Thursday, August 5, 2010
NORTH KOREA
North Korea
I INTRODUCTION
North Korea, officially Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, country in northeastern Asia that occupies the northern portion of the Korea Peninsula. North Korea is bounded on the north by China, on the northeast by Russia, on the east by the East Sea (Sea of Japan), on the south by South Korea, and on the west by the Yellow Sea. It has an area of 120,538 sq km (46,540 sq mi). The state of North Korea was established in 1948 as a result of the Soviet military occupation of the northern portion of the peninsula after World War II. The capital and largest city of North Korea is P’yŏngyang.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
North Korea is extremely mountainous and marked by deep, narrow valleys. A complex system of ranges and spurs extends across the country in a generally northeastern to southwestern direction. The most prominent mountain range is the Nangnim-sanmaek, in the north central region. Mount Paektu (2,744 m/9,003 ft), on the Chinese border, is the highest peak. Lowland plains comprise only about one-fifth of the total area and are largely confined to the country’s western coast and to the several broad river valleys of the west. Fertile alluvial soils are found in these river valleys. Most of the soils in the mountainous regions lack organic material and are relatively infertile. Only 18 percent of North Korea’s land is arable. Nearly all the major rivers rise in the mountains and flow west to the Yellow Sea. The longest river, the Yalu (Amnok), forms part of the border with China. Other streams include the Taedong, Ch’ŏngch’ŏn, and Chaeryŏng rivers. Of the major rivers only the Tumen flows to the eastern coast to empty into the East Sea.
A Climate
North Korea has a continental climate, with hot summers and cold winters. The average July temperature at P’yŏngyang is 24°C (75°F). Winter temperatures at Wŏnsan in the south average -4°C (25°F) but are considerably lower in the north. Annual precipitation in most parts of the country is about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) and is concentrated in the summer months.
B Vegetation and Animal Life
Extensive coniferous forests are found in the country’s mountainous interior. Predominant species include spruce, pine, larch, fir, and cedar. The lowland areas of the west have been deforested and are under cultivation. Because of deforestation, large indigenous mammals of North Korea, which include leopards, tigers, deer, bears, and wolves, are becoming increasingly rare, and are confined to remote forested regions. Birdlife includes crane, heron, eagle, and snipe.
C Mineral Resources
North Korea is one of the richer nations in Asia in mineral resources, possessing major reserves of anthracite coal, iron ore, tungsten, magnesite, and graphite. Among the other minerals present are copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, silver, uranium, and zinc. Most estimates suggest that North Korea’s vast anthracite coal reserves exceed 10 billion tons. Iron ore reserves, centered in Musan-ŭp, are estimated to be 3 billion tons; lead and zinc, concentrated in the Komdŏok area of the northeast, roughly 12 million tons each; tungsten, a strategic mineral needed in jet engines and missiles, 232,000 tons; and magnesite, found in Tanch’ ŏn-ŭp, Ryongyang, and Taehŭung-ni, 6 billion tons. Together with adjacent deposits in China, North Korea’s magnesite reserves are among the world’s largest. Steel manufacturers must have this fire-resistant mineral to line blast furnaces. Gold mines are located at Unsan-dong, Sangnong, and Hŏ-ch’on, but the extent of North Korea’s unexploited gold potential is unknown. American and Japanese companies operated these mines prior to the creation of North Korea.
Mineral production has declined or stopped altogether at many North Korean mines since 1990, reflecting the economic dislocations resulting from the decline of aid from China and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Problems in maintaining the infrastructure, especially the breakdown of transportation links with the mountainous mining areas, also contributed to declining mineral production. In 2003 China became the main importer of the minerals still produced by North Korean mines that have remained operational.
Preliminary geological studies suggest the possibility of significant oil and gas reserves in the seabed along the west coast on the North Korean side of the Yellow Sea. Two foreign consulting companies engaged by North Korea—Cantek of Canada and an affiliate of Nissho-Iwai of Japan—estimated potential reserves of 12 billion barrels of oil in the seabed near Anju-ŭp, according to the North Korea Petroleum Ministry.
III POPULATION
North Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world, with no racial or linguistic minorities other than a small resident foreign (mainly Chinese) population. Koreans are believed to have descended from people who began to migrate to the Korea Peninsula from the northeastern part of the Asian mainland as early as 5000 bc.
A Population Characteristics
The population (2008 estimate) of North Korea is 23,479,089. The average population density is 195 persons per sq km (505 per sq mi). The population, however, is very unevenly distributed and is largely concentrated in the lowland plains of the west. Urbanization of the North Korean population has progressed rapidly since the 1950s; 62 percent of the total population of North Korea is now classified as urban.
B Principal Cities
P’yŏngyang, the capital, is North Korea’s largest city. Other major cities include Ch’ŏngjin, Namp’o, Sinŭiju, Wŏnsan, and Kaesŏng.
C Language and Religion
North Korea’s national language is Korean, which is written in a phonetic script known as Chosŏn'gŭl (called Hangeul in South Korea).
Religious freedom is guaranteed by the North Korean constitution, but in practice religious activity is discouraged, and about two-thirds of the people are nonreligious. Perhaps the most prominent religious tradition belongs to the indigenous Ch’ŏndogyo (“Religion of the Heavenly Way”), which combines elements of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism).
IV EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITY
Education and culture in North Korea are under state control and are utilized by the governing Korean Workers’ Party regime to indoctrinate and foster its ideology.
A Education
Education is free and compulsory in North Korea for the first ten years of schooling. In the late 1980s, some 1.5 million pupils were enrolled annually in elementary schools, and another 2.8 million students attended vocational and secondary schools. Statistics for subsequent years are unavailable. The principal institution of higher education is Kim Il Sung University (founded in 1946) in P’yŏngyang. Total enrollment in some 280 institutions of higher education exceeds 300,000. The literacy rate is estimated at about 99 percent.
B Cultural Life and Institutions
Cultural activity is aided, encouraged, and shaped by the government in consonance with its political goals. Historical museums and libraries are located in many of the larger counties. The government has also formed national symphony, theater, and dance companies.
C Communications
The government-run Korean Central News Agency is the principal distributing source of news in North Korea; several daily newspapers are published. Radio broadcasting is under the auspices of the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee. Television broadcasting was instituted in 1969, with programming limited to the evening.
V GOVERNMENT
Following World War II (1939-1945), the Korea Peninsula was divided into two military occupation zones. The northern zone was occupied by military forces from the Soviet Union, and the southern zone was occupied by United States military forces. In 1946 the Soviet Union recognized a government led by Kim Il Sung, the leader of the Korean Communist Party, in the northern zone. The Korean Communist Party merged that year with another group to form the Korean Workers’ Party. In 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was formally established as a centralized Communist state under the control of the Workers’ Party, which espoused a Marxist-Leninist ideology. Following the departure of Soviet advisers and forces in 1958, however, North Korea began to lessen the importance of Marxism-Leninism compared to a nationalistic ideology known as juche (self-reliance). Juche was linked to “Kim Il Sungism,” which extolled Kim Il Sung as the personification of national pride. This ideology continued even after Kim Il Sung died in 1994 and was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Il.
North Korea’s first constitution was approved in 1948. It was revised in 1972, 1992, and 1998. Before Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, executive power in North Korea was vested in a president, who was head of state, and a premier, who was technically head of government. The president was elected by the Supreme People’s Assembly, the unicameral legislature, for a four-year term. The president in turn appointed the premier and members of the Central People’s Committee, the government’s highest policymaking body. The post of president was vacant following the death of Kim Il Sung and was later abolished by the 1998 constitution. Kim designated his son, Kim Jong Il, as his successor; however, Kim Jong Il did not assume the presidency. Under a 1998 constitutional amendment, the chair of the National Defense Commission, a post held by Kim Jong Il, was recognized as North Korea’s “highest office.”
The 1998 constitution created the National Defense Commission and gave the armed forces increased governmental power. The commission was described as “the supreme military guidance organ of state sovereignty.” Kim Jong Il became chairman of the commission as well as general secretary of the Workers’ Party. The office of president was abolished.
Nominally, the Supreme People’s Assembly was to hold ultimate authority in the land under the 1998 constitution. But the chairman of its presidium, or executive committee, became a de facto ceremonial head of state, whose major function has been to represent North Korea in dealings with other national leaders. In June 1999 two official organs of the Workers’ Party Central Committee, in a joint article, indicated how powerful the North Korean army had become. The article equated the North Korean army with the people of North Korea. It declared that “giving priority to the Army is the perfect mode of politics in the present times … a mode of leadership which solves all problems arising in the Revolution. Our revolutionary philosophy is that the Army is precisely the Party, people, and state.”
A Executive
The highest executive office in North Korea is chair of the National Defense Commission. The 1998 constitution created the National Defense Commission and abolished the office of president. The state apparatus is subordinate to the paramount authority of the National Defense Commission.
B Legislature
The legislature, which in theory is the supreme government organ, is the unicameral Supreme People’s Assembly. Its 687 members are elected by direct vote for four-year terms. The legislature generally meets only several times a year; its day-to-day duties are performed by the standing committee of the assembly.
C Judiciary
The judicial system of North Korea consists of the central court and the provincial and people’s courts. The central court is the state’s highest judicial authority; its judges are appointed to four-year terms by the standing committee.
D Local Government
North Korea is divided into nine provinces, three special cities, and one special district. Provinces are further subdivided into 210 counties and districts. Each local administrative unit has an elected people’s assembly.
E Political Parties
The dominant political party is the Korean Workers’ Party. Two smaller parties join with the Korean Workers’ Party in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland.
F Social Services
All North Korean citizens are entitled to disability benefits and retirement allowances. Medical care is free and available at people’s clinics throughout the country.
G Defense
In 2004 the U.S. government estimated that the total personnel of the North Korean regular armed forces was about 1,106,000, distributed as follows: army, 950,000; navy, 46,000; and air force, 110,000. This total excludes reserve forces.
Estimates of weaponry were: tanks, 3,800; field artillery, 12,000; surface ships, 430; submarines, 90; and jet fighter aircraft, 760. The North Korean forces are equipped primarily with weapons, such as T-62 tanks, received from the former Soviet Union and China during the Cold War.
In 2004 North Korea’s 760 fighter jets included only 60 advanced Soviet models (MiG-23s, MiG-29s, and SU-25s). Most of its mainstay fighters are MiG-19s, MiG-21s, Il-28s, and SU-7s. Some 320 are outmoded MiG-15s and MiG-17s. By contrast, South Korea had 520 advanced fighters in 2004, including 162 U.S.-supplied advanced fighters. The United States, which has a military alliance with South Korea, based more than 100 military airplanes in South Korea in 2004, including 70 F-16s, most armed with smart bombs.
In addition to its conventional forces, North Korea announced in February 2005 that it had become a “nuclear weapons state” in order to defend itself against what it perceived as the threat of a U.S. preemptive attack. In July 2006 North Korea launched seven test missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to have the range to reach North America. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea, banning other nations from supplying it with materials necessary for building missiles. In early October 2006 North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion.
VI ECONOMY
The government of North Korea maintains a predominantly centralized, or state-controlled, economy. After the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic in 1948, all industry was nationalized and agriculture was collectivized. Government economic policy emphasized a doctrine of self-reliance and downgraded the role of foreign trade. Economic plans gave emphasis to the development of heavy industry and the mechanization of agriculture.
North Korea became dependent on its Cold War benefactors, the Soviet Union and China, for crude oil, refined petroleum products, and feedstock for its fertilizer factories. Thus, when Soviet and Chinese aid declined after 1990, the country was unable to operate its fertilizer factories, its tractors, and its irrigation pumps. Flood damage in 1995 and 1996, in addition to the petroleum shortage, crippled agricultural production and led to famine conditions in some parts of the country. With only 18 percent of its largely mountainous terrain arable and agricultural production still inadequate to meet its needs, North Korea became dependent on foreign food aid, largely from China, South Korea, and the United States. Serious malnutrition persists. The loss of Cold War aid subsidies has also led to a deterioration of its economic infrastructure.
Beginning in 2002, the government initiated economic reforms designed to reverse the economic decline. These reforms included decentralizing control over many state enterprises, which no longer receive subsidies if they are unprofitable; a revised price and wage structure that has given farmers higher wages for their production; new work rules in agricultural cooperatives that reward the more productive farm workers; and private markets in which individual vendors sell agricultural and consumer goods. These goods, which are subject to government price controls, are either locally produced or imported from China, Japan, and South Korea.
A Labor
In 2006 the estimated total workforce of North Korea was 11.4 million, with 38 percent of the workforce engaged in agriculture. The major industrial and technical trade unions are affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions; also important is the Korean Agricultural Working People’s Union. Professional workers, including artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists, have their own trade organizations.
B Agriculture
Large-scale mechanization, irrigation, and land reclamation have increased crop yields. The principal crops (with their yields in 2006) include rice (2.5 million metric tons), corn (2 million), and potatoes (2 million). Other important crops are millet, barley, wheat, vegetables, apples, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Livestock number about 3.2 million pigs, 570,000 cattle, 172,000 sheep, and 27 million poultry.
C Forestry and Fishing
Production of round wood stood at 7.3 million cubic meters (259 million cubic feet) in 2006. North Korea has a modern fishing fleet; in 2005 the catch was 712,995 metric tons, largely anchovy, tuna, mackerel, and seaweeds.
D Mining
Mining is an important sector of the North Korean economy, and efforts are being made to develop new deposits. The focus has been on iron ore and coal, which had, in 2004, outputs of 1.3 million and 30.1 million metric tons, respectively. Other important minerals include tungsten, magnesite, zinc, copper, lead, silver, gold, graphite, and uranium.
E Manufacturing
Metallurgical industries and the manufacture of heavy machinery represent a major share of North Korea’s national income. Other manufactures include trucks, diesel locomotives, heavy construction equipment, cement, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and refined copper, lead, zinc, and aluminum.
F Energy
North Korea is well endowed with coal and hydroelectricity resources. Hydroelectric power accounts for 56 percent of the electrical output. In 2003 electricity production was 18.7 billion kilowatt-hours.
In the past, given its lack of proven petroleum reserves, North Korea also relied on imports of petroleum to meet its energy needs. Initially, it sought to reduce its dependence on these imports by maximizing the production of coal and hydroelectric power. But North Korea proved unable to keep up with its energy needs and turned to nuclear energy as the key to energy self-sufficiency. The extent of its natural resource endowments made it feasible for North Korea to pursue a peaceful nuclear program and a military one at the same time. North Korea possesses extensive reserves of the graphite and uranium needed for the gas-graphite type of nuclear reactor. While this type of reactor can be used to generate electricity, it is also uniquely suited to the diversion of nuclear fuel for military purposes.
In 1989 U.S. spy satellites discovered that a reactor at Yǒngbyǒn, nominally intended for civilian nuclear power generation, had been shut down, offering an opportunity for the diversion of plutonium to military use. This provoked a diplomatic crisis that resulted in a U.S.-South Korean-Japanese commitment in 1994 to construct two reactors in North Korea of a type not suited for military use. These reactors are known as light-water reactors (LWRs). Although the agreement broke down and the reactors were never built, North Korea continues to seek LWRs, which Japan, South Korea, and other countries use to generate electricity.
Another possible new energy source for North Korea, in addition to LWRs and petroleum, is natural gas. Russia’s natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, has conducted preliminary discussions with North Korea on a possible gas pipeline from a gas field in western Siberia or from Sakhalin Island that would cross through North Korea en route to South Korea and would supply North Korean power stations and fertilizer plants.
G Transportation
The railroad system of North Korea is electrified along most of its 8,530 km (5,300 mi) of track. It has direct links to South Korea, China, and Russia. In May 2007 two passenger trains traveled between North and South Korea for the first time since the Korean War began in 1950. The one-time event was regarded as largely symbolic of improved relations between the two countries. There are 31,200 km (19,387 mi) of roads, of which only 6 percent are paved. The Taedong River is important to internal trade; the total length of inland waterways is about 2,250 km (1,400 mi). Major ports include Namp’o and Haeju on the western coast and Ch’ŏngjin and Wŏnsan on the eastern coast.
H Currency and Banking
The unit of currency is the won (2.20 won equals U.S.$1; May, 1998). North Korea has three banks, all state-controlled; the Korean Central Bank is the bank of issue.
I Foreign Trade
The bulk of North Korea’s foreign trade through the 1970s was with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), China, and other Communist countries. Since then, however, trade has been diversified to include non-Communist countries. Bilateral trade in 2003 totaled $3.3 billion, according to estimates by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA estimated that North Korea’s exports in 2003 totaled $1.2 billion, primarily minerals, metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments), and textiles. The principal trade partners for exports were China (29.9 percent), South Korea (24.1 percent), and Japan (13.2 percent). Imports totaled $2.1 billion, primarily petroleum, coking coal, machinery and equipment, textiles, and grain. The principal sources of these imports were China (32.9 percent), Thailand (10.7 percent), and Japan (4.8 percent).
In 2002 the government of North Korea announced the establishment of a special economic zone in the northwestern city of Sinŭiju, near the border with China and linked by rail to Beijing. The zone will operate autonomously with its own legal and economic systems, allowing free market principles that promote foreign investment and trade. Its creation marked the most significant reversal of economic policy in North Korea since 1948.
VII HISTORY
For the history of the Korea Peninsula before it was partitioned in 1945 into North and South Korea, see Korea. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was proclaimed in P’yŏngyang, the capital, on September 9, 1948, but a more significant date of inception would perhaps be August 29, 1946, when the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) was inaugurated under the leadership of Kim Tubong and Kim Il Sung.
A Kim Il Sung’s Rise to Power
After the establishment of the KWP, Kim Il Sung enjoyed the support of the occupying Soviet forces (until most of them withdrew in late 1948), and began playing a leading role in Korean affairs north of the 38th parallel. Under the Workers’ Party leadership and before the establishment of the DPRK, key political and economic changes had already been made. These included egalitarian land reforms that won the support of landless labor and tenant farmers, elimination of moderate and right-wing elements, suppression of religious groups, confiscation of land and wealth formerly belonging to the Japanese or to enemies of the regime, and the initiation of party-directed economic planning and development.
Kim Il Sung emerged early as the principal leader, supported by former officers of his guerrilla forces who had fought against Japanese colonial rule from bases in Manchuria. In 1949 border fighting broke out between the North and the South. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces crossed the dividing line and invaded the South. Soon, in defense of the South, the United States joined the fighting under the banner of the United Nations (UN), along with small contingents of British, Canadian, Australian, and Turkish troops. In October 1950 China joined the war on the North’s side. By the time a cease-fire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, some 800,000 Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel had lost their lives, together with 115,000 Chinese and about 36,400 U.S. military personnel. See also Korean War.
B The Post-Korean War Period
The war caused enormous damage to North Korea. North Korea endured three years of heavy U.S. bombing in addition to a ground offensive by UN forces along the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. Virtually the entire population of North Korea lived and worked in manmade underground caves for three years to escape the relentless attack of U.S. planes. Schools, hospitals, factories, and troop barracks were located in the caves. P’yŏngyang was bombed until almost no buildings were left standing, and an entirely new capital had to be rebuilt after the war.
KWP discipline and forced-labor policies resulted in considerable recovery and development by 1960. At the same time, the North Korean leadership began to turn away from Soviet tutelage, emphasizing the national character of the Korean revolution. As the quarrel between China and the USSR intensified, North Korea maneuvered for even more independence of action. During the 1960s heavy industrial growth was emphasized, but the production of consumer goods and the general standard of living lagged. Late in the 1960s, North Korea developed an especially aggressive stance toward the South: An assassination team tried and nearly succeeded in killing South Korea’s president, Park Chung Hee. In 1968 the Pueblo, a United States intelligence-gathering vessel, was seized by North Korean gunboats and its crew held in extremely severe circumstances for a year. Guerrilla raids were launched on the South, but without much effect. A U.S. reconnaissance plane was shot down in April 1969. These events, rather than weakening the South, stimulated renewed defense measures and were probably counterproductive. They also influenced the formation of a harder political order in South Korea.
In the 1970s, secret talks with southern officials led to a joint declaration (July 4, 1972) that both sides would seek to develop a dialogue aimed at unification, but by spring 1973 this effort had dissolved in acrimony. Sporadic exchanges on unification took place throughout the 1980s.
At the KWP Congress in 1980, Kim Il Sung’s son, Kim Jong Il, was given high ranking in the Politburo and on the Central Committee of the party, placing him in a commanding position to succeed his father. Kim Il Sung was reelected president in May 1990 for a four-year term. In 1991 both North and South Korea joined the United Nations (UN), and the two nations signed accords regarding nuclear and conventional arms control and reconciliation.
