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Eliot, “who initiated the policy of white supremacy in the British East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya),” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica website, was referring to the meter gauge railway built by British colonialists in East Africa between 1896 and 1901.

The railway, emblematic of Western civilization’s expansive reach, piped white settlers to the African continent in pursuit of adventure and colonial conquest and witnessed Kenya’s awakening process and struggle for independence.

“There are those who praised it (the railway) as a key component in Kenya’s birth, or we called the birth of a nation, and those who are more of saying that it played a role in colonizing Kenya,” Dennis Munene, executive director of the China-Africa Center, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

“We’re celebrating now our independence 60 years. And we will always continue to look behind on what happened. We are going to heal from the wounds and now push for Kenya to attain more development,” Munene said.

{{European partition of Africa}}

At the entrance of the Nairobi Railway Museum, the century-old railway, initially named the Uganda Railway after its destination, was displayed on a map of East Africa.

Built between 1896 and 1901, it started in the port city of Mombasa on the coast of the Indian Ocean and extended northwest to stop at Port Florence, now Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria.

To understand the birth of the railway, it’s necessary to mention the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. During the conference, Britain and other Western powers discussed rules for colonizing and partitioning Africa, such as “effective occupation.”

Ironically, not a single African representative attended this decisive conference about Africa’s fate. A week before it closed, the Lagos Observer commented, “the world had, perhaps, never witnessed a robbery on so large a scale.”

“Following the close of the conference, European powers expanded their claims in Africa such that by 1900, European states had claimed nearly 90 percent of African territory,” wrote the Encyclopedia of Africa.

Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin pointed out in his 1917 book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that “when nine-tenths of Africa had been seized (by 1900) when the whole world had been divided up, there was inevitably ushered in the era of monopoly possession of colonies and, consequently, of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redivision of the world.”

To tighten control over the “British East Africa,” the British government laid a railway to control the entire Nile River basin originating from Lake Victoria.

However, the project earned much resentment in the British parliament and media as its estimated cost of 5 million pounds was deemed exorbitant. British politician Henry Labouchere even wrote a poem mocking the railway as a “lunatic line.”

Yet, in the eyes of the colonizers, it was all worth it. The construction of the railway was not only a step in the partition of Africa but also a part of building the imperialistic colonial system.

“Whatever power dominates Uganda masters the Nile, the master of the Nile rules Egypt, the ruler of Egypt holds the Suez Canal,” wrote Charles Miller in his 1971 book The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism, from which the railway derived its well-known nickname.

{{Blood tainted ‘iron snake’ }}

In the eyes of the local tribes, the Lunatic Express was an “Iron Snake.” An ancient tribal prophecy said the iron snake would someday cross their land and be a bad omen, creating trouble as it went.

In the main exhibition hall of the museum, a row of wood-framed photographs reproduces the birth of the “Iron Snake”: British engineers and officers in helmets, uniforms and riding boots standing on the roof of the locomotive, surrounded by ragged, barefoot laborers.

The railway’s construction was far more complex than the British had imagined, while the actual cost of life was immeasurable.

Without the assistance of machinery, the 931 km-long railway was built by workers holding simple tools. Supplies such as construction materials and fresh water had to be transported from elsewhere. Man-eating lions wandering in the savanna, tropical diseases like malaria and attacks by locals resisting the “Iron Snake” invasion all became the Death Reaper.

According to the museum, 2,493 workers had died by the time the railway was completed or four deaths for each mile of track laid.

This would probably surprise the British noblemen who later boarded the trains to chase fun as depicted in railway advertisements in the 1920s, one of which bid East Africa the “winter home for aristocrats.”

Setting foot on the African continent, the settlers aspired to turn the vast fertile land of Kenya into a “white man’s paradise,” racing horses and hunting on the rolling green hills and lush forests. They also established plantations of cash crops such as coffee and tea to process and sell in Europe.

Local pastoralists, such as the Maasai, were affected the most by the colonial expansion, and their resistance was brutally suppressed. In her book Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure, British author Lotte Hughes describes how many Maasai were forcibly moved into two reserves and robbed of the best part of their land. It was the same fate for the Kikuyu, another prominent tribe in the region.

This colonial economy has left a lasting impact on Kenya, and the pain is still felt.

In 2022, a group of Kenyans filed a case against the British government at the European Court of Human Rights over colonial-era land theft, torture and mistreatment, claiming that the local tribes from Kericho county were forcibly evicted in the early 20th century from their ancestral lands, a major tea-growing region farmed today by large multinationals. “The UK Government has ducked and dived, and sadly avoided every possible avenue of redress,” said the group’s lawyer Joel Kimutai Bosek.

“There is blood in the tea,” said Godfrey Sang, a historian whose grandfather’s land was doled out to white farmers.

