Memoirs of a Kenyan Spymaster

摘要

To the public, African intelligence agencies are a mystery. Despite there being more than 50 countries in Africa and having a population of more than one billion, little ink has been spilled recording and analyzing the history of African security services. For reasons ranging from political dictatorships that tightly control information to laws in democratic countries that punish the disclosure of security issues, firsthand accounts about African intelligence agencies are rare. Bart Joseph Kibati, former Deputy Director of Kenya's Special Branch, authored one of those rare books by detailing his over 25 years in Kenya's intelligence community between 1969 and 1995. Part biography and part political history, Kibati traces Kenya's independence and postcolonial history through the prism of intelligence. Founded in 1952 by the British colonial government, the Special Branch maintained a similar structure when it became the Directorate of Security Intelligence in 1986, which in turn was folded into the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) in 1999 and was renamed as the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in 2012.1 Kibati rose to the second in command of Kenya's intelligence agency and was in charge of appointments, promotions, terminations, and budgets. In 13 chapters, Kibati discusses the country's political evolution, history of its intelligence community, notable cases of corruption, foreign intelligence activity in Kenya, and ethnic divisions.