In 1992 North Korea signed a pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to allow the country’s nuclear facilities to be inspected. However, in 1993 the North Korean government refused to let inspectors examine nuclear waste sites believed to contain undeclared nuclear material that could be used for nuclear weapons. North Korea also suspended its formal acceptance of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which it had signed in 1985. In December 1993 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced that North Korea had most likely built at least one atomic weapon from plutonium extracted from fuel rods at a nuclear power plant. See also Arms Control; Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.
Throughout the first half of 1994, the North Korean government continued to resist a full IAEA inspection of suspected nuclear sites. The crisis was defused in June, however, when former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met with Kim Il Sung in North Korea. The following month Kim died unexpectedly. Nevertheless, the United States and North Korea reached an agreement in 1994 known as the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed to suspend the operation of designated nuclear facilities capable of producing and reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea also agreed to allow IAEA inspections to verify the suspension.
In return, the United States, Japan, and South Korea agreed to construct two new reactors of a type not suitable for nuclear weapons production. The agreement called for annual deliveries of heavy fuel oil to North Korea as well as U.S. steps to end economic sanctions against North Korea that had been in place since the Korean War. The agreement also envisaged steps leading to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea. North Korea agreed to dismantle the nuclear facilities suspended under the agreement, coincident with the completion of the two new reactors and with U.S. fulfillment of other provisions of the agreement.
Construction of the two reactors began in 1995 but stopped when the United States abrogated the 1994 agreement in December 2002, charging that North Korea had violated the accord by initiating a secret weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program. An American official who visited P’yŏngyang said that North Korea had admitted its guilt; North Korea denied that it did so and denied that it had such a program.
Meanwhile, a nationwide food crisis that surfaced in 1995 became a widespread famine by 1996. Factors contributing to the crisis included the withdrawal of food subsidies from Russia and China in the early 1990s, the cumulative effect of government agricultural policies, and a series of severe floods and droughts that damaged agricultural crops. International humanitarian relief agencies responded to the crisis with ongoing food aid and other relief efforts. Nevertheless, it was estimated that up to 1 million people had died of starvation and famine-related illnesses by 1998. North Korea’s official estimate was 200,000. Although the famine peaked in 1997, the food crisis continued into the early 2000s.
In September 1998 North Korea revised its constitution to recognize the chair of the National Defense Commission, a position held by Kim Jong Il, as the country’s top government post. Kim had been the de facto leader of North Korea since the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994.
C North Korea in the 21st Century
In June 2000 Kim Jong Il and South Korean president Kim Dae Jung held talks in P’yŏngyang and agreed to promote reconciliation and economic cooperation between the two countries. The landmark event was the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea since the division of Korea in 1945. The thaw in relations led to the first officially sanctioned temporary reunions of families separated by the Korean War. It also increased trade and investment, relaxed military tensions, and partially reopened road and rail links that had been severed by the creation of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the buffer zone created between the two Koreas after the Korean War. In May 2007, for the first time since the Korean War started in 1950, two passenger trains traveled between North and South Korea. But the one-time event was regarded as largely symbolic of improved relations, rather than a serious effort to renew passenger rail links.
In contrast to the growing détente between North Korea and South Korea, relations between the United States and North Korea reached an impasse as the 21st century began, due to tensions over the nuclear issue. China attempted to defuse the crisis by acting as a mediator between North Korea and the United States, which had placed North Korea on a list of countries supporting terrorism and had characterized North Korea as being part of an “axis of evil” in a 2002 State of the Union speech by President George W. Bush. North Korea sought direct talks with the United States, but the United States refused to meet in one-on-one negotiations. China fashioned a compromise in which negotiations would take place among six concerned nations—China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. In August 2003, February and June 2004, and July and August 2005, the six-nation talks were held in Beijing, China’s capital.
In a formal proposal presented to North Korea in June 2004 in Beijing and reaffirmed in the 2005 talks, the United States outlined a six-stage denuclearization process. North Korea would be required at the outset to acknowledge that a weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program existed and to make specific commitments providing for its elimination in a denuclearization agreement. The U.S. proposal called for North Korea to make a commitment to dismantle all of its nuclear programs at the outset of the denuclearization process and offered to discuss economic aid after such a commitment had been made and the actual dismantling process was under way.
Even after the dismantlement of these nuclear programs, however, a “wholly transformed relationship with the United States” would follow only if North Korea changed “its behavior on human rights,” addressed the “issues underlying” its inclusion on the terrorist list, eliminated chemical and biological weapons programs, put an end to the proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopted a “less provocative conventional force disposition.”
North Korea rejected the U.S. proposal, calling for a U.S. commitment to normalize economic and diplomatic relations in exchange for a North Korean dismantlement pledge and a step-by-step denuclearization process. In this process U.S. steps toward normalized relations and economic aid for North Korea would be linked with parallel North Korean steps toward dismantlement. North Korea also offered to negotiate a new agreement with the United States to freeze the production of plutonium. In February 2005 North Korea announced that it had become a nuclear weapons state, declaring that nuclear weapons were necessary to deter what it perceived as a U.S. policy of “regime change” in North Korea. North Korea had not tested a nuclear weapon.
The fourth round of the six-party talks recessed in early August 2005 without an agreement. However, in September 2005 the United States and North Korea held bilateral meetings in Beijing, China’s capital, for 13 days, leading to the resumption of the six-party negotiations. The fourth round culminated in the adoption of a major declaration on September 19, 2005, in which North Korea pledged to “abandon” all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs in a step-by-step process linked to economic aid, security guarantees, and the normalization of relations with the United States.
Soon after, the United States initiated financial sanctions against North Korea. Invoking the Patriot Act, the U.S. Treasury Department obtained the cooperation of China in freezing North Korean accounts in a Macao bank, accusing North Korea of counterfeiting U.S. currency. At the same time, the Treasury Department initiated broader efforts to persuade banks throughout the world to shun all North Korea-related accounts or transactions as possible conduits for trade relating to weapons of mass destruction. North Korea charged that the sanctions were a violation of Article Two of the September 19 agreement, in which the United States pledged to normalize relations. North Korea refused to return to the six-party negotiations and called for the United States to engage in preliminary bilateral talks on the financial sanctions issue prior to reconvening the six-party talks.
Then tensions in the region soared in early July 2006 when North Korea launched seven test missiles, one of them a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, which fell into the Sea of Japan (East Sea). International military observers judged the test-launches as unsuccessful but the concerned international community, via the UN Security Council, led the call for economic sanctions against North Korea.
D North Korea Becomes a Nuclear Weapons Nation
Then in early October 2006 North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion. United States intelligence agencies, after testing air samples for radiation and measuring seismic readings, concluded that North Korea had tested a plutonium bomb with an explosive force of less than 1 kiloton of TNT. By contrast, the plutonium bomb that the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, had an explosive force of 20 kilotons of TNT. Some nuclear weapons experts suggested that the small size of the explosion indicated that North Korean scientists and engineers may have encountered problems in imploding the device. Nevertheless, North Korea became the eighth country in the world known to have tested a nuclear weapon. United States intelligence experts estimated that North Korea had an arsenal of six to nine nuclear weapons. See also Nuclear Weapon; Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.
In response to the test the UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for a “clear threat to international peace and security.” The resolution called upon “all nations to take cooperative action, including through the inspection of cargo, in accordance with their respective national laws,” to prohibit the delivery of any materials related to weapons of mass destruction. It also banned trade with North Korea in heavy conventional weapons and luxury goods, and it called on nations to freeze funds connected with North Korea’s nonconventional arms programs. However, the resolution left member states free to decide how to implement its provisions, and it was not expected to lead to the interdiction of North Korean ships at sea or to the imposition of a quarantine or embargo on North Korea.
North Korea reacted angrily to the UN Security Council resolution, calling it a “declaration of war.” While calling for stiff sanctions against North Korea, U.S. president Bush said the United States had “no intention of attacking” North Korea. Bush added, however, that the United States reserved the right to consider “all options to defend our friends in the region,” a reference to Japan and South Korea, U.S. allies that are nonnuclear weapons states. UN secretary general Kofi Annan called on the United States to conduct bilateral talks with North Korea, but the official U.S. position remained that it would only engage in multilateral negotiations.
In a series of trilateral (U.S.-China-North Korea) and bilateral (U.S.-North Korea) meetings on October 31, 2006, in Beijing, North Korea agreed to return to the six-party talks in exchange for a U.S. agreement to seek a solution of the Macao bank dispute and the issue of global banking sanctions. The solution was to be negotiated through a working group linked to the six-party talks.
A first round of talks in December ended in a stalemate. Negotiations resumed in February 2007, resulting in a breakthrough outlining the first concrete steps for putting into practice the September 2005 agreement in which North Korea pledged to dismantle its nuclear program if certain conditions were met.
The agreement reached in February set deadlines for the first phase of North Korea’s abandonment of all nuclear weapons and research programs. North Korea agreed to close and seal its main nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant at Yǒngbyǒn under the monitoring of international inspectors. In return, North Korea would receive 100,000 tons of fuel oil. South Korea also agreed to provide 400,000 tons of food aid to its impoverished northern neighbor as part of the deal. In addition, the United States and Japan agreed to begin bilateral talks with North Korea on normalizing relations. For the United States, that would involve the lifting of financial sanctions. The United States also agreed to resolve the Macao banking dispute within 30 days.
The February agreement also provided that North Korea would receive another 900,000 tons of fuel oil, or equivalent aid, in stages after taking steps to permanently disclose and dismantle all of its nuclear facilities and programs. The details of the second phase of the deal were to be worked out in a new round of six-nation talks scheduled for mid-2007.
In July 2007 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that North Korea had shut down its main nuclear reactor and all other nuclear facilities at the Yǒngbyǒn complex. In return, North Korea received its first shipments of fuel and food aid. A new round of six-nation talks ended later in July without an agreement on a timetable for North Korea to fully disable and disclose all of its nuclear facilities and programs. But in further talks held in late September, North Korea committed to a deadline of December 31.
In October 2007 Kim Jong Il hosted South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun in P’yŏngyang in the first face-to-face meeting of Korean leaders since the historic summit of 2000. Their talks resulted in a joint declaration that stated a bilateral commitment to work toward signing a formal peace treaty for the Korean War and that outlined a number of specific projects to build closer economic ties between the two countries. Among other projects, South Korea agreed to build a special economic zone in the North Korean port of Haeju, as well as a new railway and highway linking the Kaesŏng Industrial Complex to other cities. Under the 2000 summit agreement, South Korea had built the Kaesŏng complex as a special economic zone, and factories opened there in 2004. In November 2007 the prime ministers from both countries met for the first time in 15 years and held additional talks on improving bilateral ties.
Reviewed By:
Selig S. Harrison
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
North Korea, officially Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, country in northeastern Asia that occupies the northern portion of the Korea Peninsula. North Korea is bounded on the north by China, on the northeast by Russia, on the east by the East Sea (Sea of Japan), on the south by South Korea, and on the west by the Yellow Sea. It has an area of 120,538 sq km (46,540 sq mi). The state of North Korea was established in 1948 as a result of the Soviet military occupation of the northern portion of the peninsula after World War II. The capital and largest city of North Korea is P’yŏngyang.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
North Korea is extremely mountainous and marked by deep, narrow valleys. A complex system of ranges and spurs extends across the country in a generally northeastern to southwestern direction. The most prominent mountain range is the Nangnim-sanmaek, in the north central region. Mount Paektu (2,744 m/9,003 ft), on the Chinese border, is the highest peak. Lowland plains comprise only about one-fifth of the total area and are largely confined to the country’s western coast and to the several broad river valleys of the west. Fertile alluvial soils are found in these river valleys. Most of the soils in the mountainous regions lack organic material and are relatively infertile. Only 18 percent of North Korea’s land is arable. Nearly all the major rivers rise in the mountains and flow west to the Yellow Sea. The longest river, the Yalu (Amnok), forms part of the border with China. Other streams include the Taedong, Ch’ŏngch’ŏn, and Chaeryŏng rivers. Of the major rivers only the Tumen flows to the eastern coast to empty into the East Sea.
A Climate
North Korea has a continental climate, with hot summers and cold winters. The average July temperature at P’yŏngyang is 24°C (75°F). Winter temperatures at Wŏnsan in the south average -4°C (25°F) but are considerably lower in the north. Annual precipitation in most parts of the country is about 1,000 mm (about 40 in) and is concentrated in the summer months.
B Vegetation and Animal Life
Extensive coniferous forests are found in the country’s mountainous interior. Predominant species include spruce, pine, larch, fir, and cedar. The lowland areas of the west have been deforested and are under cultivation. Because of deforestation, large indigenous mammals of North Korea, which include leopards, tigers, deer, bears, and wolves, are becoming increasingly rare, and are confined to remote forested regions. Birdlife includes crane, heron, eagle, and snipe.
C Mineral Resources
North Korea is one of the richer nations in Asia in mineral resources, possessing major reserves of anthracite coal, iron ore, tungsten, magnesite, and graphite. Among the other minerals present are copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, silver, uranium, and zinc. Most estimates suggest that North Korea’s vast anthracite coal reserves exceed 10 billion tons. Iron ore reserves, centered in Musan-ŭp, are estimated to be 3 billion tons; lead and zinc, concentrated in the Komdŏok area of the northeast, roughly 12 million tons each; tungsten, a strategic mineral needed in jet engines and missiles, 232,000 tons; and magnesite, found in Tanch’ ŏn-ŭp, Ryongyang, and Taehŭung-ni, 6 billion tons. Together with adjacent deposits in China, North Korea’s magnesite reserves are among the world’s largest. Steel manufacturers must have this fire-resistant mineral to line blast furnaces. Gold mines are located at Unsan-dong, Sangnong, and Hŏ-ch’on, but the extent of North Korea’s unexploited gold potential is unknown. American and Japanese companies operated these mines prior to the creation of North Korea.
Mineral production has declined or stopped altogether at many North Korean mines since 1990, reflecting the economic dislocations resulting from the decline of aid from China and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Problems in maintaining the infrastructure, especially the breakdown of transportation links with the mountainous mining areas, also contributed to declining mineral production. In 2003 China became the main importer of the minerals still produced by North Korean mines that have remained operational.
Preliminary geological studies suggest the possibility of significant oil and gas reserves in the seabed along the west coast on the North Korean side of the Yellow Sea. Two foreign consulting companies engaged by North Korea—Cantek of Canada and an affiliate of Nissho-Iwai of Japan—estimated potential reserves of 12 billion barrels of oil in the seabed near Anju-ŭp, according to the North Korea Petroleum Ministry.
III POPULATION
North Korea is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in the world, with no racial or linguistic minorities other than a small resident foreign (mainly Chinese) population. Koreans are believed to have descended from people who began to migrate to the Korea Peninsula from the northeastern part of the Asian mainland as early as 5000 bc.
A Population Characteristics
The population (2008 estimate) of North Korea is 23,479,089. The average population density is 195 persons per sq km (505 per sq mi). The population, however, is very unevenly distributed and is largely concentrated in the lowland plains of the west. Urbanization of the North Korean population has progressed rapidly since the 1950s; 62 percent of the total population of North Korea is now classified as urban.
B Principal Cities
P’yŏngyang, the capital, is North Korea’s largest city. Other major cities include Ch’ŏngjin, Namp’o, Sinŭiju, Wŏnsan, and Kaesŏng.
C Language and Religion
North Korea’s national language is Korean, which is written in a phonetic script known as Chosŏn'gŭl (called Hangeul in South Korea).
Religious freedom is guaranteed by the North Korean constitution, but in practice religious activity is discouraged, and about two-thirds of the people are nonreligious. Perhaps the most prominent religious tradition belongs to the indigenous Ch’ŏndogyo (“Religion of the Heavenly Way”), which combines elements of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism).
IV EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITY
Education and culture in North Korea are under state control and are utilized by the governing Korean Workers’ Party regime to indoctrinate and foster its ideology.
A Education
Education is free and compulsory in North Korea for the first ten years of schooling. In the late 1980s, some 1.5 million pupils were enrolled annually in elementary schools, and another 2.8 million students attended vocational and secondary schools. Statistics for subsequent years are unavailable. The principal institution of higher education is Kim Il Sung University (founded in 1946) in P’yŏngyang. Total enrollment in some 280 institutions of higher education exceeds 300,000. The literacy rate is estimated at about 99 percent.
B Cultural Life and Institutions
Cultural activity is aided, encouraged, and shaped by the government in consonance with its political goals. Historical museums and libraries are located in many of the larger counties. The government has also formed national symphony, theater, and dance companies.
C Communications
The government-run Korean Central News Agency is the principal distributing source of news in North Korea; several daily newspapers are published. Radio broadcasting is under the auspices of the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee. Television broadcasting was instituted in 1969, with programming limited to the evening.
V GOVERNMENT
Following World War II (1939-1945), the Korea Peninsula was divided into two military occupation zones. The northern zone was occupied by military forces from the Soviet Union, and the southern zone was occupied by United States military forces. In 1946 the Soviet Union recognized a government led by Kim Il Sung, the leader of the Korean Communist Party, in the northern zone. The Korean Communist Party merged that year with another group to form the Korean Workers’ Party. In 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was formally established as a centralized Communist state under the control of the Workers’ Party, which espoused a Marxist-Leninist ideology. Following the departure of Soviet advisers and forces in 1958, however, North Korea began to lessen the importance of Marxism-Leninism compared to a nationalistic ideology known as juche (self-reliance). Juche was linked to “Kim Il Sungism,” which extolled Kim Il Sung as the personification of national pride. This ideology continued even after Kim Il Sung died in 1994 and was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Il.
North Korea’s first constitution was approved in 1948. It was revised in 1972, 1992, and 1998. Before Kim Il Sung’s death in 1994, executive power in North Korea was vested in a president, who was head of state, and a premier, who was technically head of government. The president was elected by the Supreme People’s Assembly, the unicameral legislature, for a four-year term. The president in turn appointed the premier and members of the Central People’s Committee, the government’s highest policymaking body. The post of president was vacant following the death of Kim Il Sung and was later abolished by the 1998 constitution. Kim designated his son, Kim Jong Il, as his successor; however, Kim Jong Il did not assume the presidency. Under a 1998 constitutional amendment, the chair of the National Defense Commission, a post held by Kim Jong Il, was recognized as North Korea’s “highest office.”
The 1998 constitution created the National Defense Commission and gave the armed forces increased governmental power. The commission was described as “the supreme military guidance organ of state sovereignty.” Kim Jong Il became chairman of the commission as well as general secretary of the Workers’ Party. The office of president was abolished.
Nominally, the Supreme People’s Assembly was to hold ultimate authority in the land under the 1998 constitution. But the chairman of its presidium, or executive committee, became a de facto ceremonial head of state, whose major function has been to represent North Korea in dealings with other national leaders. In June 1999 two official organs of the Workers’ Party Central Committee, in a joint article, indicated how powerful the North Korean army had become. The article equated the North Korean army with the people of North Korea. It declared that “giving priority to the Army is the perfect mode of politics in the present times … a mode of leadership which solves all problems arising in the Revolution. Our revolutionary philosophy is that the Army is precisely the Party, people, and state.”
A Executive
The highest executive office in North Korea is chair of the National Defense Commission. The 1998 constitution created the National Defense Commission and abolished the office of president. The state apparatus is subordinate to the paramount authority of the National Defense Commission.
B Legislature
The legislature, which in theory is the supreme government organ, is the unicameral Supreme People’s Assembly. Its 687 members are elected by direct vote for four-year terms. The legislature generally meets only several times a year; its day-to-day duties are performed by the standing committee of the assembly.
C Judiciary
The judicial system of North Korea consists of the central court and the provincial and people’s courts. The central court is the state’s highest judicial authority; its judges are appointed to four-year terms by the standing committee.
D Local Government
North Korea is divided into nine provinces, three special cities, and one special district. Provinces are further subdivided into 210 counties and districts. Each local administrative unit has an elected people’s assembly.
E Political Parties
The dominant political party is the Korean Workers’ Party. Two smaller parties join with the Korean Workers’ Party in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland.
F Social Services
All North Korean citizens are entitled to disability benefits and retirement allowances. Medical care is free and available at people’s clinics throughout the country.
G Defense
In 2004 the U.S. government estimated that the total personnel of the North Korean regular armed forces was about 1,106,000, distributed as follows: army, 950,000; navy, 46,000; and air force, 110,000. This total excludes reserve forces.
Estimates of weaponry were: tanks, 3,800; field artillery, 12,000; surface ships, 430; submarines, 90; and jet fighter aircraft, 760. The North Korean forces are equipped primarily with weapons, such as T-62 tanks, received from the former Soviet Union and China during the Cold War.
In 2004 North Korea’s 760 fighter jets included only 60 advanced Soviet models (MiG-23s, MiG-29s, and SU-25s). Most of its mainstay fighters are MiG-19s, MiG-21s, Il-28s, and SU-7s. Some 320 are outmoded MiG-15s and MiG-17s. By contrast, South Korea had 520 advanced fighters in 2004, including 162 U.S.-supplied advanced fighters. The United States, which has a military alliance with South Korea, based more than 100 military airplanes in South Korea in 2004, including 70 F-16s, most armed with smart bombs.
