BATUK soldiers during a thanksgiving service for Queen Elizabeth Windsor II conducted by Reverend Anthony Thompson in Nanyuki on September 19, 2022. [File, Standard]
The presence of Britain’s infantry units living and training on Kenyan soil remains abstract for many Kenyans despite its ramifications on the country’s sovereignty.
The British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk) based in Laikipia is considered by critics to be a imperial construct that keeps Kenya in the Western orbit by force.
Batuk’s notoriety is of particular relevance for its bloody human rights record through rape of local women and abandonment of offsprings by British soldiers, deaths and maiming through murder and unexploded ordnance.
In recent years arson and wanton destruction of the fragile ecosystem has added a new layer of British torment.
Despite this sordid past with BATUK, the Kenya government is pushing through a new pact whose Article 6 (5)(9) indemnifies British soldiers from murder charges in violation of Kenyan and international law.
The Anglo Kenya military pact raises other grave legal and constitutional questions.