Independence through Armed Struggle: Kenya and Algeria

1Two statues, two memories

In the centre of Nairobi stands a bronze statue of Dedan Kimathi, a leader of the Mau Mau fighters, unveiled in 2007, fifty years after the colonial government hanged him. For decades after independence, Kenya's own governments said little about Mau Mau; only in 2003 was the ban on the movement, imposed in 1950, lifted. In Algeria, by contrast, the war of independence became the founding story of the state. Why do countries remember an armed struggle so differently? To answer that, you first need to know what happened.

2Read the timeline

Figure 3. Key events in Kenya and Algeria, 1945–1963. Rows are in date order but not to scale. Drawn by Ganzaa.

3Kenya: land and freedom

Causes. From the early twentieth century the colonial state reserved the fertile "White Highlands" for European farmers. Many Kikuyu became squatters on settler farms or crowded into reserves, and the landless drifted to Nairobi. Africans had to carry a pass (the kipande), faced a colour bar, and had almost no say in government. The Kenya African Union (KAU), led from 1947 by Jomo Kenyatta, asked for land and representation through constitutional means but won little.

The war. Radical members bound themselves with oaths and formed armed groups in the forests of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya. After attacks on settlers and on Africans who supported the government, Governor Evelyn Baring declared a State of Emergency on 20 October 1952. Kenyatta and other KAU leaders were arrested and, after the Kapenguria trial, Kenyatta was sentenced to seven years' hard labour in 1953. British troops and the colonial police defeated the forest fighters by 1956, and Dedan Kimathi was captured in October 1956 and hanged in February 1957.

The cost. The war was also a civil war among Kenyans, with "loyalists" fighting on the government's side. Thirty-two European settlers were killed; the African dead numbered many thousands, more than a thousand Kenyans were hanged, and tens of thousands were held in detention camps where torture was used. On 3 March 1959, eleven detainees were beaten to death by guards at Hola camp.

The road to independence. Mau Mau lost the military war but changed the political one. The cost of the Emergency and the Hola scandal convinced Britain that settler rule could not last. The Emergency ended in January 1960; at the Lancaster House conferences in London (1960, 1962 and 1963), Britain accepted an African majority. Kenyatta was released in August 1961, his Kenya African National Union (KANU) won the May 1963 election, and Kenya became independent on 12 December 1963.

Aftermath. In June 2013 the British government expressed "sincere regret" that Kenyans had been tortured by the colonial administration and agreed to pay compensation of £19.9 million to 5,228 surviving victims.

4Algeria: the longest and costliest war

Causes. France had conquered Algeria from 1830 and ruled it not as a colony but as part of France itself, divided into French départements. About a million European settlers held the best land and most political power, while about nine million Muslim Algerians had few rights. On 8 May 1945, as Europe celebrated victory over Germany, nationalist demonstrations at Sétif and Guelma led to the killing of Europeans and then to French reprisals in which thousands of Algerians were killed; estimates vary widely. Peaceful nationalism seemed to many young Algerians to have failed.

The war (1954–1962). On 1 November 1954 the FLN launched coordinated attacks across Algeria. France sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers. In the Battle of Algiers (1957) French paratroopers broke the FLN's network in the city, using torture on a large scale; when this became known it divided opinion in France itself. The FLN formed a Provisional Government (GPRA) in 1958 and won diplomatic support at the United Nations and from newly independent states.

The political end. In May 1958 a revolt by settlers and army officers in Algiers brought Charles de Gaulle back to power in France. He came to accept that the war could not be won: in September 1959 he offered Algerians self-determination. Settlers and officers who felt betrayed formed the OAS and turned to terror. After long talks, the Évian Accords of 18 March 1962 brought a ceasefire; in a referendum on 1 July 1962 Algerians voted almost unanimously for independence, which was proclaimed on 5 July 1962.

The cost. The number of Algerian dead is still disputed: Algeria's official figure is about 1.5 million, while many historians give lower estimates in the hundreds of thousands. Most of the settlers left for France in 1962, as did many of the harkis, Algerians who had fought for France; many of the harkis who stayed behind were killed.

5Compare: why armed struggle, and why it worked

Analysis. In both cases the fighters did not defeat the colonial army in battle, yet both wars ended colonial rule. Armed struggle made colonial rule too costly, politically and morally as well as financially, and forced the colonial power to the table. The difference is in who inherited power: in Algeria the movement that fought the war formed the government; in Kenya, many fighters received little land, while negotiation brought to power leaders who had not fought in the forests.