In addition to its conventional forces, North Korea announced in February 2005 that it had become a “nuclear weapons state” in order to defend itself against what it perceived as the threat of a U.S. preemptive attack. In July 2006 North Korea launched seven test missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to have the range to reach North America. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea, banning other nations from supplying it with materials necessary for building missiles. In early October 2006 North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion.
VI ECONOMY
The government of North Korea maintains a predominantly centralized, or state-controlled, economy. After the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic in 1948, all industry was nationalized and agriculture was collectivized. Government economic policy emphasized a doctrine of self-reliance and downgraded the role of foreign trade. Economic plans gave emphasis to the development of heavy industry and the mechanization of agriculture.
North Korea became dependent on its Cold War benefactors, the Soviet Union and China, for crude oil, refined petroleum products, and feedstock for its fertilizer factories. Thus, when Soviet and Chinese aid declined after 1990, the country was unable to operate its fertilizer factories, its tractors, and its irrigation pumps. Flood damage in 1995 and 1996, in addition to the petroleum shortage, crippled agricultural production and led to famine conditions in some parts of the country. With only 18 percent of its largely mountainous terrain arable and agricultural production still inadequate to meet its needs, North Korea became dependent on foreign food aid, largely from China, South Korea, and the United States. Serious malnutrition persists. The loss of Cold War aid subsidies has also led to a deterioration of its economic infrastructure.
Beginning in 2002, the government initiated economic reforms designed to reverse the economic decline. These reforms included decentralizing control over many state enterprises, which no longer receive subsidies if they are unprofitable; a revised price and wage structure that has given farmers higher wages for their production; new work rules in agricultural cooperatives that reward the more productive farm workers; and private markets in which individual vendors sell agricultural and consumer goods. These goods, which are subject to government price controls, are either locally produced or imported from China, Japan, and South Korea.
A Labor
In 2006 the estimated total workforce of North Korea was 11.4 million, with 38 percent of the workforce engaged in agriculture. The major industrial and technical trade unions are affiliated with the General Federation of Trade Unions; also important is the Korean Agricultural Working People’s Union. Professional workers, including artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists, have their own trade organizations.
B Agriculture
Large-scale mechanization, irrigation, and land reclamation have increased crop yields. The principal crops (with their yields in 2006) include rice (2.5 million metric tons), corn (2 million), and potatoes (2 million). Other important crops are millet, barley, wheat, vegetables, apples, sweet potatoes, and soybeans. Livestock number about 3.2 million pigs, 570,000 cattle, 172,000 sheep, and 27 million poultry.
C Forestry and Fishing
Production of round wood stood at 7.3 million cubic meters (259 million cubic feet) in 2006. North Korea has a modern fishing fleet; in 2005 the catch was 712,995 metric tons, largely anchovy, tuna, mackerel, and seaweeds.
D Mining
Mining is an important sector of the North Korean economy, and efforts are being made to develop new deposits. The focus has been on iron ore and coal, which had, in 2004, outputs of 1.3 million and 30.1 million metric tons, respectively. Other important minerals include tungsten, magnesite, zinc, copper, lead, silver, gold, graphite, and uranium.
E Manufacturing
Metallurgical industries and the manufacture of heavy machinery represent a major share of North Korea’s national income. Other manufactures include trucks, diesel locomotives, heavy construction equipment, cement, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and refined copper, lead, zinc, and aluminum.
F Energy
North Korea is well endowed with coal and hydroelectricity resources. Hydroelectric power accounts for 56 percent of the electrical output. In 2003 electricity production was 18.7 billion kilowatt-hours.
In the past, given its lack of proven petroleum reserves, North Korea also relied on imports of petroleum to meet its energy needs. Initially, it sought to reduce its dependence on these imports by maximizing the production of coal and hydroelectric power. But North Korea proved unable to keep up with its energy needs and turned to nuclear energy as the key to energy self-sufficiency. The extent of its natural resource endowments made it feasible for North Korea to pursue a peaceful nuclear program and a military one at the same time. North Korea possesses extensive reserves of the graphite and uranium needed for the gas-graphite type of nuclear reactor. While this type of reactor can be used to generate electricity, it is also uniquely suited to the diversion of nuclear fuel for military purposes.
In 1989 U.S. spy satellites discovered that a reactor at Yǒngbyǒn, nominally intended for civilian nuclear power generation, had been shut down, offering an opportunity for the diversion of plutonium to military use. This provoked a diplomatic crisis that resulted in a U.S.-South Korean-Japanese commitment in 1994 to construct two reactors in North Korea of a type not suited for military use. These reactors are known as light-water reactors (LWRs). Although the agreement broke down and the reactors were never built, North Korea continues to seek LWRs, which Japan, South Korea, and other countries use to generate electricity.
Another possible new energy source for North Korea, in addition to LWRs and petroleum, is natural gas. Russia’s natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, has conducted preliminary discussions with North Korea on a possible gas pipeline from a gas field in western Siberia or from Sakhalin Island that would cross through North Korea en route to South Korea and would supply North Korean power stations and fertilizer plants.
G Transportation
The railroad system of North Korea is electrified along most of its 8,530 km (5,300 mi) of track. It has direct links to South Korea, China, and Russia. In May 2007 two passenger trains traveled between North and South Korea for the first time since the Korean War began in 1950. The one-time event was regarded as largely symbolic of improved relations between the two countries. There are 31,200 km (19,387 mi) of roads, of which only 6 percent are paved. The Taedong River is important to internal trade; the total length of inland waterways is about 2,250 km (1,400 mi). Major ports include Namp’o and Haeju on the western coast and Ch’ŏngjin and Wŏnsan on the eastern coast.
H Currency and Banking
The unit of currency is the won (2.20 won equals U.S.$1; May, 1998). North Korea has three banks, all state-controlled; the Korean Central Bank is the bank of issue.
I Foreign Trade
The bulk of North Korea’s foreign trade through the 1970s was with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), China, and other Communist countries. Since then, however, trade has been diversified to include non-Communist countries. Bilateral trade in 2003 totaled $3.3 billion, according to estimates by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA estimated that North Korea’s exports in 2003 totaled $1.2 billion, primarily minerals, metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments), and textiles. The principal trade partners for exports were China (29.9 percent), South Korea (24.1 percent), and Japan (13.2 percent). Imports totaled $2.1 billion, primarily petroleum, coking coal, machinery and equipment, textiles, and grain. The principal sources of these imports were China (32.9 percent), Thailand (10.7 percent), and Japan (4.8 percent).
In 2002 the government of North Korea announced the establishment of a special economic zone in the northwestern city of Sinŭiju, near the border with China and linked by rail to Beijing. The zone will operate autonomously with its own legal and economic systems, allowing free market principles that promote foreign investment and trade. Its creation marked the most significant reversal of economic policy in North Korea since 1948.
VII HISTORY
For the history of the Korea Peninsula before it was partitioned in 1945 into North and South Korea, see Korea. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was proclaimed in P’yŏngyang, the capital, on September 9, 1948, but a more significant date of inception would perhaps be August 29, 1946, when the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP) was inaugurated under the leadership of Kim Tubong and Kim Il Sung.
A Kim Il Sung’s Rise to Power
After the establishment of the KWP, Kim Il Sung enjoyed the support of the occupying Soviet forces (until most of them withdrew in late 1948), and began playing a leading role in Korean affairs north of the 38th parallel. Under the Workers’ Party leadership and before the establishment of the DPRK, key political and economic changes had already been made. These included egalitarian land reforms that won the support of landless labor and tenant farmers, elimination of moderate and right-wing elements, suppression of religious groups, confiscation of land and wealth formerly belonging to the Japanese or to enemies of the regime, and the initiation of party-directed economic planning and development.
Kim Il Sung emerged early as the principal leader, supported by former officers of his guerrilla forces who had fought against Japanese colonial rule from bases in Manchuria. In 1949 border fighting broke out between the North and the South. On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces crossed the dividing line and invaded the South. Soon, in defense of the South, the United States joined the fighting under the banner of the United Nations (UN), along with small contingents of British, Canadian, Australian, and Turkish troops. In October 1950 China joined the war on the North’s side. By the time a cease-fire agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, some 800,000 Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel had lost their lives, together with 115,000 Chinese and about 36,400 U.S. military personnel. See also Korean War.
B The Post-Korean War Period
The war caused enormous damage to North Korea. North Korea endured three years of heavy U.S. bombing in addition to a ground offensive by UN forces along the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. Virtually the entire population of North Korea lived and worked in manmade underground caves for three years to escape the relentless attack of U.S. planes. Schools, hospitals, factories, and troop barracks were located in the caves. P’yŏngyang was bombed until almost no buildings were left standing, and an entirely new capital had to be rebuilt after the war.
KWP discipline and forced-labor policies resulted in considerable recovery and development by 1960. At the same time, the North Korean leadership began to turn away from Soviet tutelage, emphasizing the national character of the Korean revolution. As the quarrel between China and the USSR intensified, North Korea maneuvered for even more independence of action. During the 1960s heavy industrial growth was emphasized, but the production of consumer goods and the general standard of living lagged. Late in the 1960s, North Korea developed an especially aggressive stance toward the South: An assassination team tried and nearly succeeded in killing South Korea’s president, Park Chung Hee. In 1968 the Pueblo, a United States intelligence-gathering vessel, was seized by North Korean gunboats and its crew held in extremely severe circumstances for a year. Guerrilla raids were launched on the South, but without much effect. A U.S. reconnaissance plane was shot down in April 1969. These events, rather than weakening the South, stimulated renewed defense measures and were probably counterproductive. They also influenced the formation of a harder political order in South Korea.
In the 1970s, secret talks with southern officials led to a joint declaration (July 4, 1972) that both sides would seek to develop a dialogue aimed at unification, but by spring 1973 this effort had dissolved in acrimony. Sporadic exchanges on unification took place throughout the 1980s.
At the KWP Congress in 1980, Kim Il Sung’s son, Kim Jong Il, was given high ranking in the Politburo and on the Central Committee of the party, placing him in a commanding position to succeed his father. Kim Il Sung was reelected president in May 1990 for a four-year term. In 1991 both North and South Korea joined the United Nations (UN), and the two nations signed accords regarding nuclear and conventional arms control and reconciliation.
In 1992 North Korea signed a pact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to allow the country’s nuclear facilities to be inspected. However, in 1993 the North Korean government refused to let inspectors examine nuclear waste sites believed to contain undeclared nuclear material that could be used for nuclear weapons. North Korea also suspended its formal acceptance of the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which it had signed in 1985. In December 1993 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced that North Korea had most likely built at least one atomic weapon from plutonium extracted from fuel rods at a nuclear power plant. See also Arms Control; Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.
Throughout the first half of 1994, the North Korean government continued to resist a full IAEA inspection of suspected nuclear sites. The crisis was defused in June, however, when former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met with Kim Il Sung in North Korea. The following month Kim died unexpectedly. Nevertheless, the United States and North Korea reached an agreement in 1994 known as the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed to suspend the operation of designated nuclear facilities capable of producing and reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea also agreed to allow IAEA inspections to verify the suspension.
In return, the United States, Japan, and South Korea agreed to construct two new reactors of a type not suitable for nuclear weapons production. The agreement called for annual deliveries of heavy fuel oil to North Korea as well as U.S. steps to end economic sanctions against North Korea that had been in place since the Korean War. The agreement also envisaged steps leading to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and North Korea. North Korea agreed to dismantle the nuclear facilities suspended under the agreement, coincident with the completion of the two new reactors and with U.S. fulfillment of other provisions of the agreement.
Construction of the two reactors began in 1995 but stopped when the United States abrogated the 1994 agreement in December 2002, charging that North Korea had violated the accord by initiating a secret weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program. An American official who visited P’yŏngyang said that North Korea had admitted its guilt; North Korea denied that it did so and denied that it had such a program.
Meanwhile, a nationwide food crisis that surfaced in 1995 became a widespread famine by 1996. Factors contributing to the crisis included the withdrawal of food subsidies from Russia and China in the early 1990s, the cumulative effect of government agricultural policies, and a series of severe floods and droughts that damaged agricultural crops. International humanitarian relief agencies responded to the crisis with ongoing food aid and other relief efforts. Nevertheless, it was estimated that up to 1 million people had died of starvation and famine-related illnesses by 1998. North Korea’s official estimate was 200,000. Although the famine peaked in 1997, the food crisis continued into the early 2000s.
In September 1998 North Korea revised its constitution to recognize the chair of the National Defense Commission, a position held by Kim Jong Il, as the country’s top government post. Kim had been the de facto leader of North Korea since the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994.
C North Korea in the 21st Century
In June 2000 Kim Jong Il and South Korean president Kim Dae Jung held talks in P’yŏngyang and agreed to promote reconciliation and economic cooperation between the two countries. The landmark event was the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea since the division of Korea in 1945. The thaw in relations led to the first officially sanctioned temporary reunions of families separated by the Korean War. It also increased trade and investment, relaxed military tensions, and partially reopened road and rail links that had been severed by the creation of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the buffer zone created between the two Koreas after the Korean War. In May 2007, for the first time since the Korean War started in 1950, two passenger trains traveled between North and South Korea. But the one-time event was regarded as largely symbolic of improved relations, rather than a serious effort to renew passenger rail links.
In contrast to the growing détente between North Korea and South Korea, relations between the United States and North Korea reached an impasse as the 21st century began, due to tensions over the nuclear issue. China attempted to defuse the crisis by acting as a mediator between North Korea and the United States, which had placed North Korea on a list of countries supporting terrorism and had characterized North Korea as being part of an “axis of evil” in a 2002 State of the Union speech by President George W. Bush. North Korea sought direct talks with the United States, but the United States refused to meet in one-on-one negotiations. China fashioned a compromise in which negotiations would take place among six concerned nations—China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. In August 2003, February and June 2004, and July and August 2005, the six-nation talks were held in Beijing, China’s capital.
In a formal proposal presented to North Korea in June 2004 in Beijing and reaffirmed in the 2005 talks, the United States outlined a six-stage denuclearization process. North Korea would be required at the outset to acknowledge that a weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program existed and to make specific commitments providing for its elimination in a denuclearization agreement. The U.S. proposal called for North Korea to make a commitment to dismantle all of its nuclear programs at the outset of the denuclearization process and offered to discuss economic aid after such a commitment had been made and the actual dismantling process was under way.
Even after the dismantlement of these nuclear programs, however, a “wholly transformed relationship with the United States” would follow only if North Korea changed “its behavior on human rights,” addressed the “issues underlying” its inclusion on the terrorist list, eliminated chemical and biological weapons programs, put an end to the proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopted a “less provocative conventional force disposition.”
North Korea rejected the U.S. proposal, calling for a U.S. commitment to normalize economic and diplomatic relations in exchange for a North Korean dismantlement pledge and a step-by-step denuclearization process. In this process U.S. steps toward normalized relations and economic aid for North Korea would be linked with parallel North Korean steps toward dismantlement. North Korea also offered to negotiate a new agreement with the United States to freeze the production of plutonium. In February 2005 North Korea announced that it had become a nuclear weapons state, declaring that nuclear weapons were necessary to deter what it perceived as a U.S. policy of “regime change” in North Korea. North Korea had not tested a nuclear weapon.
The fourth round of the six-party talks recessed in early August 2005 without an agreement. However, in September 2005 the United States and North Korea held bilateral meetings in Beijing, China’s capital, for 13 days, leading to the resumption of the six-party negotiations. The fourth round culminated in the adoption of a major declaration on September 19, 2005, in which North Korea pledged to “abandon” all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs in a step-by-step process linked to economic aid, security guarantees, and the normalization of relations with the United States.
Soon after, the United States initiated financial sanctions against North Korea. Invoking the Patriot Act, the U.S. Treasury Department obtained the cooperation of China in freezing North Korean accounts in a Macao bank, accusing North Korea of counterfeiting U.S. currency. At the same time, the Treasury Department initiated broader efforts to persuade banks throughout the world to shun all North Korea-related accounts or transactions as possible conduits for trade relating to weapons of mass destruction. North Korea charged that the sanctions were a violation of Article Two of the September 19 agreement, in which the United States pledged to normalize relations. North Korea refused to return to the six-party negotiations and called for the United States to engage in preliminary bilateral talks on the financial sanctions issue prior to reconvening the six-party talks.
Then tensions in the region soared in early July 2006 when North Korea launched seven test missiles, one of them a long-range Taepodong-2 missile, which fell into the Sea of Japan (East Sea). International military observers judged the test-launches as unsuccessful but the concerned international community, via the UN Security Council, led the call for economic sanctions against North Korea.
D North Korea Becomes a Nuclear Weapons Nation
Then in early October 2006 North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in an underground explosion. United States intelligence agencies, after testing air samples for radiation and measuring seismic readings, concluded that North Korea had tested a plutonium bomb with an explosive force of less than 1 kiloton of TNT. By contrast, the plutonium bomb that the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, had an explosive force of 20 kilotons of TNT. Some nuclear weapons experts suggested that the small size of the explosion indicated that North Korean scientists and engineers may have encountered problems in imploding the device. Nevertheless, North Korea became the eighth country in the world known to have tested a nuclear weapon. United States intelligence experts estimated that North Korea had an arsenal of six to nine nuclear weapons. See also Nuclear Weapon; Nuclear Weapons Proliferation.
In response to the test the UN Security Council unanimously voted to impose financial and weapons sanctions on North Korea for a “clear threat to international peace and security.” The resolution called upon “all nations to take cooperative action, including through the inspection of cargo, in accordance with their respective national laws,” to prohibit the delivery of any materials related to weapons of mass destruction. It also banned trade with North Korea in heavy conventional weapons and luxury goods, and it called on nations to freeze funds connected with North Korea’s nonconventional arms programs. However, the resolution left member states free to decide how to implement its provisions, and it was not expected to lead to the interdiction of North Korean ships at sea or to the imposition of a quarantine or embargo on North Korea.
North Korea reacted angrily to the UN Security Council resolution, calling it a “declaration of war.” While calling for stiff sanctions against North Korea, U.S. president Bush said the United States had “no intention of attacking” North Korea. Bush added, however, that the United States reserved the right to consider “all options to defend our friends in the region,” a reference to Japan and South Korea, U.S. allies that are nonnuclear weapons states. UN secretary general Kofi Annan called on the United States to conduct bilateral talks with North Korea, but the official U.S. position remained that it would only engage in multilateral negotiations.
In a series of trilateral (U.S.-China-North Korea) and bilateral (U.S.-North Korea) meetings on October 31, 2006, in Beijing, North Korea agreed to return to the six-party talks in exchange for a U.S. agreement to seek a solution of the Macao bank dispute and the issue of global banking sanctions. The solution was to be negotiated through a working group linked to the six-party talks.
A first round of talks in December ended in a stalemate. Negotiations resumed in February 2007, resulting in a breakthrough outlining the first concrete steps for putting into practice the September 2005 agreement in which North Korea pledged to dismantle its nuclear program if certain conditions were met.
The agreement reached in February set deadlines for the first phase of North Korea’s abandonment of all nuclear weapons and research programs. North Korea agreed to close and seal its main nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant at Yǒngbyǒn under the monitoring of international inspectors. In return, North Korea would receive 100,000 tons of fuel oil. South Korea also agreed to provide 400,000 tons of food aid to its impoverished northern neighbor as part of the deal. In addition, the United States and Japan agreed to begin bilateral talks with North Korea on normalizing relations. For the United States, that would involve the lifting of financial sanctions. The United States also agreed to resolve the Macao banking dispute within 30 days.
The February agreement also provided that North Korea would receive another 900,000 tons of fuel oil, or equivalent aid, in stages after taking steps to permanently disclose and dismantle all of its nuclear facilities and programs. The details of the second phase of the deal were to be worked out in a new round of six-nation talks scheduled for mid-2007.
In July 2007 inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified that North Korea had shut down its main nuclear reactor and all other nuclear facilities at the Yǒngbyǒn complex. In return, North Korea received its first shipments of fuel and food aid. A new round of six-nation talks ended later in July without an agreement on a timetable for North Korea to fully disable and disclose all of its nuclear facilities and programs. But in further talks held in late September, North Korea committed to a deadline of December 31.
In October 2007 Kim Jong Il hosted South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun in P’yŏngyang in the first face-to-face meeting of Korean leaders since the historic summit of 2000. Their talks resulted in a joint declaration that stated a bilateral commitment to work toward signing a formal peace treaty for the Korean War and that outlined a number of specific projects to build closer economic ties between the two countries. Among other projects, South Korea agreed to build a special economic zone in the North Korean port of Haeju, as well as a new railway and highway linking the Kaesŏng Industrial Complex to other cities. Under the 2000 summit agreement, South Korea had built the Kaesŏng complex as a special economic zone, and factories opened there in 2004. In November 2007 the prime ministers from both countries met for the first time in 15 years and held additional talks on improving bilateral ties.
