to the movement of some members of the northern Kenyan population who, at independence and after, wanted to join Somalia and were supported in their guerrilla war by Somalia. Thompson's account is based on official documents and reports from news media and is abundantly substantiated by references to such materials. As a documentary history, it may well be the definitive study of these events up to 1990, as it is hard to imagine how it can be superseded.
From the 1990s onwards, the study is disappointing and the title misleading. Thompson skips the 14thInternational Peace Process on Somalia, hosted by Kenya in 2002/3, which might have been the central issue for a book on the 'border problem'. After all, the active engagement of the 'frontline states' (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya) in that process was motivated not only by security issues and the refugee problem, but also by the fact that stateless Somalia had become known at the time as 'the largest duty free shop of Africa'. The frontline states had...