African Unity, Regionalism, Restive Neighbors, Sovereignty & Non-alignment

If there was suspicion independence would come easy, that challenges of uniting, administering, and facilitating a newly independent nation’s assumption of its role in the community of nations, such myth was broken within two weeks of independence. Soon, the new republic was faced with irredentism financed and supported by neighboring nations and their global financiers. In fairness, the Cairo Declaration took a minute to be agreed to, and the idea of territory based on nationalism had a long history. But dispatching these two opened up the space to do all the other things that independent nations must consider: who to align with (east or west), whether to be the Switzerland of Africa and shun all multilateralism or support the African Liberation Committee, among others. The issue of regionalism, and how to transform the East African Common Services Organization (EACSO) into another body, or an East African Federation, were on the regional agenda. So was the proposed Nkrumah vision of an USA, and its administrative structures that included who might be its president, and the role and funding of a military apparatus, such as an African High Command. Other issues Kenya could not shun, such as support for liberation of the Southern African region through the Frontline States (FLS) and the African Liberation Committee (ALC). In the short term, Kenya showed the direction it would take (or not take). But what might this suggest for its future foreign policy? What was the 2003 strategy, 40 years on and almost 15 years after the end of the Cold War, for Kenya to look to the East for development assistance?