Reviewed By:
Selig S. Harrison
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
KIRIBATI
Kiribati
I INTRODUCTION
Kiribati, independent republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, located in the central Pacific Ocean, about 4,000 km (about 2,500 mi) southwest of Hawaii. It is part of the division of the Pacific islands that is known as Micronesia. Kiribati consists of 33 coral islands divided among three island groups: the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Line Islands. All of the islands are atolls (ring-shaped islands with central lagoons) except for the island of Banaba in the Gilbert Islands. Of the 33 islands of Kiribati, 21 are inhabited. Most of the population is concentrated in the Gilbert Islands. Only one of the Phoenix Islands and three of the Line Islands are permanently inhabited. The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Bairiki, an islet of Tarawa, serves as an administrative center.
Between 1892 and 1900 the British government made the Gilbert Islands a British protectorate. In 1916 the islands gave up their nominal sovereignty and became part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. The Phoenix and Line islands eventually joined the colony, and the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) seceded. In 1979 the colony became the independent republic of Kiribati.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Kiribati has a total land area of 811 sq km (313 sq mi). The islands extend about 3,900 km (about 2,400 mi) from east to west. From north to south they extend about 2,100 km (about 1,300 mi), straddling the equator. Kiritimati (also called Christmas Island), one of the Line Islands, occupies 609 sq km (235 sq mi) and has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Kiribati’s exclusive economic zone (area of the ocean in which it controls fishing and other rights) covers more than 3 million sq km (more than 1 million sq mi).
Kiribati’s sandy infertile soils limit vegetation. Primary plant species include coconut palm, screw pine (Pandanus), and arrowroot. Rain collected in catchment systems is the primary source of fresh water. Marine life thrives in the waters surrounding Kiribati. The islands are home to numerous varieties of insects. Other animal life consists primarily of species introduced by humans.
Kiribati has a warm, humid climate, with average temperatures in the upper 20°sC (lower 80°sF). Annual rainfall, most of which falls between October and March, varies from about 3,050 mm (about 120 in) in the northern islands to one-third that amount or less in the southern islands. The southern islands experience frequent droughts. Kiribati lies outside of cyclone zones, and violent storms are infrequent.
With the exception of Banaba, a raised coral island with a maximum elevation of 81 m (266 ft), the islands of Kiribati are low-lying atolls that seldom rise more than 4 m (13 ft) above sea level. These atolls would be especially susceptible to flooding or even submersion if the ocean level were to rise. For this reason, Kiribati and other South Pacific nations have expressed concern about global warming, which could cause sea levels to rise.
Kiribati is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, an important tourism and fishing resource. Marine fishing has increased significantly since 1980, however, and the reefs have been damaged by the fishing industry. Access to safe water and sanitation is good in urban areas, where about one-third of the population resides. Drought is a persistent problem.
III THE PEOPLE OF KIRIBATI
The population of Kiribati was estimated at 110,252 in 2008, giving the country a population density of 136 persons per sq km (352 per sq mi). The overwhelming majority of the people are of Micronesian descent and are known as I-Kiribati. There are also very small minorities of Polynesians and non-Pacific Islanders. English is the official language of Kiribati, and many I-Kiribati speak it in addition to their native language, Gilbertese, an Austronesian language. Christianity predominates in Kiribati: about half of the population is Roman Catholic, and about 40 percent is Protestant. There are also small groups of Seventh-day Adventists, Baha’is, and Mormons.
About one-third of Kiribati’s people live on Tarawa, especially in and around the administrative center of Bairiki. Others live in small rural villages scattered among the outer islands. Through resettlement programs designed to alleviate overcrowding on Tarawa, about 1,500 people were moved to the Teraina and Tabuaeran atolls in the Line Islands between 1988 and 1993. Another program of resettlement to the Phoenix Islands was initiated in 1995. Most of the former residents of Banaba were relocated to Rabi Island (part of Fiji) in the late 1940s due to environmental degradation resulting from phosphate mining on Banaba. Banabans living on Rabi are citizens of Fiji (an island nation officially named Fiji Islands), but they retain land rights on Banaba and they have a representative in the Kiribati legislature.
Education in Kiribati is free and compulsory between the ages of 6 and 15. The government operates primary and secondary schools, and churches run some secondary schools as well. Since 1973 Tarawa has had an extension of the University of the South Pacific. Other institutions of higher learning include the Tarawa Technical Institute, which offers technical and vocational courses; a maritime training school, which prepares students for careers at sea; and a teacher training college.
Most I-Kiribati live in extended families, especially in rural areas outside of Tarawa. People in these communities are involved primarily in subsistence activities and live in traditional houses made of local materials, such as wood and coconut leaves. In contrast, life in South Tarawa shows more Western influences. There, people tend to live in smaller kin groups, and modern forms of housing have become more common. The diet of urban dwellers is increasingly dependent upon imported foods. Most islanders wear casual, Western-style clothing. Men typically wear shorts and T-shirts, while women often wear loose dresses. Social life in Kiribati is centered largely around the church. Popular recreational activities include martial arts, soccer, volleyball, and canoe racing.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Kiribati is based mainly on subsistence activities. The gross domestic product (GDP) was $71 million in 2006, or $706 per person. In 1986 the United Nations classified Kiribati as one of the world’s least developed countries.
The majority of Kiribati’s workforce is engaged in subsistence agriculture and fishing. In addition to the prevalent coconut and other palm products, agricultural crops include bananas, breadfruit, papayas, taro, and some citrus fruits. Because the northern Gilbert Islands receive more rainfall, they support the greatest variety of crops. Pigs and chickens are also raised in Kiribati, primarily for local consumption. Fish and other seafood are abundant in the waters surrounding the islands. In the early 1990s about one-third of Kiribati’s workforce was employed as wage earners. The government is the largest employer, and most jobs are on Tarawa. Other workers are employed on overseas ships or work in the phosphate industry on nearby Nauru. Remittances from these overseas workers are vital to Kiribati’s economy. The government also collects substantial revenues from the sale of licenses to foreign fishing vessels.
During the period when Kiribati was controlled by the British government (1892-1979), phosphate mining on Banaba was the primary source of revenue for the islands. Deposits were quickly depleted, however, and mining operations ceased in 1979. Kiribati has maintained a trust fund established with revenues from phosphate mining, which is used to help offset government expenditures. However, with the loss of the phosphate industry, Kiribati has remained heavily dependent on economic aid, mainly from Japan, the European Union (EU), and Australia.
Kiribati’s only major exports are copra (dried coconut meat), cultivated seaweed, and fish. The United States, Australia, and New Zealand are the leading purchasers of the country’s exports. Despite the cultivation of crops for local consumption, Kiribati is heavily dependent upon imported foods. Other imports include machinery and equipment, manufactured goods, and imported fossil fuels, which supply most of the country’s energy. Australia, the Fiji Islands, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States are the chief suppliers of imports. The value of imports to Kiribati far outweighs the value of its exports. The country’s official currency is the Australian dollar (1.30 Australian dollars equal U.S.$1; 2006).
Kiribati’s international airport is on Tarawa. Air Tungaru, which is Kiribati’s national airline, and Air Nauru, the airline of the Marshall Islands, connect Kiribati with Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. All of the Gilbert Islands have airstrips for small planes, as do many of the inhabited atolls. Kiribati’s main port is located at Betio, an islet of Tarawa. Banaba and Kiritimati also have significant ports. The Pacific Forum Line provides international shipping services, while Kiribati Shipping Corporation services the outer islands. Paved roads and bridges connect the main islets of Tarawa. Outside of Tarawa, many of the larger islands have unpaved roads. People travel between islands by canoes and other boats. The government of Kiribati runs an AM radio station. It also publishes a weekly newspaper, Te Uekera, which is written in Gilbertese; top news stories are also printed in English.
V GOVERNMENT
The government of Kiribati is modeled on the British parliamentary system. The president, called the Beretitenti, is both chief of state and head of government. All Kiribati citizens age 18 and older are eligible to vote. Voters elect the president from a choice of three or four candidates, who are nominated by the legislature from among its members. The president, who may serve as many as three consecutive four-year terms, appoints the vice president and a cabinet of up to eight members from the legislature.
Kiribati has a 41-member unicameral (single-chamber) legislature called the Maneaba ni Maungatabu (House of Assembly). Thirty-nine of its members are chosen by popular vote and serve for four-year terms. The attorney general and a representative nominated to represent Banaban people living on the island of Rabi in Fiji are also members of the legislature.
The judicial system of Kiribati is modeled after the British legal system and consists of a high court, a court of appeal, and lower-level magistrate courts. The president appoints the chief justice of the high court with the advice of the cabinet. The chief justice then advises the president in appointing the other justices.
Permanently inhabited atolls have local governing councils, which are particularly important due to the remoteness of some of the islands from the country’s capital. Council members are elected to three-year terms.
The government provides all basic social services for Kiribati residents, including health care. Hospital and medical services are concentrated on Tarawa. Small dispensaries and clinics serve the other inhabited islands.
Although Kiribati has many political groups, they lack the formal organization, platforms, and structure of organized political parties. Instead, they tend to function more as interest groups, concerned with a single or limited set of specific issues. Kiribati participates in many regional organizations, including the South Pacific Forum, which deals with foreign affairs and international trade, and the South Pacific Commission, which provides technical assistance to the islands. Kiribati is a member of the United Nations.
VI HISTORY
Archaeological evidence indicates that the islands now known as the Gilbert Islands were settled by Austronesian-speaking people long before the 1st century ad. Groups from Fiji and Tonga arrived about the 13th century and intermarried with the islands’ inhabitants to form the Micronesian people known as the I-Kiribati.
In 1606 Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros sighted Butaritari, an atoll in the present-day Gilbert Islands. In 1788 British naval captains John Marshall and Thomas Gilbert, for whom the Gilbert Islands were later named, came upon several of the other islands while sailing from Australia to China. Between the 1820s and 1860s American and British whalers hunted sperm whales in the surrounding waters, and some deserted their ships to settle on the islands. These early residents began dealing coconut oil and then copra with European, Australian, and American trading ships.
American Protestant missionary Hiram Bingham arrived in 1857 and began spreading Christianity through the northern Gilbert Islands with the help of Hawaiian pastors. In 1870 the London Missionary Society placed Samoan pastors on several of the southern Gilbert Islands. Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in 1888. Over the following decades, Catholicism became the dominant religion of the northern Gilbert Islands, while some of the southern Gilberts remained Protestant.
In 1892 British captain E. H. M. Davis declared 16 of the Gilbert Islands and 9 of the Polynesian-inhabited Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) to the south a British protectorate. After phosphate was discovered on Ocean Island (now Banaba) in 1900, the British placed this island under the protectorate’s jurisdiction as well. In 1916 Britain formally annexed the area as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC). In the years that followed, several of the present-day Line Islands were added to the colony. Britain added the present-day Phoenix Islands to the GEIC in 1937. In 1939 the British agreed that Kanton and Enderbury—two Phoenix Islands strategically important to the United States—would be administered jointly by the United States and Britain.
Japan occupied the Gilbert Islands in 1942, during World War II (1939-1945). Most European residents evacuated the islands, and the colonial administration established temporary headquarters in Sydney, Australia, which it later moved to Fongafale (now in Tuvalu). In one of the major battles of the war in the Pacific, U.S. military forces invaded Tarawa and drove the Japanese off most of the islands in 1943. The Europeans returned, and colonial officials set up a new headquarters on Tarawa. The Japanese continued to hold Banaba until 1945. During their occupation, they deported most of Banaba’s residents to Tarawa, the island of Nauru, the Millennium Islands, and the Marshall Islands. The Japanese massacred nearly all remaining Banabans before surrendering the island. After the war, the British resettled deported Banabans on the Fijian island of Rabi.
Movements towards self-government in the GEIC began in 1963, when island residents gained a political voice through a local council created to advise the colonial government. In 1967 an elected house of representatives replaced this council, and in 1974 the House of Assembly was created. Because the Polynesian people of the Ellice Islands wanted to maintain cultural distinctiveness from the Micronesians of the Gilbert Islands, the Ellice Islands separated from the GEIC in 1975 and formed the nation of Tuvalu. In 1977 the colony achieved complete self-government, and in 1979 it declared formal independence under a new constitution. Ieremia Tabai was the country’s first president. The new nation became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and adopted the name Kiribati, a rendering of the word “Gilberts” in the Gilbertese language.
In September 1979 Kiribati signed a treaty of friendship with the United States in which the United States gave up its claims to Kanton and Enderbury islands; the two islands were formally ceded to Kiribati in 1983. In 1981 the Banabans won compensation from the British government for revenues from phosphate mining over the previous 50 years. In 1992 Kiribati’s legislature approved a proposal to seek compensation from Japan for damage caused during World War II.
Contributed By:
Robert C. Kiste
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Kiribati, independent republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, located in the central Pacific Ocean, about 4,000 km (about 2,500 mi) southwest of Hawaii. It is part of the division of the Pacific islands that is known as Micronesia. Kiribati consists of 33 coral islands divided among three island groups: the Gilbert Islands, the Phoenix Islands, and the Line Islands. All of the islands are atolls (ring-shaped islands with central lagoons) except for the island of Banaba in the Gilbert Islands. Of the 33 islands of Kiribati, 21 are inhabited. Most of the population is concentrated in the Gilbert Islands. Only one of the Phoenix Islands and three of the Line Islands are permanently inhabited. The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa, an atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Bairiki, an islet of Tarawa, serves as an administrative center.
Between 1892 and 1900 the British government made the Gilbert Islands a British protectorate. In 1916 the islands gave up their nominal sovereignty and became part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony. The Phoenix and Line islands eventually joined the colony, and the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) seceded. In 1979 the colony became the independent republic of Kiribati.
II LAND AND RESOURCES
Kiribati has a total land area of 811 sq km (313 sq mi). The islands extend about 3,900 km (about 2,400 mi) from east to west. From north to south they extend about 2,100 km (about 1,300 mi), straddling the equator. Kiritimati (also called Christmas Island), one of the Line Islands, occupies 609 sq km (235 sq mi) and has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Kiribati’s exclusive economic zone (area of the ocean in which it controls fishing and other rights) covers more than 3 million sq km (more than 1 million sq mi).
Kiribati’s sandy infertile soils limit vegetation. Primary plant species include coconut palm, screw pine (Pandanus), and arrowroot. Rain collected in catchment systems is the primary source of fresh water. Marine life thrives in the waters surrounding Kiribati. The islands are home to numerous varieties of insects. Other animal life consists primarily of species introduced by humans.
Kiribati has a warm, humid climate, with average temperatures in the upper 20°sC (lower 80°sF). Annual rainfall, most of which falls between October and March, varies from about 3,050 mm (about 120 in) in the northern islands to one-third that amount or less in the southern islands. The southern islands experience frequent droughts. Kiribati lies outside of cyclone zones, and violent storms are infrequent.
With the exception of Banaba, a raised coral island with a maximum elevation of 81 m (266 ft), the islands of Kiribati are low-lying atolls that seldom rise more than 4 m (13 ft) above sea level. These atolls would be especially susceptible to flooding or even submersion if the ocean level were to rise. For this reason, Kiribati and other South Pacific nations have expressed concern about global warming, which could cause sea levels to rise.
Kiribati is almost entirely surrounded by coral reefs, an important tourism and fishing resource. Marine fishing has increased significantly since 1980, however, and the reefs have been damaged by the fishing industry. Access to safe water and sanitation is good in urban areas, where about one-third of the population resides. Drought is a persistent problem.
III THE PEOPLE OF KIRIBATI
The population of Kiribati was estimated at 110,252 in 2008, giving the country a population density of 136 persons per sq km (352 per sq mi). The overwhelming majority of the people are of Micronesian descent and are known as I-Kiribati. There are also very small minorities of Polynesians and non-Pacific Islanders. English is the official language of Kiribati, and many I-Kiribati speak it in addition to their native language, Gilbertese, an Austronesian language. Christianity predominates in Kiribati: about half of the population is Roman Catholic, and about 40 percent is Protestant. There are also small groups of Seventh-day Adventists, Baha’is, and Mormons.
About one-third of Kiribati’s people live on Tarawa, especially in and around the administrative center of Bairiki. Others live in small rural villages scattered among the outer islands. Through resettlement programs designed to alleviate overcrowding on Tarawa, about 1,500 people were moved to the Teraina and Tabuaeran atolls in the Line Islands between 1988 and 1993. Another program of resettlement to the Phoenix Islands was initiated in 1995. Most of the former residents of Banaba were relocated to Rabi Island (part of Fiji) in the late 1940s due to environmental degradation resulting from phosphate mining on Banaba. Banabans living on Rabi are citizens of Fiji (an island nation officially named Fiji Islands), but they retain land rights on Banaba and they have a representative in the Kiribati legislature.
Education in Kiribati is free and compulsory between the ages of 6 and 15. The government operates primary and secondary schools, and churches run some secondary schools as well. Since 1973 Tarawa has had an extension of the University of the South Pacific. Other institutions of higher learning include the Tarawa Technical Institute, which offers technical and vocational courses; a maritime training school, which prepares students for careers at sea; and a teacher training college.
Most I-Kiribati live in extended families, especially in rural areas outside of Tarawa. People in these communities are involved primarily in subsistence activities and live in traditional houses made of local materials, such as wood and coconut leaves. In contrast, life in South Tarawa shows more Western influences. There, people tend to live in smaller kin groups, and modern forms of housing have become more common. The diet of urban dwellers is increasingly dependent upon imported foods. Most islanders wear casual, Western-style clothing. Men typically wear shorts and T-shirts, while women often wear loose dresses. Social life in Kiribati is centered largely around the church. Popular recreational activities include martial arts, soccer, volleyball, and canoe racing.
IV ECONOMY
The economy of Kiribati is based mainly on subsistence activities. The gross domestic product (GDP) was $71 million in 2006, or $706 per person. In 1986 the United Nations classified Kiribati as one of the world’s least developed countries.
The majority of Kiribati’s workforce is engaged in subsistence agriculture and fishing. In addition to the prevalent coconut and other palm products, agricultural crops include bananas, breadfruit, papayas, taro, and some citrus fruits. Because the northern Gilbert Islands receive more rainfall, they support the greatest variety of crops. Pigs and chickens are also raised in Kiribati, primarily for local consumption. Fish and other seafood are abundant in the waters surrounding the islands. In the early 1990s about one-third of Kiribati’s workforce was employed as wage earners. The government is the largest employer, and most jobs are on Tarawa. Other workers are employed on overseas ships or work in the phosphate industry on nearby Nauru. Remittances from these overseas workers are vital to Kiribati’s economy. The government also collects substantial revenues from the sale of licenses to foreign fishing vessels.
During the period when Kiribati was controlled by the British government (1892-1979), phosphate mining on Banaba was the primary source of revenue for the islands. Deposits were quickly depleted, however, and mining operations ceased in 1979. Kiribati has maintained a trust fund established with revenues from phosphate mining, which is used to help offset government expenditures. However, with the loss of the phosphate industry, Kiribati has remained heavily dependent on economic aid, mainly from Japan, the European Union (EU), and Australia.
Kiribati’s only major exports are copra (dried coconut meat), cultivated seaweed, and fish. The United States, Australia, and New Zealand are the leading purchasers of the country’s exports. Despite the cultivation of crops for local consumption, Kiribati is heavily dependent upon imported foods. Other imports include machinery and equipment, manufactured goods, and imported fossil fuels, which supply most of the country’s energy. Australia, the Fiji Islands, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States are the chief suppliers of imports. The value of imports to Kiribati far outweighs the value of its exports. The country’s official currency is the Australian dollar (1.30 Australian dollars equal U.S.$1; 2006).
Kiribati’s international airport is on Tarawa. Air Tungaru, which is Kiribati’s national airline, and Air Nauru, the airline of the Marshall Islands, connect Kiribati with Fiji, the Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. All of the Gilbert Islands have airstrips for small planes, as do many of the inhabited atolls. Kiribati’s main port is located at Betio, an islet of Tarawa. Banaba and Kiritimati also have significant ports. The Pacific Forum Line provides international shipping services, while Kiribati Shipping Corporation services the outer islands. Paved roads and bridges connect the main islets of Tarawa. Outside of Tarawa, many of the larger islands have unpaved roads. People travel between islands by canoes and other boats. The government of Kiribati runs an AM radio station. It also publishes a weekly newspaper, Te Uekera, which is written in Gilbertese; top news stories are also printed in English.
V GOVERNMENT
The government of Kiribati is modeled on the British parliamentary system. The president, called the Beretitenti, is both chief of state and head of government. All Kiribati citizens age 18 and older are eligible to vote. Voters elect the president from a choice of three or four candidates, who are nominated by the legislature from among its members. The president, who may serve as many as three consecutive four-year terms, appoints the vice president and a cabinet of up to eight members from the legislature.
Kiribati has a 41-member unicameral (single-chamber) legislature called the Maneaba ni Maungatabu (House of Assembly). Thirty-nine of its members are chosen by popular vote and serve for four-year terms. The attorney general and a representative nominated to represent Banaban people living on the island of Rabi in Fiji are also members of the legislature.
The judicial system of Kiribati is modeled after the British legal system and consists of a high court, a court of appeal, and lower-level magistrate courts. The president appoints the chief justice of the high court with the advice of the cabinet. The chief justice then advises the president in appointing the other justices.
Permanently inhabited atolls have local governing councils, which are particularly important due to the remoteness of some of the islands from the country’s capital. Council members are elected to three-year terms.
The government provides all basic social services for Kiribati residents, including health care. Hospital and medical services are concentrated on Tarawa. Small dispensaries and clinics serve the other inhabited islands.
Although Kiribati has many political groups, they lack the formal organization, platforms, and structure of organized political parties. Instead, they tend to function more as interest groups, concerned with a single or limited set of specific issues. Kiribati participates in many regional organizations, including the South Pacific Forum, which deals with foreign affairs and international trade, and the South Pacific Commission, which provides technical assistance to the islands. Kiribati is a member of the United Nations.
VI HISTORY
Archaeological evidence indicates that the islands now known as the Gilbert Islands were settled by Austronesian-speaking people long before the 1st century ad. Groups from Fiji and Tonga arrived about the 13th century and intermarried with the islands’ inhabitants to form the Micronesian people known as the I-Kiribati.
In 1606 Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros sighted Butaritari, an atoll in the present-day Gilbert Islands. In 1788 British naval captains John Marshall and Thomas Gilbert, for whom the Gilbert Islands were later named, came upon several of the other islands while sailing from Australia to China. Between the 1820s and 1860s American and British whalers hunted sperm whales in the surrounding waters, and some deserted their ships to settle on the islands. These early residents began dealing coconut oil and then copra with European, Australian, and American trading ships.
American Protestant missionary Hiram Bingham arrived in 1857 and began spreading Christianity through the northern Gilbert Islands with the help of Hawaiian pastors. In 1870 the London Missionary Society placed Samoan pastors on several of the southern Gilbert Islands. Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in 1888. Over the following decades, Catholicism became the dominant religion of the northern Gilbert Islands, while some of the southern Gilberts remained Protestant.
In 1892 British captain E. H. M. Davis declared 16 of the Gilbert Islands and 9 of the Polynesian-inhabited Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) to the south a British protectorate. After phosphate was discovered on Ocean Island (now Banaba) in 1900, the British placed this island under the protectorate’s jurisdiction as well. In 1916 Britain formally annexed the area as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC). In the years that followed, several of the present-day Line Islands were added to the colony. Britain added the present-day Phoenix Islands to the GEIC in 1937. In 1939 the British agreed that Kanton and Enderbury—two Phoenix Islands strategically important to the United States—would be administered jointly by the United States and Britain.
Japan occupied the Gilbert Islands in 1942, during World War II (1939-1945). Most European residents evacuated the islands, and the colonial administration established temporary headquarters in Sydney, Australia, which it later moved to Fongafale (now in Tuvalu). In one of the major battles of the war in the Pacific, U.S. military forces invaded Tarawa and drove the Japanese off most of the islands in 1943. The Europeans returned, and colonial officials set up a new headquarters on Tarawa. The Japanese continued to hold Banaba until 1945. During their occupation, they deported most of Banaba’s residents to Tarawa, the island of Nauru, the Millennium Islands, and the Marshall Islands. The Japanese massacred nearly all remaining Banabans before surrendering the island. After the war, the British resettled deported Banabans on the Fijian island of Rabi.
Movements towards self-government in the GEIC began in 1963, when island residents gained a political voice through a local council created to advise the colonial government. In 1967 an elected house of representatives replaced this council, and in 1974 the House of Assembly was created. Because the Polynesian people of the Ellice Islands wanted to maintain cultural distinctiveness from the Micronesians of the Gilbert Islands, the Ellice Islands separated from the GEIC in 1975 and formed the nation of Tuvalu. In 1977 the colony achieved complete self-government, and in 1979 it declared formal independence under a new constitution. Ieremia Tabai was the country’s first president. The new nation became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and adopted the name Kiribati, a rendering of the word “Gilberts” in the Gilbertese language.
In September 1979 Kiribati signed a treaty of friendship with the United States in which the United States gave up its claims to Kanton and Enderbury islands; the two islands were formally ceded to Kiribati in 1983. In 1981 the Banabans won compensation from the British government for revenues from phosphate mining over the previous 50 years. In 1992 Kiribati’s legislature approved a proposal to seek compensation from Japan for damage caused during World War II.
Contributed By:
Robert C. Kiste
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
KENYA
Kenya
I INTRODUCTION
Kenya, republic in East Africa, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Kenya has a varied landscape of plateaus and high mountains and is home to many different ethnic groups. Formerly a British colony, Kenya gained independence in 1963 and has been a republic since 1964. It is bounded on the north by Sudan and Ethiopia, on the east by Somalia and the Indian Ocean, on the south by Tanzania, and on the west by Lake Victoria and Uganda. Nairobi is the country’s capital and largest city.
II LAND AND RESOURCES OF KENYA
Kenya has a total area of 582,646 sq km (224,961 sq mi). The equator passes through the middle of the country. Kenya’s maximum length from east to west is about 890 km (about 550 mi); from north to south it is about 1,030 km (about 640 mi).
A Natural Regions
Kenya is covered with volcanic rock that is split by faults, especially in the west. The Eastern Rift of the Great Rift Valley appears in Kenya as a massive depression, as wide as 50 to 65 km (30 to 40 mi) in some places, with cliffs reaching 900 m (3,000 ft) in height. The country falls into several topographical zones extending from sea level upward to lofty mountain ranges with elevations of more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft).
In the southeast, Kenya’s coastline measures 536 km (333 mi) in length and is fringed with coral reefs. It is bordered by a narrow coastal plain dotted with tropical forests. From the coast, the terrain rises to a series of low plateaus that cover most of eastern and northern Kenya and range in elevation from about 150 to 1,000 m (about 500 to 3,000 ft).
The region west of the plateaus, known as the Kenya highlands, consists of a series of higher plateaus, ranging from about 900 to 2,000 m (about 3,000 to 5,000 ft). Bisected from north to south by the Eastern Rift Valley, the Kenya highlands are divided into the Mau Escarpment on the east side of the Eastern Rift Valley and the Aberdare Range on the west side. These ranges are marked by numerous extinct volcanoes, the highest of which are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft) in central Kenya, and Mount Elgon (4,321 m/14,177 ft) on the country’s western border. In the far west is the lower Lake Victoria basin, which includes the hilly regions to the north and south of Winam Gulf. Although earth tremors are felt periodically in Kenya’s highlands, the country has experienced no volcanic activity or serious earthquakes over the past several centuries.
B Rivers and Lakes
Kenya’s largest lake, excluding Lake Victoria on its western border, is Lake Turkana, in the northwest. Smaller lakes—including Lake Baringo, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivahsa, and Lake Magadi—lie in or near the Eastern Rift. The country’s major rivers include the Tana and Galana (known as the Athi in its upper course) in the east, and the Kerio, Turkwel, and Nzoia in the west. Parts of each of these rivers are navigable by small vessels, but only the Tana is used by larger boats. Except for the Tana and some of its tributaries, most Kenyan rivers have not been used extensively for irrigation.
C Plant and Animal Life
Kenya contains diverse plant life. Along the Indian Ocean coast are forests containing palm, mangrove, teak, and sandalwood trees. Baobab, euphorbia, and acacia trees dot the lowland plateaus, while extensive tracts of savanna (grassland), interspersed with groves of acacia and some temperate forests, characterize the terrain of the highlands up to about 3,000 m (about 9,000 ft). The higher alpine zone contains giant senecio and lobelia shrubs.
Kenya is known for the great variety of its wildlife and is especially famous for its big game animals associated with the African savanna. The major big game species include elephants, rhinoceroses, zebras, giraffes, and lions and other large cats. Although many of these species are protected in national parks and game reserves, hunters have severely reduced the number of large mammals in Kenya, particularly elephants and rhinoceroses. Kenya’s rhinoceroses are critically endangered. Birds—including ostriches, flamingos, and vultures—abound in Kenya, as do reptiles such as pythons, mambas, and cobras.
D Natural Resources
Kenya’s main natural resource is its land, of which 9 percent is currently cultivated. Almost all of the agricultural land is located in the south, as the northern two-thirds of the country is mostly desert or semidesert. Kenya does not have significant mineral deposits. Forests constitute approximately 6 percent of Kenya’s land area. Kenya’s rivers provide hydroelectricity.
E Climate
Kenya’s different topographical regions experience distinct climates. The coastal region is largely humid and wet. The city of Malindi, for instance, receives an average rainfall of 1,050 mm (41 in) per year, with average temperatures ranging from 21° to 32°C (70° to 90°F) in January and 20° to 29°C (68° to 84°F) in July. The low plateau area is the driest part of the country. There, the town of Wajir receives an average annual rainfall of 320 mm (13 in) and experiences average temperatures ranging from 19° to 37°C (66° to 99°F) in January and 19° to 34°C (66° to 93°F) in July. Nairobi, in the temperate Kenya highlands, receives an average annual rainfall of 790 mm (31 in) and experiences average temperatures ranging from 9° to 29°C (48° to 84°F) in January and 7° to 26°C (45° to 79°F) in July. Higher elevation areas within the highlands receive much larger amounts of rainfall. The Lake Victoria basin in western Kenya is generally the wettest region in the country, particularly the highland regions to the north and south of Kisumu, where average annual rainfall ranges from 1,740 mm (70 in) to 1,940 mm (80 in). Average temperatures in this region range from 14° to 34°C (57° to 93°F) in January and 14° to 30°C (57° to 86°F) in July.
Rainfall occurs seasonally throughout most of Kenya. The coast, eastern plateaus, and lake basin experience two rainy seasons: the “long rains” extends roughly from March to June, and the “short rains” lasts from approximately October to December. The highlands of western Kenya have a single rainy season, lasting from March to September. All parts of the country are subject to periodic droughts, or delays in the start of the rainy seasons. Kenya’s climate has had a profound effect on settlement patterns, as for centuries population has been concentrated in the wettest areas of the country.
F Environmental Issues
Overfarming and intensive gathering of wood for fuel has led to soil erosion, desertification, and deforestation in Kenya. Increased use of pesticides and fertilizers has also led to significant water pollution. In Lake Victoria, the water hyacinth, a large ornamental water plant, has multiplied rapidly since being introduced in the 1980s. It threatens fish and other water life in the lake by depriving them of oxygen.
Kenya is well known for its game parks—including Masai Mara Game Park and Tsavo National Park in the south, and Marsabit National Reserve in the north—which attract large numbers of tourists and much revenue. Conservation of wildlife within reserves has thus received high priority. About 13 percent (2007) of Kenya’s total land is protected. There are 229 (2004) threatened species in Kenya. Threatened habitats include the slopes of Mount Kenya and coastal forests. Efforts are under way to restore the endangered African elephant and black rhino populations, and an aggressive campaign has been waged against poachers.
III PEOPLE OF KENYA
Kenya’s population at the time of the 1999 census was 28,686,607. In 2008 the population was estimated at 37,953,838. Kenya experienced very high population growth rates in the 1970s and 1980s, but by 2008 the rate of increase had declined to 2.8 percent. In 2008 Kenya’s birth rate was estimated at 38 per 1,000 and its death rate at 10 per 1,000. The average life expectancy at birth in Kenya is 57 years. The low life expectancy and years of high birth rates have combined to give Kenya a young population: 42 percent of the people were younger than age 15 in 2008.
Some 58 percent of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas, most concentrated in the fertile southern half of the country. The country’s largest cites are Nairobi, the capital and chief manufacturing center; Mombasa, the nation’s principal seaport; and Kisumu, the chief port on Lake Victoria. Smaller cities include Nakuru, a commercial and manufacturing center in the Eastern Rift Valley; and Eldoret, an industrial center in western Kenya.
A Ethnic Groups
Nearly all Kenyans are black Africans, divided into more than 40 ethnic groups belonging to three linguistic families: the Bantu, the Cushitic, and the Nilotic (see African Languages). Language traditionally has been the primary characteristic of ethnic identity in Kenya. Bantu-speaking Kenyans are divided into three different groups: the western group (Luhya); the central, or highlands, group (including the Kikuyu, the Kamba, and other subgroups); and the coastal Bantu (Mijikenda). Among Kenya’s Nilotic speakers, the major groups are the River-Lake, or Western, group (Luo); the Highlands, or Southern, group (Kalenjin); and the Plains, or Eastern, group (Masai). The Cushitic-speaking groups include the Oromo and the Somali. The Kikuyu are Kenya’s largest ethnic group.
For much of Kenya’s history, its ethnic groups were loose social formations, fluid and constantly changing. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries British colonial rule solidified ethnic identities among Kenya’s people. Colonial administrators associated ethnic groups with specific areas of the country by designating areas where only people with a particular ethnic identity could reside. This pattern of ethnically based settlement has persisted in Kenya since it became independent, even though economic and political development has increased mobility and urbanization among the country’s inhabitants. Thus, the majority of Kikuyu live in south central Kenya, the majority of Luhya in western Kenya, the majority of Luo in southwestern Kenya, the majority of Kamba in east central Kenya, and the majority of Kalenjin in west central Kenya. Ethnicity also has been an important factor in Kenyan politics.
B Language and Religion
Kenya’s official languages are English and Swahili (a Bantu-derived language); both are widely used for communication between members of different ethnic groups. Nearly all of the African ethnic groups in Kenya also have their own languages, making for considerable linguistic diversity within the country. Many Kenyans thus speak three languages: the language of their particular ethnic group, Swahili, and English.
About three-quarters of Kenya’s population is Christian, with Protestants outnumbering Roman Catholics. Most of the remainder are followers of traditional African religions or Islam. There are also small numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.
C Education
Kenya’s educational system, established in the 1980s to replace the system that existed under British rule, consists of eight years of primary school, four years of secondary school, and four years of higher education. Schooling is compulsory for 8 years. Primary education is nominally free in Kenya, but pupils must meet the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, and school-related fees. Examinations taken at the end of the 8th and 12th grades determine whether students will be admitted into high school and university.
Although 92 percent of school-age children attend the first years of primary school, factors such as cost, examination performance, and inadequate facilities eliminate large numbers from secondary and university education. Kenya has made great progress with adult literacy since independence. In 2005, 87 percent of the adult population was literate, although the rate was significantly higher for adult males (92 percent) than females (82 percent).
Kenya has a number of public and private universities. The major public universities are the University of Nairobi (founded in 1956); Kenyatta University (1972), in Nairobi; the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (1981), near Nairobi; Egerton University (1939), near Nakuru; and Moi University (1984), outside Eldoret. The government also provides opportunities for higher education through several polytechnic institutes and teacher-training colleges.
D Way of Life
Most Kenyans place great importance on the family and the traditional values and responsibilities associated with it. Kenyan families tend to be large, and households often include many members of the extended family. Polygyny (the practice of having multiple wives) exists to some extent among all social classes and ethnic groups. Many of Kenya’s rural inhabitants live on small farms; some live in houses made of mud and wooden poles with thatched roofs, while others live in houses of brick or stone with metal roofs. A small number are nomadic livestock herders, notably some of the Masai people in the south and the Turkana in the north. City dwellers who are wealthy or middle class typically live in modern houses and apartment buildings; however, many other city dwellers live in shantytowns or other inexpensive quarters.
Kenya’s most popular sport is soccer, and Kenyan runners have gained worldwide renown. Many Kenyans occupy leisure time with traditional music and dance. The overwhelming majority of the Kenyan people dress in Western-style clothing; however, some rural Kenyans wear traditional vibrantly colored or patterned garb, such as the single piece of cloth—often bright red in color—worn by the Masai.
E Social Issues
The social structure that evolved in Kenya during colonial times emphasized race and class. The dominance of whites over blacks was reinforced through segregation of the races and, within the black African population, of the various ethnic groups. Within each ethnic group, status was determined largely by wealth. After Kenya gained independence in 1963, race ceased to be an important indicator of social status, but wealth and ethnic identity remained significant. Today, a number of Kenya’s problems result from disparities in wealth. These problems include pervasive urban and rural poverty, overcrowded and substandard housing in urban areas, and a relatively high rate of unemployment. In the 1990s the country also witnessed periodic clashes between ethnic groups, particularly between Kalenjin and Kikuyu peoples in west central Kenya.
Tropical diseases, including malaria, have long been a public health problem in Kenya. In recent years, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has also become a severe problem. In 2005 an estimated 1,200,000 Kenyans were infected with HIV.
IV CULTURE OF KENYA
Kenya’s ethnic diversity has produced a variety and richness of cultural forms that reflect African, Asian, and European influences. Visual arts are not highly important in contemporary Kenya, although varieties of wood and clay sculpture are produced for the tourist trade.
A Music and Dance
Distinctive forms of music and dance are associated with each of Kenya’s ethnic groups, and traditional music has flourished since independence. Kenya also has a thriving industry in popular music, which combines Western and African influences.
B Literature
Oral literature is the oldest form of literature in Kenya, and oral narratives continue to play an important role in the lives of most Kenyan communities. Written literature—in Swahili and later in English—developed in the early 20th century, when these languages were adopted for use in schools throughout the colony. However, it was not until independence in 1963 that Kenya began to develop a national body of written literature. Since that time, Kenyan writers have produced literary works in English, Swahili, and various vernacular languages. Kenya’s most famous post-independence writer is novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Isak Dinesen, an early 20th-century white settler in Africa, wrote several books about her time in Kenya.
C Theater
Prior to independence, Kenyan theater dealt mainly with European issues and followed the model of European theater. Since independence, drama focusing on African themes has developed in Kenya. In the 1970s the University of Nairobi’s traveling theater group began bringing plays to the country’s rural areas.
D Libraries and Museums
Most of Kenya’s major libraries and museums are located in Nairobi. These include the McMillan Memorial Library; Memorial Library; the University of Nairobi Library; the Kenya National Archives, which includes a small museum; and the National Museum, which features historical and cultural exhibits. The museum at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, featuring archaeological and historical artifacts from the coast, is the most significant museum outside the capital.
V ECONOMY OF KENYA
Traditionally, Kenya’s economy was based on farming, herding, hunting, and trade. With the establishment of colonial rule, however, Kenya was brought into the world capitalist economy. Under the British, Kenya developed an economy based on the export of agricultural products. The colonial government encouraged the settlement of European farmers in Kenya to provide a greater supply of exports. From World War I (1914-1918) through the mid-1950s, produce grown on settler farms and estates, such as coffee, sisal (a fiber used to make rope), and tea, dominated Kenya’s exports. Meanwhile, African households were encouraged to produce commodities for subsistence and for sale in local markets, and to work on European farms producing export crops.
During and after World War II (1939-1945), Kenya’s economy was altered by the initiation of import substitution manufacturing—that is, the production of goods that formerly had to be imported. The 1950s also witnessed an important change in the agricultural sector as the colonial government adopted measures to stimulate greater production by African households, including granting Africans permission to grow high-value export crops. This helped spur small-scale production over the next two decades, and despite the departure of most European farmers after Kenya gained independence, agricultural exports expanded dramatically. This, together with influxes of foreign capital and technical expertise, made Kenya’s cumulative rate of economic growth—6.8 percent—among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa between 1963 and 1980.
Kenya’s booming economy weakened in the 1980s as a consequence of a rising trade deficit, among other factors. Kenya’s slowing economic growth rate and expanding budget deficits caused the government to turn to structural adjustment policies advocated by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of their economic assistance to Kenya. Nevertheless, the Kenyan government has set the ambitious target of achieving the status of industrialized economy by 2020. In 2006 the gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and services produced, was $22.8 billion, or about $623.20 per person.
A Role of Government
Since the colonial period, Kenya’s government has played a major role in the economy through its ownership of the railways, control of marketing for agricultural products, and establishment of state-owned firms. After Kenya gained independence in 1963, the government issued a series of five-year plans to guide economic development. Since the early 1990s the government has sold many state firms to private individuals and companies.
B Labor
In 2006 Kenya had a labor force of 16.7 million people. About 19 percent of the labor force works in agriculture, most earning their living by subsistence farming. About 62 percent work in the service sector and 20 percent in industry. Many laborers earn their living in what is called the jua kali sector—that is, through informal employment as mechanics, metalworkers, or in some other small-scale skilled craft. Kenya’s unemployment rate was estimated at about 21 percent in 1994. Trade unions represent a substantial proportion of private sector employees. All unions were brought under state control in 1965 with the creation of the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU).
C Agriculture
In 2006 agriculture contributed 27 percent of Kenya’s GDP. This represents a decline from 1963, when agriculture accounted for 38 percent of GDP. Kenya’s principal domestic commodities are the food crops maize (corn), millet, sorghum, and cassava. The most important export crops are tea, coffee, horticultural products (flowers, fruits, and vegetables), chrysanthemums (flowers from which pyrethrum insecticides are made), and sisal. The country’s principal livestock are cattle and goats. Since independence, Kenya’s small farm sector has contributed an increasing share of export production.
D Tourism and Other Services
The service sector accounts for 54 percent of Kenya’s GDP. This includes the various services provided by the government and the increasingly important restaurant, hotel, and safari industries, which have grown in response to the increasing number of tourists visiting Kenya.
Tourism in Kenya has expanded dramatically since 1963, and since 1989 it has been the country’s leading source of foreign currency. Tourist arrivals, mainly from Europe and North America, numbered 1,399,000 in 2005. Kenya’s main tourist destinations are the beaches along the Indian Ocean coast; national parks and game reserves, such as Masai Mara Game Park, Tsavo National Park, and Amboseli National Park; and museums and historical sites.
E Manufacturing and Mining
Kenya has the most industrially developed economy in East Africa. The manufacturing sector has grown significantly since the 1960s. In 2006 industry, which includes mining and construction, contributed 19 percent of GDP. Kenya’s chief manufactures include food products, beverages, cigarettes, textiles and clothing, cement, rubber products, transport equipment, printed materials, and petroleum and other chemicals.
Mining employs only a small number of Kenya’s workers. The main minerals produced are soda ash from Lake Magadi, fluorite, salt, and limestone products. The government is also seeking to exploit titanium and zircon deposits on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
F Forestry and Fishing
Kenyans engage in lake and ocean fishing, the former contributing most of the fish caught. The main sources of fish are Lake Victoria, Lake Naivasha, Lake Turkana, and Lake Baringo. Most fishing is done by self-employed fishermen, often as members of cooperative organizations. Most of the fish caught are consumed domestically. Kenya’s forest plantation areas are located in the highlands and on the coast. Softwood is an important product, with a considerable portion going to the country’s large paper mill at Webuye in western Kenya.
G Energy
Petroleum is Kenya’s major source of energy, and the country’s entire supply is imported. Electricity is the second most important energy source. Some 74 percent of Kenya’s electricity is generated by hydroelectric plants in the Tana River basin, in the Turkwel River gorge, and in neighboring Uganda. Kenya also has a geothermal station and an oil-burning facility that produce electricity.
H Transportation
Kenya has one of the most extensive transportation networks in East Africa. Railways connect the major cities, and the country’s road network is substantial, although only about 14 percent (2004) of roads are paved. Mombasa is Kenya’s major seaport and serves Uganda and Rwanda as well. Kisumu is the major port on Lake Victoria. River transport is not extensive. International airports are located at Nairobi, Mombasa, and Eldoret. Kenya Airways is the national airline. The main forms of public transportation in Kenya are buses, matatus (minibuses), and taxis.
I Communications
Historically, the Kenyan government exercised tight control over the media, although it owned only a portion of it. However, the advent of multiparty politics in 1992 brought about an expansion of press freedom. Kenya has several daily newspapers. The leading dailies are the English-language Daily Nation and its Swahili counterpart Taifa Leo, and the English daily the East African Standard. These and most other periodicals are published in Nairobi. Following political reforms of late 1997, a lively alternative press emerged, publishing numerous inexpensive and often short-lived newspapers in various languages.
The state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation operates radio and television stations serving most of Kenya; it offers programs in English, Swahili, and vernacular languages. Private television and radio stations have also been licensed to serve Nairobi and some other urban markets. Telephone service has expanded in recent decades, but Kenya still has only 8 telephone mainlines for every 1,000 residents. Mobile telephone service is available across Kenya, however, and there are 135 mobile telephone subscribers for every 1,000 residents. Access to the Internet is expanding but tends to be limited to individuals and companies located in Nairobi and other major cities.
J Foreign Trade
Kenya is dependent on foreign trade. Since 1980 the country has usually run a substantial trade deficit with countries outside Africa and a surplus with those in East Africa. In 2004 Kenya’s imports totaled $4.6 billion and its exports totaled $3 billion. Kenya’s imports include industrial raw materials, crude petroleum, and machinery. Exports include tea, coffee, horticultural products, petroleum products, and cement.
K Currency and Banking
Kenya’s basic unit of currency is the Kenyan shilling, consisting of 100 cents (72.1 Kenyan shillings equal US$1; 2006 average). Currency is issued by the Central Bank of Kenya, established in Nairobi in 1966. An extensive network of commercial banks, both locally and foreign-owned, serves most of Kenya’s urban areas. The Nairobi Stock Exchange serves the whole country.
VI GOVERNMENT OF KENYA
Before independence in 1963, Kenya was a British colony governed by an all-powerful colonial administrator. The vast majority of Kenyans were not allowed to vote and were not represented in the government. With independence, Kenya became a constitutional monarchy under the nominal sovereignty of the British monarch, with a prime minister serving as head of government. In 1964 Kenya cut its ties to the British throne and became a republic with a president as head of state and government. From 1964 to 1966, and from 1969 to 1982, Kenya was, for all practical purposes, a one-party state; between 1982 and 1991 it was a one-party state by law. In 1991 the Kenyan government allowed for the existence of multiple political parties, and in 1992 the country held its first contested presidential elections.
Independent Kenya’s first constitution, adopted in 1963, provided for a semifederal system with a two-chamber national legislature and regional governments with designated powers. When the constitution was revised in 1964 to provide for a republic with a strong president, most federal features of the government were scrapped. In 1967 the two chambers of the legislature were merged to form the single-chamber National Assembly. The country holds regularly scheduled parliamentary elections, and all citizens age 18 and older are eligible to vote.
A Executive
The executive branch is the most influential branch of the Kenyan government. Kenya’s president serves as head of state. The president is elected by the people for a five-year term, and a 1991 constitutional amendment established a two-term limit for the presidency. To become president, a candidate must simultaneously run for president and for a seat in parliament and must win both elections. The president appoints a cabinet of ministers, each of whom heads an executive department of the government, and a vice president, who is also a member of the cabinet. Under the terms of a 2008 power-sharing agreement, the position of prime minister was created to replace the president as head of government.
B Legislature
Kenya’s parliament is a single-chamber body called the National Assembly. Legislation passed by the parliament becomes law after being approved by the president. Elections to the National Assembly are held every five years, unless called earlier by the president or the assembly itself. Following the elections held in 2002, the National Assembly consisted of 210 directly elected representatives (including the president), 12 members nominated by the president, the attorney general, and the speaker of the house.
C Judiciary
Kenya’s judiciary consists of two major courts and a number of lower magistrate courts. The major courts are the Kenya Court of Appeal, with 9 judges, and the High Court of Kenya, with 27 judges. All judges are appointed by the president. Kenya’s legal system is based on English common law, tribal law, and Islamic law. Trial by jury is not used in Kenya.
D Local Government
For administrative purposes, Kenya is divided into seven provinces (Central Province, Coast Province, Eastern Province, Northeastern Province, Nyanza Province, Rift Valley Province, and Western Province), in addition to the extra-provincial region of Nairobi and its environs. The provinces are divided into dozens of districts, which in turn are divided into divisions, which are further divided into locations. A commissioner heads each province and district, while a district officer heads each division; chiefs head the locations. All of these officials are under the direction of the president. This system of local government was inherited from the colonial period. Kenya’s districts and municipalities also have elected councils, which raise revenue to provide some local services.
E Political Parties
Between 1982 and 1991 Kenya was a one-party state by law. The ruling party was the Kenya African National Union (KANU), a conservative nationalist party dominated by the interests of President Daniel arap Moi. At the end of the 1980s many Kenyan people began to protest the system of one-party rule, and in late 1991 the government agreed to permit the registration of other political parties. More than a dozen new political parties were legalized in 1997. KANU remained the ruling party of Kenya until December 2002 elections, which were dominated by an alliance of opposition parties called the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Ethnicity has long been a main determinant of political party membership.
F Social Services
Kenyans rely on family support for many of their social welfare needs, including school fees and funeral expenses. However, Kenya’s government provides funding for a range of hospitals, health centers, and clinics. The government also provides support for adult literacy classes.
G Defense
In 2004 Kenya’s defense establishment consisted of an army of 20,000 personnel, a navy of 1,620, and an air force of 2,500. Military service is voluntary. Kenya’s military has had relatively little influence on politics.
H International and Regional Organizations
Kenya is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union (AU), and the United Nations (UN). Kenya is linked economically and politically with Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda through its membership in the East African Community.
VII HISTORY OF KENYA
Kenya was the location of some of the earliest human settlements. Sites such as Koobi Fora, near Lake Turkana, indicate hominid habitation dating back 2.5 million years.
A History of Inland Kenya
In the Kenya highlands, communities that produced their own food by farming and domestication of animals had taken up residence by the end of the second millennium bc. Because of the tools they used, these people—who probably came from the highlands of Ethiopia—are known as the Stone Bowl people. It was not until the last few centuries of the pre-Christian era that other food-producing and iron-working peoples began to take up residence in Kenya. These were the ancestors of the Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking groups of modern Kenya. Bantu-speaking peoples entered Kenya from the west and south, eventually settling east of Lake Victoria, where they occupied land on the coast and in the eastern highlands. The earliest Nilotic-speaking people, ancestors of today’s Highlands Nilotic speakers, entered Kenya from the northwest to take up residence in the highlands west of the Eastern Rift Valley. Later, ancestors of the Plains Nilotic speakers followed, moving into the Rift Valley and the plains to the east. Later still, ancestors of the River-Lake Nilotic speakers moved into the lower-lying regions around Lake Victoria. Eastern Cushitic speakers ancestral to the Oromo moved into northern Kenya from lands to the northeast and were followed by Cushitic-speaking Somali.
This process of migration occurred through small population movements and interactions and stretched over a period of centuries. From this process emerged the various social formations that existed in Kenya at the beginning of colonial rule in the late 19th century ad. These groupings were fluid, representing a process of ongoing social change. For example, in the 17th century the ancestors of the Bantu-speaking Kikuyu settled in the forested hills and ridges south and west of Mount Kenya; as they did so, they borrowed customs from some peoples, absorbed other peoples, and competed with various groups for resources. Most of Kenya’s peoples combined livestock raising with agriculture, although some, like the Nilotic-speaking Masai, were nomadic herders. Unlike nearby regions such as Ethiopia and Uganda, Kenya did not experience the emergence of large, centralized states or empires.
B History of Coastal Kenya
The Kenyan coast developed differently from the interior due to its exposure to the Indian Ocean sphere of exploration and trade. Over the course of the first millennium, a separate Bantu language and culture, which came to be known as Swahili, developed along the East African coast. This development was strongly influenced by contact with Arabs from the Persian Gulf, who traded, settled, and intermarried with the coastal Africans. By the 9th century the Swahili-speaking people had established a number of towns between present-day Somalia and Mozambique, including Mombasa, Lamu, and Pate in what is now Kenya. These towns became important trade centers, facilitating commerce between residents of the Kenyan interior and seafaring traders from Arabia, Persia, India, and elsewhere on the Indian Ocean. The main exports from these Swahili towns were ivory, slaves, and timber and other raw materials. By the 12th century many of the Swahili inhabitants of the towns had adopted Islam. Some towns, such as Mombasa, grew wealthy, gaining control of coastal and inland territory and developing into city-states. A number of these Swahili city-states dotted the Kenyan coast by the time the Portuguese arrived at the start of the 16th century.
After Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama successfully sailed around Africa to India and back between 1497 and 1499, the Portuguese began actively exploring the Indian Ocean coast. At first the Portuguese were interested in dominating trade on the seas rather than controlling mainland territory in East Africa. At the end of the 16th century, however, the Portuguese constructed Fort Jesus, a massive fortress at Mombasa, in order to exercise greater control ashore. Portuguese dominance did not last long, as the Portuguese faced competition from the Arab dynastic state in Oman, which also sought to control much of the East African coast. The Swahili states, together with the Omani Arabs, succeeded in driving the Portuguese from Kenya’s coast by the end of the 17th century. The Swahili states resisted Omani attempts to control the coast, but by the 1840s the Omanis had established dominance. Commerce expanded as trade in African slaves boomed. Omani rule over the area brought further Arabic influence to Swahili language and culture. In the 19th century the East African coast also experienced greater contact with Europe, in the form of commerce and attempts by Britain to stamp out the African slave trade. British influence in the region grew, culminating in Britain’s halting of the slave trade in the late 1800s and its takeover of Kenya at the end of the century.
C British Colonization
In 1886 and 1890 Britain reached agreements with Germany that delineated a boundary between British territory in Kenya and German territory in Tanganyika (part of present-day Tanzania) to the south. The Imperial British East Africa Company was chartered in 1888 to administer Kenya, but the company soon found itself losing large amounts of money through its vain attempts to extend control over the interior. In 1895 the British government formally took over the territory, which was renamed the East Africa Protectorate. Its western neighbor was Britain’s Uganda Protectorate, and the border between the two lay just west of the site that would become, in the late 1890s, the new city of Nairobi.
Although the boundaries of the British protectorate were set, the British actually controlled little more than the Kenyan coast at the beginning of the 20th century. The British conquest of the Kenyan interior was gradual and incremental, taking second place to Britain’s construction of a railway connecting Mombasa with Lake Victoria. The railway was completed in 1901. In 1902 Britain decided to merge Uganda’s Eastern Province with the East Africa Protectorate; thus the Lake Victoria basin and the western highlands became part of Kenya. By 1908 the British administration had brought the southern half of present-day Kenya under its control. Northern Kenya, then inhabited largely by nomadic peoples, did not come under British authority until well after World War I (1914-1918).
In their colonial conquest, the British followed a policy of divide and conquer, allying with some African groups against others. The Masai, who had suffered a series of 19th-century civil wars over water and grazing rights and had lost much of their livestock to disease and drought, were one group with whom the British allied in order to impose their rule. To aid colonial administration, the British divided Kenya’s Bantu-, Nilotic-, and Cushitic-speaking peoples into ethnic classifications based on linguistic variations and locality. Thus, specific ethnic subgroups, called “tribes,” were created in a form that had not existed previously. The ethnic groups were assigned to live in separate areas of the colony. Within each subgroup, colonial administrators designated one “chief,” who became responsible for collecting taxes levied by the colonial state.
To help make the new railway profitable, the colonial government encouraged the settlement of European farmers in Kenya. After 1902 white Europeans (mostly from Britain and South Africa) took up residence in the highlands. Land for European settlement meant the loss of land for some of Kenya’s peoples, most notably the highland-dwelling Kikuyu. Many of the Kikuyu who lost land were forced to move onto European farms and estates as squatters and laborers, or to seek employment in urban areas such as Nairobi. By the time World War I ended in 1918, European settlers, desiring inexpensive farm labor, had convinced the colonial government to adopt measures that essentially forced Africans to work the farms. These included new, higher taxes on Africans, who, lacking money, were obligated to work the settlers’ farms in order to pay them. By this time, the settlers had achieved considerable political influence in the territory, which was changed to a colony and renamed Kenya in 1920. The colony of Kenya was administered by a British governor, who was advised by an elected Legislative Council. Black Africans were not allowed to vote and were denied representation in the council until the mid-1940s, when a small number of blacks were nominated to the council. The colony’s small Asian and Arab populations were given several seats in the council in the 1920s.
D African Opposition to the British
Following World War I, protests against settler supremacy and the policies of the colonial government emerged among Kenyan Africans. Much of the opposition during this period came from educated Kenyans who objected to the government’s high taxes, labor-control policies, and a general lack of opportunities. One of the first opposition movements to emerge was the East African Association, which was banned by colonial authorities in 1922. In the 1920s and 1930s African protests focused on local issues and remained within the boundaries of the ethnic units recognized by colonial rule. The Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), formed in 1924, began advocating the return of land lost to European settlement, the importance of Kikuyu cultural values, and improvement in the lot of its middle-class leadership. One of the leaders of the KCA was Jomo Kenyatta. During this period, the KCA and similar organizations in other parts of Kenya sought not the removal of colonial rule but rather improvement within it.
After World War II (1939-1945), opposition increasingly took the form of nationalism, with African activists demanding self-government and independence. A colony-wide political party, the Kenya African Union (KAU), was formed in 1944 to advocate this goal. Kenyatta became the leader of the party in 1947. KAU made little headway with its demands, however, as European settlers still enjoyed far greater influence than Africans within the colonial government.
In these postwar years, economic and political discontent mounted, particularly among the Kikuyu. Some outbreaks of violence occurred in 1951, and the following year a secret Kikuyu guerrilla organization known as Mau Mau began a campaign of violence against Europeans. In October 1952 the colonial government declared a state of emergency and arrested Kenyatta, charging him with managing Mau Mau. Kenyatta’s arrest and later conviction and imprisonment, and the banning of KAU in 1953, spurred on the Mau Mau rebellion, in which thousands of Africans—the majority of whom were Kikuyu—fought a guerrilla war against colonial rule and settler supremacy. The rebellion proved also to be a Kikuyu civil war: Those who fought against British rule were drawn from the poorest segment of Kikuyu society, while wealthier Kikuyu, who had profited from colonial rule, fought against the rebels. After four years of fighting and thousands of deaths (mostly of Africans), the British finally suppressed the rebellion in 1956.
Although the British moved to provide greater economic, educational, and political opportunities for Africans, African nationalism continued to intensify and to spread among all of Kenya’s ethnic groups. In 1960 and 1961 the British rapidly took steps to end settler supremacy and establish independence for Kenya with African majority rule. Colony-wide political parties were formed, and when Kenyatta was freed from detention in 1961 he became the leader of the newly formed dominant party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU). KANU was supported by the Kikuyu and the Luo, Kenya’s two largest ethnic groups at the time. In pre-independence elections held in May 1963, Kenyatta led KANU to victory over its main rival, the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), which was supported by a number of smaller ethnic groups. Kenyatta became prime minister in June, and in December Kenya became an independent nation.
E Kenya Under Kenyatta
As an independent country, Kenya was initially a constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch as its nominal head of state and a prime minister as head of government. In December 1964, however, Kenya became a republic with a president as both head of state and head of government. Kenyatta was chosen as the country’s first president. By this time KADU had dissolved, and its members had joined KANU.
The Kenyatta era, which lasted until 1978, was a period of considerable social change and economic growth for Kenya. Kenyatta appointed members of many different ethnic groups to government positions and encouraged the people of Kenya to come together as Kenyans, rather than focus on their different ethnic alignments. Many whites had left the country when Kenya became independent, and Kenyatta divided their land among blacks. These Kenyans were encouraged to grow export crops such as coffee and tea on their new land. Aided by a steady flow of foreign investment, largely from Britain, Kenya’s economy flourished. The standard of living rose for most Kenyans, and the nation’s economy became one of the fastest growing in post-colonial Africa.
However, Kenyatta’s capitalist economic policies and pro-Western orientation provoked division within KANU. Kenya’s vice president, an ethnic Luo named Oginga Odinga, resigned from the government in 1966 and formed the Kenya People’s Union (KPU), which drew a great deal of Luo support away from KANU and presented the Kenyatta government with a challenge. In 1969 Tom Mboya, an influential Luo cabinet minister, was assassinated, resulting in a further loss of Luo support for the government. Kenyatta surmounted these challenges through the use of state power: detaining opponents without trial, banning the KPU, and filling government positions with supporters. Kenyatta made appeals for ethnic solidarity among Kikuyu, and many Kikuyu achieved influence and considerable wealth under his rule. However, the president resisted attempts by Kikuyu to remove his vice president, an ethnic Kalenjin named Daniel arap Moi, from the position of successor.
F Moi’s Rule
Kenyatta died in 1978, and Moi assumed the presidency of Kenya. He took the Swahili word nyayo (meaning “footsteps”) as his leadership motto to assure Kenyans that he was following the legacy of Kenyatta. At first, Moi adopted a populist approach, releasing political prisoners, moving to limit Kikuyu political and economic influence, and traveling among the nation’s people. In the 1980s, however, Kenya’s economic growth began to slow, and Moi’s rule became increasingly authoritarian. In 1982 the Moi government altered the constitution to make Kenya officially a one-party state. That year Moi survived a coup attempt by air force personnel. Beginning in the 1980s, Kenya experienced several debilitating droughts and the price of coffee dropped several times. These factors damaged the Kenyan economy; the nation fell into debt, and unemployment rose dramatically.
Fueled by economic discontent, strong pressure for reform of the political system and an end to Moi’s rule emerged from many sectors of Kenyan society by the end of the 1980s. Moi resisted the calls for reform, but his government came under pressure from foreign economic donors, such as the World Bank and the United States, to implement political and economic reforms. Meanwhile, in the early 1990s violent ethnic clashes rocked Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, as Kalenjin people attacked Kikuyu living in traditionally Kalenjin areas. Moi finally bowed to domestic and international pressures in December 1991 and agreed to legalize other political parties. Multiparty legislative and presidential elections were held in December 1992, but the opposition to KANU split along ethnic lines; Moi was reelected in the presidential race, and KANU won the majority of seats in the assembly.
Continuing economic difficulties and calls for further reform marked Moi’s new term. His administration also was accused of corruption and overspending, particularly through its favoring of development projects in Kalenjin-dominated areas that supported him. Before the elections of 1997, opposition parties held demonstrations calling for electoral reform, and further ethnic clashes occurred. In late 1997 Moi consented to the repeal of repressive antiopposition laws that had existed since colonial times. However, opposition to Moi’s rule remained divided, and he was reelected president in December.
G Recent Developments
The Kenyan economy continued to decline into the 21st century and opposition to Moi and KANU mounted. Constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term, Moi handpicked KANU’s candidate to succeed him. Expressing fears that Moi would manipulate the next KANU president behind the scenes, several major opposition parties joined forces to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), led by former vice president Mwai Kibaki. NARC and Kibaki swept the December 2002 elections with more than 60 percent of the vote. Kibaki was sworn in as president of Kenya in late December, ending four decades of KANU rule.
Kibaki pledged to curb corruption in the government and civil service and in 2003 established a new anticorruption senior official. However, the government’s commitment to the effort was questioned. After making little progress, the anticorruption official resigned in 2005, sparking criticism of the Kenyan government from the international economic community.
Kibaki was declared the winner of the December 2007 presidential election despite widespread evidence of vote rigging. The top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, claimed he had won the election. Weeks of bloodshed and destruction ensued as Kibaki’s and Odinga’s supporters, divided along ethnic lines, clashed over the dispute. More than 1,000 people were killed in the unrest, which damaged Kenya’s long-standing reputation for stability. A power-sharing agreement was finally reached in late February 2008, following mediation by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and intense international pressure. In the agreement, Odinga dropped his claim to the presidency and accepted the newly created position of prime minister.
Contributed By:
Robert M. Maxon
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I INTRODUCTION
Kenya, republic in East Africa, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Kenya has a varied landscape of plateaus and high mountains and is home to many different ethnic groups. Formerly a British colony, Kenya gained independence in 1963 and has been a republic since 1964. It is bounded on the north by Sudan and Ethiopia, on the east by Somalia and the Indian Ocean, on the south by Tanzania, and on the west by Lake Victoria and Uganda. Nairobi is the country’s capital and largest city.
II LAND AND RESOURCES OF KENYA
Kenya has a total area of 582,646 sq km (224,961 sq mi). The equator passes through the middle of the country. Kenya’s maximum length from east to west is about 890 km (about 550 mi); from north to south it is about 1,030 km (about 640 mi).
A Natural Regions
Kenya is covered with volcanic rock that is split by faults, especially in the west. The Eastern Rift of the Great Rift Valley appears in Kenya as a massive depression, as wide as 50 to 65 km (30 to 40 mi) in some places, with cliffs reaching 900 m (3,000 ft) in height. The country falls into several topographical zones extending from sea level upward to lofty mountain ranges with elevations of more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft).
In the southeast, Kenya’s coastline measures 536 km (333 mi) in length and is fringed with coral reefs. It is bordered by a narrow coastal plain dotted with tropical forests. From the coast, the terrain rises to a series of low plateaus that cover most of eastern and northern Kenya and range in elevation from about 150 to 1,000 m (about 500 to 3,000 ft).
The region west of the plateaus, known as the Kenya highlands, consists of a series of higher plateaus, ranging from about 900 to 2,000 m (about 3,000 to 5,000 ft). Bisected from north to south by the Eastern Rift Valley, the Kenya highlands are divided into the Mau Escarpment on the east side of the Eastern Rift Valley and the Aberdare Range on the west side. These ranges are marked by numerous extinct volcanoes, the highest of which are Mount Kenya (5,199 m/17,057 ft) in central Kenya, and Mount Elgon (4,321 m/14,177 ft) on the country’s western border. In the far west is the lower Lake Victoria basin, which includes the hilly regions to the north and south of Winam Gulf. Although earth tremors are felt periodically in Kenya’s highlands, the country has experienced no volcanic activity or serious earthquakes over the past several centuries.
B Rivers and Lakes
Kenya’s largest lake, excluding Lake Victoria on its western border, is Lake Turkana, in the northwest. Smaller lakes—including Lake Baringo, Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivahsa, and Lake Magadi—lie in or near the Eastern Rift. The country’s major rivers include the Tana and Galana (known as the Athi in its upper course) in the east, and the Kerio, Turkwel, and Nzoia in the west. Parts of each of these rivers are navigable by small vessels, but only the Tana is used by larger boats. Except for the Tana and some of its tributaries, most Kenyan rivers have not been used extensively for irrigation.
C Plant and Animal Life
Kenya contains diverse plant life. Along the Indian Ocean coast are forests containing palm, mangrove, teak, and sandalwood trees. Baobab, euphorbia, and acacia trees dot the lowland plateaus, while extensive tracts of savanna (grassland), interspersed with groves of acacia and some temperate forests, characterize the terrain of the highlands up to about 3,000 m (about 9,000 ft). The higher alpine zone contains giant senecio and lobelia shrubs.
Kenya is known for the great variety of its wildlife and is especially famous for its big game animals associated with the African savanna. The major big game species include elephants, rhinoceroses, zebras, giraffes, and lions and other large cats. Although many of these species are protected in national parks and game reserves, hunters have severely reduced the number of large mammals in Kenya, particularly elephants and rhinoceroses. Kenya’s rhinoceroses are critically endangered. Birds—including ostriches, flamingos, and vultures—abound in Kenya, as do reptiles such as pythons, mambas, and cobras.
D Natural Resources
Kenya’s main natural resource is its land, of which 9 percent is currently cultivated. Almost all of the agricultural land is located in the south, as the northern two-thirds of the country is mostly desert or semidesert. Kenya does not have significant mineral deposits. Forests constitute approximately 6 percent of Kenya’s land area. Kenya’s rivers provide hydroelectricity.
E Climate
Kenya’s different topographical regions experience distinct climates. The coastal region is largely humid and wet. The city of Malindi, for instance, receives an average rainfall of 1,050 mm (41 in) per year, with average temperatures ranging from 21° to 32°C (70° to 90°F) in January and 20° to 29°C (68° to 84°F) in July. The low plateau area is the driest part of the country. There, the town of Wajir receives an average annual rainfall of 320 mm (13 in) and experiences average temperatures ranging from 19° to 37°C (66° to 99°F) in January and 19° to 34°C (66° to 93°F) in July. Nairobi, in the temperate Kenya highlands, receives an average annual rainfall of 790 mm (31 in) and experiences average temperatures ranging from 9° to 29°C (48° to 84°F) in January and 7° to 26°C (45° to 79°F) in July. Higher elevation areas within the highlands receive much larger amounts of rainfall. The Lake Victoria basin in western Kenya is generally the wettest region in the country, particularly the highland regions to the north and south of Kisumu, where average annual rainfall ranges from 1,740 mm (70 in) to 1,940 mm (80 in). Average temperatures in this region range from 14° to 34°C (57° to 93°F) in January and 14° to 30°C (57° to 86°F) in July.
Rainfall occurs seasonally throughout most of Kenya. The coast, eastern plateaus, and lake basin experience two rainy seasons: the “long rains” extends roughly from March to June, and the “short rains” lasts from approximately October to December. The highlands of western Kenya have a single rainy season, lasting from March to September. All parts of the country are subject to periodic droughts, or delays in the start of the rainy seasons. Kenya’s climate has had a profound effect on settlement patterns, as for centuries population has been concentrated in the wettest areas of the country.
F Environmental Issues
Overfarming and intensive gathering of wood for fuel has led to soil erosion, desertification, and deforestation in Kenya. Increased use of pesticides and fertilizers has also led to significant water pollution. In Lake Victoria, the water hyacinth, a large ornamental water plant, has multiplied rapidly since being introduced in the 1980s. It threatens fish and other water life in the lake by depriving them of oxygen.
Kenya is well known for its game parks—including Masai Mara Game Park and Tsavo National Park in the south, and Marsabit National Reserve in the north—which attract large numbers of tourists and much revenue. Conservation of wildlife within reserves has thus received high priority. About 13 percent (2007) of Kenya’s total land is protected. There are 229 (2004) threatened species in Kenya. Threatened habitats include the slopes of Mount Kenya and coastal forests. Efforts are under way to restore the endangered African elephant and black rhino populations, and an aggressive campaign has been waged against poachers.
III PEOPLE OF KENYA
Kenya’s population at the time of the 1999 census was 28,686,607. In 2008 the population was estimated at 37,953,838. Kenya experienced very high population growth rates in the 1970s and 1980s, but by 2008 the rate of increase had declined to 2.8 percent. In 2008 Kenya’s birth rate was estimated at 38 per 1,000 and its death rate at 10 per 1,000. The average life expectancy at birth in Kenya is 57 years. The low life expectancy and years of high birth rates have combined to give Kenya a young population: 42 percent of the people were younger than age 15 in 2008.
Some 58 percent of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas, most concentrated in the fertile southern half of the country. The country’s largest cites are Nairobi, the capital and chief manufacturing center; Mombasa, the nation’s principal seaport; and Kisumu, the chief port on Lake Victoria. Smaller cities include Nakuru, a commercial and manufacturing center in the Eastern Rift Valley; and Eldoret, an industrial center in western Kenya.
A Ethnic Groups
Nearly all Kenyans are black Africans, divided into more than 40 ethnic groups belonging to three linguistic families: the Bantu, the Cushitic, and the Nilotic (see African Languages). Language traditionally has been the primary characteristic of ethnic identity in Kenya. Bantu-speaking Kenyans are divided into three different groups: the western group (Luhya); the central, or highlands, group (including the Kikuyu, the Kamba, and other subgroups); and the coastal Bantu (Mijikenda). Among Kenya’s Nilotic speakers, the major groups are the River-Lake, or Western, group (Luo); the Highlands, or Southern, group (Kalenjin); and the Plains, or Eastern, group (Masai). The Cushitic-speaking groups include the Oromo and the Somali. The Kikuyu are Kenya’s largest ethnic group.
For much of Kenya’s history, its ethnic groups were loose social formations, fluid and constantly changing. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries British colonial rule solidified ethnic identities among Kenya’s people. Colonial administrators associated ethnic groups with specific areas of the country by designating areas where only people with a particular ethnic identity could reside. This pattern of ethnically based settlement has persisted in Kenya since it became independent, even though economic and political development has increased mobility and urbanization among the country’s inhabitants. Thus, the majority of Kikuyu live in south central Kenya, the majority of Luhya in western Kenya, the majority of Luo in southwestern Kenya, the majority of Kamba in east central Kenya, and the majority of Kalenjin in west central Kenya. Ethnicity also has been an important factor in Kenyan politics.
B Language and Religion
Kenya’s official languages are English and Swahili (a Bantu-derived language); both are widely used for communication between members of different ethnic groups. Nearly all of the African ethnic groups in Kenya also have their own languages, making for considerable linguistic diversity within the country. Many Kenyans thus speak three languages: the language of their particular ethnic group, Swahili, and English.
About three-quarters of Kenya’s population is Christian, with Protestants outnumbering Roman Catholics. Most of the remainder are followers of traditional African religions or Islam. There are also small numbers of Hindus and Sikhs.
C Education
Kenya’s educational system, established in the 1980s to replace the system that existed under British rule, consists of eight years of primary school, four years of secondary school, and four years of higher education. Schooling is compulsory for 8 years. Primary education is nominally free in Kenya, but pupils must meet the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, and school-related fees. Examinations taken at the end of the 8th and 12th grades determine whether students will be admitted into high school and university.
Although 92 percent of school-age children attend the first years of primary school, factors such as cost, examination performance, and inadequate facilities eliminate large numbers from secondary and university education. Kenya has made great progress with adult literacy since independence. In 2005, 87 percent of the adult population was literate, although the rate was significantly higher for adult males (92 percent) than females (82 percent).
Kenya has a number of public and private universities. The major public universities are the University of Nairobi (founded in 1956); Kenyatta University (1972), in Nairobi; the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (1981), near Nairobi; Egerton University (1939), near Nakuru; and Moi University (1984), outside Eldoret. The government also provides opportunities for higher education through several polytechnic institutes and teacher-training colleges.
D Way of Life
Most Kenyans place great importance on the family and the traditional values and responsibilities associated with it. Kenyan families tend to be large, and households often include many members of the extended family. Polygyny (the practice of having multiple wives) exists to some extent among all social classes and ethnic groups. Many of Kenya’s rural inhabitants live on small farms; some live in houses made of mud and wooden poles with thatched roofs, while others live in houses of brick or stone with metal roofs. A small number are nomadic livestock herders, notably some of the Masai people in the south and the Turkana in the north. City dwellers who are wealthy or middle class typically live in modern houses and apartment buildings; however, many other city dwellers live in shantytowns or other inexpensive quarters.
Kenya’s most popular sport is soccer, and Kenyan runners have gained worldwide renown. Many Kenyans occupy leisure time with traditional music and dance. The overwhelming majority of the Kenyan people dress in Western-style clothing; however, some rural Kenyans wear traditional vibrantly colored or patterned garb, such as the single piece of cloth—often bright red in color—worn by the Masai.
E Social Issues
The social structure that evolved in Kenya during colonial times emphasized race and class. The dominance of whites over blacks was reinforced through segregation of the races and, within the black African population, of the various ethnic groups. Within each ethnic group, status was determined largely by wealth. After Kenya gained independence in 1963, race ceased to be an important indicator of social status, but wealth and ethnic identity remained significant. Today, a number of Kenya’s problems result from disparities in wealth. These problems include pervasive urban and rural poverty, overcrowded and substandard housing in urban areas, and a relatively high rate of unemployment. In the 1990s the country also witnessed periodic clashes between ethnic groups, particularly between Kalenjin and Kikuyu peoples in west central Kenya.
Tropical diseases, including malaria, have long been a public health problem in Kenya. In recent years, infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has also become a severe problem. In 2005 an estimated 1,200,000 Kenyans were infected with HIV.
IV CULTURE OF KENYA
Kenya’s ethnic diversity has produced a variety and richness of cultural forms that reflect African, Asian, and European influences. Visual arts are not highly important in contemporary Kenya, although varieties of wood and clay sculpture are produced for the tourist trade.
A Music and Dance
Distinctive forms of music and dance are associated with each of Kenya’s ethnic groups, and traditional music has flourished since independence. Kenya also has a thriving industry in popular music, which combines Western and African influences.
B Literature
Oral literature is the oldest form of literature in Kenya, and oral narratives continue to play an important role in the lives of most Kenyan communities. Written literature—in Swahili and later in English—developed in the early 20th century, when these languages were adopted for use in schools throughout the colony. However, it was not until independence in 1963 that Kenya began to develop a national body of written literature. Since that time, Kenyan writers have produced literary works in English, Swahili, and various vernacular languages. Kenya’s most famous post-independence writer is novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Isak Dinesen, an early 20th-century white settler in Africa, wrote several books about her time in Kenya.
C Theater
Prior to independence, Kenyan theater dealt mainly with European issues and followed the model of European theater. Since independence, drama focusing on African themes has developed in Kenya. In the 1970s the University of Nairobi’s traveling theater group began bringing plays to the country’s rural areas.
D Libraries and Museums
Most of Kenya’s major libraries and museums are located in Nairobi. These include the McMillan Memorial Library; Memorial Library; the University of Nairobi Library; the Kenya National Archives, which includes a small museum; and the National Museum, which features historical and cultural exhibits. The museum at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, featuring archaeological and historical artifacts from the coast, is the most significant museum outside the capital.
V ECONOMY OF KENYA
Traditionally, Kenya’s economy was based on farming, herding, hunting, and trade. With the establishment of colonial rule, however, Kenya was brought into the world capitalist economy. Under the British, Kenya developed an economy based on the export of agricultural products. The colonial government encouraged the settlement of European farmers in Kenya to provide a greater supply of exports. From World War I (1914-1918) through the mid-1950s, produce grown on settler farms and estates, such as coffee, sisal (a fiber used to make rope), and tea, dominated Kenya’s exports. Meanwhile, African households were encouraged to produce commodities for subsistence and for sale in local markets, and to work on European farms producing export crops.
During and after World War II (1939-1945), Kenya’s economy was altered by the initiation of import substitution manufacturing—that is, the production of goods that formerly had to be imported. The 1950s also witnessed an important change in the agricultural sector as the colonial government adopted measures to stimulate greater production by African households, including granting Africans permission to grow high-value export crops. This helped spur small-scale production over the next two decades, and despite the departure of most European farmers after Kenya gained independence, agricultural exports expanded dramatically. This, together with influxes of foreign capital and technical expertise, made Kenya’s cumulative rate of economic growth—6.8 percent—among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa between 1963 and 1980.
Kenya’s booming economy weakened in the 1980s as a consequence of a rising trade deficit, among other factors. Kenya’s slowing economic growth rate and expanding budget deficits caused the government to turn to structural adjustment policies advocated by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of their economic assistance to Kenya. Nevertheless, the Kenyan government has set the ambitious target of achieving the status of industrialized economy by 2020. In 2006 the gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the value of goods and services produced, was $22.8 billion, or about $623.20 per person.
A Role of Government
Since the colonial period, Kenya’s government has played a major role in the economy through its ownership of the railways, control of marketing for agricultural products, and establishment of state-owned firms. After Kenya gained independence in 1963, the government issued a series of five-year plans to guide economic development. Since the early 1990s the government has sold many state firms to private individuals and companies.
B Labor
In 2006 Kenya had a labor force of 16.7 million people. About 19 percent of the labor force works in agriculture, most earning their living by subsistence farming. About 62 percent work in the service sector and 20 percent in industry. Many laborers earn their living in what is called the jua kali sector—that is, through informal employment as mechanics, metalworkers, or in some other small-scale skilled craft. Kenya’s unemployment rate was estimated at about 21 percent in 1994. Trade unions represent a substantial proportion of private sector employees. All unions were brought under state control in 1965 with the creation of the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU).
C Agriculture
In 2006 agriculture contributed 27 percent of Kenya’s GDP. This represents a decline from 1963, when agriculture accounted for 38 percent of GDP. Kenya’s principal domestic commodities are the food crops maize (corn), millet, sorghum, and cassava. The most important export crops are tea, coffee, horticultural products (flowers, fruits, and vegetables), chrysanthemums (flowers from which pyrethrum insecticides are made), and sisal. The country’s principal livestock are cattle and goats. Since independence, Kenya’s small farm sector has contributed an increasing share of export production.
D Tourism and Other Services
The service sector accounts for 54 percent of Kenya’s GDP. This includes the various services provided by the government and the increasingly important restaurant, hotel, and safari industries, which have grown in response to the increasing number of tourists visiting Kenya.
Tourism in Kenya has expanded dramatically since 1963, and since 1989 it has been the country’s leading source of foreign currency. Tourist arrivals, mainly from Europe and North America, numbered 1,399,000 in 2005. Kenya’s main tourist destinations are the beaches along the Indian Ocean coast; national parks and game reserves, such as Masai Mara Game Park, Tsavo National Park, and Amboseli National Park; and museums and historical sites.
E Manufacturing and Mining
Kenya has the most industrially developed economy in East Africa. The manufacturing sector has grown significantly since the 1960s. In 2006 industry, which includes mining and construction, contributed 19 percent of GDP. Kenya’s chief manufactures include food products, beverages, cigarettes, textiles and clothing, cement, rubber products, transport equipment, printed materials, and petroleum and other chemicals.
Mining employs only a small number of Kenya’s workers. The main minerals produced are soda ash from Lake Magadi, fluorite, salt, and limestone products. The government is also seeking to exploit titanium and zircon deposits on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
F Forestry and Fishing
Kenyans engage in lake and ocean fishing, the former contributing most of the fish caught. The main sources of fish are Lake Victoria, Lake Naivasha, Lake Turkana, and Lake Baringo. Most fishing is done by self-employed fishermen, often as members of cooperative organizations. Most of the fish caught are consumed domestically. Kenya’s forest plantation areas are located in the highlands and on the coast. Softwood is an important product, with a considerable portion going to the country’s large paper mill at Webuye in western Kenya.
G Energy
Petroleum is Kenya’s major source of energy, and the country’s entire supply is imported. Electricity is the second most important energy source. Some 74 percent of Kenya’s electricity is generated by hydroelectric plants in the Tana River basin, in the Turkwel River gorge, and in neighboring Uganda. Kenya also has a geothermal station and an oil-burning facility that produce electricity.
H Transportation
Kenya has one of the most extensive transportation networks in East Africa. Railways connect the major cities, and the country’s road network is substantial, although only about 14 percent (2004) of roads are paved. Mombasa is Kenya’s major seaport and serves Uganda and Rwanda as well. Kisumu is the major port on Lake Victoria. River transport is not extensive. International airports are located at Nairobi, Mombasa, and Eldoret. Kenya Airways is the national airline. The main forms of public transportation in Kenya are buses, matatus (minibuses), and taxis.
I Communications
Historically, the Kenyan government exercised tight control over the media, although it owned only a portion of it. However, the advent of multiparty politics in 1992 brought about an expansion of press freedom. Kenya has several daily newspapers. The leading dailies are the English-language Daily Nation and its Swahili counterpart Taifa Leo, and the English daily the East African Standard. These and most other periodicals are published in Nairobi. Following political reforms of late 1997, a lively alternative press emerged, publishing numerous inexpensive and often short-lived newspapers in various languages.
The state-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation operates radio and television stations serving most of Kenya; it offers programs in English, Swahili, and vernacular languages. Private television and radio stations have also been licensed to serve Nairobi and some other urban markets. Telephone service has expanded in recent decades, but Kenya still has only 8 telephone mainlines for every 1,000 residents. Mobile telephone service is available across Kenya, however, and there are 135 mobile telephone subscribers for every 1,000 residents. Access to the Internet is expanding but tends to be limited to individuals and companies located in Nairobi and other major cities.
J Foreign Trade
Kenya is dependent on foreign trade. Since 1980 the country has usually run a substantial trade deficit with countries outside Africa and a surplus with those in East Africa. In 2004 Kenya’s imports totaled $4.6 billion and its exports totaled $3 billion. Kenya’s imports include industrial raw materials, crude petroleum, and machinery. Exports include tea, coffee, horticultural products, petroleum products, and cement.
K Currency and Banking
Kenya’s basic unit of currency is the Kenyan shilling, consisting of 100 cents (72.1 Kenyan shillings equal US$1; 2006 average). Currency is issued by the Central Bank of Kenya, established in Nairobi in 1966. An extensive network of commercial banks, both locally and foreign-owned, serves most of Kenya’s urban areas. The Nairobi Stock Exchange serves the whole country.
VI GOVERNMENT OF KENYA
Before independence in 1963, Kenya was a British colony governed by an all-powerful colonial administrator. The vast majority of Kenyans were not allowed to vote and were not represented in the government. With independence, Kenya became a constitutional monarchy under the nominal sovereignty of the British monarch, with a prime minister serving as head of government. In 1964 Kenya cut its ties to the British throne and became a republic with a president as head of state and government. From 1964 to 1966, and from 1969 to 1982, Kenya was, for all practical purposes, a one-party state; between 1982 and 1991 it was a one-party state by law. In 1991 the Kenyan government allowed for the existence of multiple political parties, and in 1992 the country held its first contested presidential elections.
Independent Kenya’s first constitution, adopted in 1963, provided for a semifederal system with a two-chamber national legislature and regional governments with designated powers. When the constitution was revised in 1964 to provide for a republic with a strong president, most federal features of the government were scrapped. In 1967 the two chambers of the legislature were merged to form the single-chamber National Assembly. The country holds regularly scheduled parliamentary elections, and all citizens age 18 and older are eligible to vote.
A Executive
The executive branch is the most influential branch of the Kenyan government. Kenya’s president serves as head of state. The president is elected by the people for a five-year term, and a 1991 constitutional amendment established a two-term limit for the presidency. To become president, a candidate must simultaneously run for president and for a seat in parliament and must win both elections. The president appoints a cabinet of ministers, each of whom heads an executive department of the government, and a vice president, who is also a member of the cabinet. Under the terms of a 2008 power-sharing agreement, the position of prime minister was created to replace the president as head of government.
B Legislature
Kenya’s parliament is a single-chamber body called the National Assembly. Legislation passed by the parliament becomes law after being approved by the president. Elections to the National Assembly are held every five years, unless called earlier by the president or the assembly itself. Following the elections held in 2002, the National Assembly consisted of 210 directly elected representatives (including the president), 12 members nominated by the president, the attorney general, and the speaker of the house.
C Judiciary
Kenya’s judiciary consists of two major courts and a number of lower magistrate courts. The major courts are the Kenya Court of Appeal, with 9 judges, and the High Court of Kenya, with 27 judges. All judges are appointed by the president. Kenya’s legal system is based on English common law, tribal law, and Islamic law. Trial by jury is not used in Kenya.
D Local Government
For administrative purposes, Kenya is divided into seven provinces (Central Province, Coast Province, Eastern Province, Northeastern Province, Nyanza Province, Rift Valley Province, and Western Province), in addition to the extra-provincial region of Nairobi and its environs. The provinces are divided into dozens of districts, which in turn are divided into divisions, which are further divided into locations. A commissioner heads each province and district, while a district officer heads each division; chiefs head the locations. All of these officials are under the direction of the president. This system of local government was inherited from the colonial period. Kenya’s districts and municipalities also have elected councils, which raise revenue to provide some local services.
E Political Parties
Between 1982 and 1991 Kenya was a one-party state by law. The ruling party was the Kenya African National Union (KANU), a conservative nationalist party dominated by the interests of President Daniel arap Moi. At the end of the 1980s many Kenyan people began to protest the system of one-party rule, and in late 1991 the government agreed to permit the registration of other political parties. More than a dozen new political parties were legalized in 1997. KANU remained the ruling party of Kenya until December 2002 elections, which were dominated by an alliance of opposition parties called the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Ethnicity has long been a main determinant of political party membership.
F Social Services
Kenyans rely on family support for many of their social welfare needs, including school fees and funeral expenses. However, Kenya’s government provides funding for a range of hospitals, health centers, and clinics. The government also provides support for adult literacy classes.
G Defense
In 2004 Kenya’s defense establishment consisted of an army of 20,000 personnel, a navy of 1,620, and an air force of 2,500. Military service is voluntary. Kenya’s military has had relatively little influence on politics.
H International and Regional Organizations
Kenya is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union (AU), and the United Nations (UN). Kenya is linked economically and politically with Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda through its membership in the East African Community.
VII HISTORY OF KENYA
Kenya was the location of some of the earliest human settlements. Sites such as Koobi Fora, near Lake Turkana, indicate hominid habitation dating back 2.5 million years.
A History of Inland Kenya
In the Kenya highlands, communities that produced their own food by farming and domestication of animals had taken up residence by the end of the second millennium bc. Because of the tools they used, these people—who probably came from the highlands of Ethiopia—are known as the Stone Bowl people. It was not until the last few centuries of the pre-Christian era that other food-producing and iron-working peoples began to take up residence in Kenya. These were the ancestors of the Bantu- and Nilotic-speaking groups of modern Kenya. Bantu-speaking peoples entered Kenya from the west and south, eventually settling east of Lake Victoria, where they occupied land on the coast and in the eastern highlands. The earliest Nilotic-speaking people, ancestors of today’s Highlands Nilotic speakers, entered Kenya from the northwest to take up residence in the highlands west of the Eastern Rift Valley. Later, ancestors of the Plains Nilotic speakers followed, moving into the Rift Valley and the plains to the east. Later still, ancestors of the River-Lake Nilotic speakers moved into the lower-lying regions around Lake Victoria. Eastern Cushitic speakers ancestral to the Oromo moved into northern Kenya from lands to the northeast and were followed by Cushitic-speaking Somali.
This process of migration occurred through small population movements and interactions and stretched over a period of centuries. From this process emerged the various social formations that existed in Kenya at the beginning of colonial rule in the late 19th century ad. These groupings were fluid, representing a process of ongoing social change. For example, in the 17th century the ancestors of the Bantu-speaking Kikuyu settled in the forested hills and ridges south and west of Mount Kenya; as they did so, they borrowed customs from some peoples, absorbed other peoples, and competed with various groups for resources. Most of Kenya’s peoples combined livestock raising with agriculture, although some, like the Nilotic-speaking Masai, were nomadic herders. Unlike nearby regions such as Ethiopia and Uganda, Kenya did not experience the emergence of large, centralized states or empires.
B History of Coastal Kenya
The Kenyan coast developed differently from the interior due to its exposure to the Indian Ocean sphere of exploration and trade. Over the course of the first millennium, a separate Bantu language and culture, which came to be known as Swahili, developed along the East African coast. This development was strongly influenced by contact with Arabs from the Persian Gulf, who traded, settled, and intermarried with the coastal Africans. By the 9th century the Swahili-speaking people had established a number of towns between present-day Somalia and Mozambique, including Mombasa, Lamu, and Pate in what is now Kenya. These towns became important trade centers, facilitating commerce between residents of the Kenyan interior and seafaring traders from Arabia, Persia, India, and elsewhere on the Indian Ocean. The main exports from these Swahili towns were ivory, slaves, and timber and other raw materials. By the 12th century many of the Swahili inhabitants of the towns had adopted Islam. Some towns, such as Mombasa, grew wealthy, gaining control of coastal and inland territory and developing into city-states. A number of these Swahili city-states dotted the Kenyan coast by the time the Portuguese arrived at the start of the 16th century.
After Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama successfully sailed around Africa to India and back between 1497 and 1499, the Portuguese began actively exploring the Indian Ocean coast. At first the Portuguese were interested in dominating trade on the seas rather than controlling mainland territory in East Africa. At the end of the 16th century, however, the Portuguese constructed Fort Jesus, a massive fortress at Mombasa, in order to exercise greater control ashore. Portuguese dominance did not last long, as the Portuguese faced competition from the Arab dynastic state in Oman, which also sought to control much of the East African coast. The Swahili states, together with the Omani Arabs, succeeded in driving the Portuguese from Kenya’s coast by the end of the 17th century. The Swahili states resisted Omani attempts to control the coast, but by the 1840s the Omanis had established dominance. Commerce expanded as trade in African slaves boomed. Omani rule over the area brought further Arabic influence to Swahili language and culture. In the 19th century the East African coast also experienced greater contact with Europe, in the form of commerce and attempts by Britain to stamp out the African slave trade. British influence in the region grew, culminating in Britain’s halting of the slave trade in the late 1800s and its takeover of Kenya at the end of the century.
C British Colonization
In 1886 and 1890 Britain reached agreements with Germany that delineated a boundary between British territory in Kenya and German territory in Tanganyika (part of present-day Tanzania) to the south. The Imperial British East Africa Company was chartered in 1888 to administer Kenya, but the company soon found itself losing large amounts of money through its vain attempts to extend control over the interior. In 1895 the British government formally took over the territory, which was renamed the East Africa Protectorate. Its western neighbor was Britain’s Uganda Protectorate, and the border between the two lay just west of the site that would become, in the late 1890s, the new city of Nairobi.
Although the boundaries of the British protectorate were set, the British actually controlled little more than the Kenyan coast at the beginning of the 20th century. The British conquest of the Kenyan interior was gradual and incremental, taking second place to Britain’s construction of a railway connecting Mombasa with Lake Victoria. The railway was completed in 1901. In 1902 Britain decided to merge Uganda’s Eastern Province with the East Africa Protectorate; thus the Lake Victoria basin and the western highlands became part of Kenya. By 1908 the British administration had brought the southern half of present-day Kenya under its control. Northern Kenya, then inhabited largely by nomadic peoples, did not come under British authority until well after World War I (1914-1918).
In their colonial conquest, the British followed a policy of divide and conquer, allying with some African groups against others. The Masai, who had suffered a series of 19th-century civil wars over water and grazing rights and had lost much of their livestock to disease and drought, were one group with whom the British allied in order to impose their rule. To aid colonial administration, the British divided Kenya’s Bantu-, Nilotic-, and Cushitic-speaking peoples into ethnic classifications based on linguistic variations and locality. Thus, specific ethnic subgroups, called “tribes,” were created in a form that had not existed previously. The ethnic groups were assigned to live in separate areas of the colony. Within each subgroup, colonial administrators designated one “chief,” who became responsible for collecting taxes levied by the colonial state.
To help make the new railway profitable, the colonial government encouraged the settlement of European farmers in Kenya. After 1902 white Europeans (mostly from Britain and South Africa) took up residence in the highlands. Land for European settlement meant the loss of land for some of Kenya’s peoples, most notably the highland-dwelling Kikuyu. Many of the Kikuyu who lost land were forced to move onto European farms and estates as squatters and laborers, or to seek employment in urban areas such as Nairobi. By the time World War I ended in 1918, European settlers, desiring inexpensive farm labor, had convinced the colonial government to adopt measures that essentially forced Africans to work the farms. These included new, higher taxes on Africans, who, lacking money, were obligated to work the settlers’ farms in order to pay them. By this time, the settlers had achieved considerable political influence in the territory, which was changed to a colony and renamed Kenya in 1920. The colony of Kenya was administered by a British governor, who was advised by an elected Legislative Council. Black Africans were not allowed to vote and were denied representation in the council until the mid-1940s, when a small number of blacks were nominated to the council. The colony’s small Asian and Arab populations were given several seats in the council in the 1920s.
D African Opposition to the British
Following World War I, protests against settler supremacy and the policies of the colonial government emerged among Kenyan Africans. Much of the opposition during this period came from educated Kenyans who objected to the government’s high taxes, labor-control policies, and a general lack of opportunities. One of the first opposition movements to emerge was the East African Association, which was banned by colonial authorities in 1922. In the 1920s and 1930s African protests focused on local issues and remained within the boundaries of the ethnic units recognized by colonial rule. The Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), formed in 1924, began advocating the return of land lost to European settlement, the importance of Kikuyu cultural values, and improvement in the lot of its middle-class leadership. One of the leaders of the KCA was Jomo Kenyatta. During this period, the KCA and similar organizations in other parts of Kenya sought not the removal of colonial rule but rather improvement within it.
After World War II (1939-1945), opposition increasingly took the form of nationalism, with African activists demanding self-government and independence. A colony-wide political party, the Kenya African Union (KAU), was formed in 1944 to advocate this goal. Kenyatta became the leader of the party in 1947. KAU made little headway with its demands, however, as European settlers still enjoyed far greater influence than Africans within the colonial government.
In these postwar years, economic and political discontent mounted, particularly among the Kikuyu. Some outbreaks of violence occurred in 1951, and the following year a secret Kikuyu guerrilla organization known as Mau Mau began a campaign of violence against Europeans. In October 1952 the colonial government declared a state of emergency and arrested Kenyatta, charging him with managing Mau Mau. Kenyatta’s arrest and later conviction and imprisonment, and the banning of KAU in 1953, spurred on the Mau Mau rebellion, in which thousands of Africans—the majority of whom were Kikuyu—fought a guerrilla war against colonial rule and settler supremacy. The rebellion proved also to be a Kikuyu civil war: Those who fought against British rule were drawn from the poorest segment of Kikuyu society, while wealthier Kikuyu, who had profited from colonial rule, fought against the rebels. After four years of fighting and thousands of deaths (mostly of Africans), the British finally suppressed the rebellion in 1956.
Although the British moved to provide greater economic, educational, and political opportunities for Africans, African nationalism continued to intensify and to spread among all of Kenya’s ethnic groups. In 1960 and 1961 the British rapidly took steps to end settler supremacy and establish independence for Kenya with African majority rule. Colony-wide political parties were formed, and when Kenyatta was freed from detention in 1961 he became the leader of the newly formed dominant party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU). KANU was supported by the Kikuyu and the Luo, Kenya’s two largest ethnic groups at the time. In pre-independence elections held in May 1963, Kenyatta led KANU to victory over its main rival, the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), which was supported by a number of smaller ethnic groups. Kenyatta became prime minister in June, and in December Kenya became an independent nation.
E Kenya Under Kenyatta
As an independent country, Kenya was initially a constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch as its nominal head of state and a prime minister as head of government. In December 1964, however, Kenya became a republic with a president as both head of state and head of government. Kenyatta was chosen as the country’s first president. By this time KADU had dissolved, and its members had joined KANU.
The Kenyatta era, which lasted until 1978, was a period of considerable social change and economic growth for Kenya. Kenyatta appointed members of many different ethnic groups to government positions and encouraged the people of Kenya to come together as Kenyans, rather than focus on their different ethnic alignments. Many whites had left the country when Kenya became independent, and Kenyatta divided their land among blacks. These Kenyans were encouraged to grow export crops such as coffee and tea on their new land. Aided by a steady flow of foreign investment, largely from Britain, Kenya’s economy flourished. The standard of living rose for most Kenyans, and the nation’s economy became one of the fastest growing in post-colonial Africa.
However, Kenyatta’s capitalist economic policies and pro-Western orientation provoked division within KANU. Kenya’s vice president, an ethnic Luo named Oginga Odinga, resigned from the government in 1966 and formed the Kenya People’s Union (KPU), which drew a great deal of Luo support away from KANU and presented the Kenyatta government with a challenge. In 1969 Tom Mboya, an influential Luo cabinet minister, was assassinated, resulting in a further loss of Luo support for the government. Kenyatta surmounted these challenges through the use of state power: detaining opponents without trial, banning the KPU, and filling government positions with supporters. Kenyatta made appeals for ethnic solidarity among Kikuyu, and many Kikuyu achieved influence and considerable wealth under his rule. However, the president resisted attempts by Kikuyu to remove his vice president, an ethnic Kalenjin named Daniel arap Moi, from the position of successor.
F Moi’s Rule
Kenyatta died in 1978, and Moi assumed the presidency of Kenya. He took the Swahili word nyayo (meaning “footsteps”) as his leadership motto to assure Kenyans that he was following the legacy of Kenyatta. At first, Moi adopted a populist approach, releasing political prisoners, moving to limit Kikuyu political and economic influence, and traveling among the nation’s people. In the 1980s, however, Kenya’s economic growth began to slow, and Moi’s rule became increasingly authoritarian. In 1982 the Moi government altered the constitution to make Kenya officially a one-party state. That year Moi survived a coup attempt by air force personnel. Beginning in the 1980s, Kenya experienced several debilitating droughts and the price of coffee dropped several times. These factors damaged the Kenyan economy; the nation fell into debt, and unemployment rose dramatically.
Fueled by economic discontent, strong pressure for reform of the political system and an end to Moi’s rule emerged from many sectors of Kenyan society by the end of the 1980s. Moi resisted the calls for reform, but his government came under pressure from foreign economic donors, such as the World Bank and the United States, to implement political and economic reforms. Meanwhile, in the early 1990s violent ethnic clashes rocked Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, as Kalenjin people attacked Kikuyu living in traditionally Kalenjin areas. Moi finally bowed to domestic and international pressures in December 1991 and agreed to legalize other political parties. Multiparty legislative and presidential elections were held in December 1992, but the opposition to KANU split along ethnic lines; Moi was reelected in the presidential race, and KANU won the majority of seats in the assembly.
Continuing economic difficulties and calls for further reform marked Moi’s new term. His administration also was accused of corruption and overspending, particularly through its favoring of development projects in Kalenjin-dominated areas that supported him. Before the elections of 1997, opposition parties held demonstrations calling for electoral reform, and further ethnic clashes occurred. In late 1997 Moi consented to the repeal of repressive antiopposition laws that had existed since colonial times. However, opposition to Moi’s rule remained divided, and he was reelected president in December.
G Recent Developments
The Kenyan economy continued to decline into the 21st century and opposition to Moi and KANU mounted. Constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term, Moi handpicked KANU’s candidate to succeed him. Expressing fears that Moi would manipulate the next KANU president behind the scenes, several major opposition parties joined forces to form the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), led by former vice president Mwai Kibaki. NARC and Kibaki swept the December 2002 elections with more than 60 percent of the vote. Kibaki was sworn in as president of Kenya in late December, ending four decades of KANU rule.
Kibaki pledged to curb corruption in the government and civil service and in 2003 established a new anticorruption senior official. However, the government’s commitment to the effort was questioned. After making little progress, the anticorruption official resigned in 2005, sparking criticism of the Kenyan government from the international economic community.
Kibaki was declared the winner of the December 2007 presidential election despite widespread evidence of vote rigging. The top opposition leader, Raila Odinga, claimed he had won the election. Weeks of bloodshed and destruction ensued as Kibaki’s and Odinga’s supporters, divided along ethnic lines, clashed over the dispute. More than 1,000 people were killed in the unrest, which damaged Kenya’s long-standing reputation for stability. A power-sharing agreement was finally reached in late February 2008, following mediation by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and intense international pressure. In the agreement, Odinga dropped his claim to the presidency and accepted the newly created position of prime minister.
Contributed By:
Robert M. Maxon
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)