{{Anti-colonial movements}}

After World War I, as more and more Europeans settled in the East African colony, little land was left that belonged to the indigenous people. “It is more than their land that you take away from the people whose native land you take. It is their past as well, their roots and their identity,” wrote Karen Blixen in her famous book Out of Africa.

In the 1930s and 1940s, a storm of resistance was brewing among local communities who had been stripped of lands. Their discontentment fed into various Kenyan nationalist movements, ultimately leading to the Mau Mau movement.

The Mau Mau, a militant anti-colonial group primarily composed of the Kikuyu people, convened under the slogan of “land and freedom” and quickly gained support among local communities.

Using the railway, nationalists could travel from one end of Kenya to the other to join political rallies to encourage Kenyans to fight for independence. It was also said people were using the railway to transport guns to those fighting for independence.

In October 1952, the British colonial government declared a state of emergency over the Mau Mau insurgency, which marked the beginning of a bloody oppression.

In 1956, the capture of rebel leader Dedan Kimathi marked the defeat of the Mau Mau movement, but the rebellion survived into the early 1960s. By the end of 1956, more than 11,000 rebels had been killed in the fighting, according to the website of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

On Dec. 12, 1963, Kenya became fully independent from colonial rule. A wave of decolonization swept across Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to the independence of some 30 African countries.

{{From Lunatic Express to Madaraka Express }}

Kenya broke the shackles of colonial rule sixty years ago, but the legacy of the colonial economy continued to constrain the country’s development for decades.

Today, when looking out of the train windows of the old railway, tourists can enjoy Kenya’s beautiful landscape and diverse wildlife while spotting tea plantations, some of which are still owned by Western multinationals.

Meanwhile, a notable change captured their attention: The new Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) built by China runs mainly in parallel with the old one.

The SGR, dubbed the Madaraka Express, was launched on May 31, 2017, a day before Madaraka Day, which commemorates Kenya’s internal self-rule on June 1, 1963.

The new train drastically reduced travel time and the costs of freight service. It emerged as the preferred choice for commuters, pivotal in stimulating commerce and empowering smaller towns along its corridor.

In the railway museum, a locomotive miniature of the SGR is on display, bearing a slogan on the side of the carriages that reads “connecting nations, prospering people.”

“The old Kenya-Uganda railway was more of an extractive railway where colonial masters used to get raw materials from the hinterland to the Indian Ocean for shipping to their countries,” Munene said.

“The SGR, which is a partnership between China and Kenya, is development-oriented. It helps Kenya to integrate with the other East African countries. It’s helping Kenya to grow in terms of its economic expansion. It’s creating what we call a fast and efficient mode of transport for goods and passengers,” he said.

The new railway has operated seamlessly for over 2,300 days, ferrying millions of passengers and tons of goods, contributing significantly to Kenya’s socio-economic growth. Local drivers, technicians and attendants, trained by Chinese professionals, ensure the smooth operation of the railway.

The Madaraka Express epitomizes the Belt and Road cooperation between China and Kenya. Over the past years, such cooperation projects have helped enhance infrastructure connectivity across the continent and boost intra-African trade.

From the Lunatic Express to the Madaraka Express, the colonial past represented by the old railway is gradually fading away. A bright future brought by the new railway is emerging.

Of the dead, two pupils were killed after their houses were swept away by flash floods at Kihonda Kiegeya in the Morogoro municipality on Thursday morning, said Shaaban Malugujo, Morogoro region’s commander for the Tanzania Fire and Rescue Force.

Two women were injured and rushed to the hospital for recovery, Malugujo added.

The floods were due to the overflowing Ngerengere River after heavy rains in the Uluguru mountains, he said.

The Morogoro municipality central market was suspended due to floods, most of the streets in the municipality were impacted, and some residential houses and other business structures were submerged, said Receba Nsemwa, the Morogoro district commissioner.

A statement by the Prime Minister’s Office said Majaliwa said the death toll of the disastrous torrential rains that caused the floods and landslides had reached 65 by Tuesday morning and more than 116 people had been injured.

Addressing a public rally in Katesh town, one of the most affected areas, Majaliwa said his office had been mandated to coordinate humanitarian assistance donated by local and international organizations, businessmen, and individuals.

“The humanitarian aid should be given to affected people. Anyone implicated in misusing the aid will be dealt with accordingly,” the Prime Minister warned.

The statement said the Prime Minister also oversaw restoration work in affected areas and promised that the government will do all it can to restore the areas to normalcy.

On Monday, the presidency said about 5,600 people had been left homeless and more than 750 hectares of farm crops had been damaged.

The Tanzania Meteorological Authority in August issued an advisory for the September-December rainfall season, warning that the season was more likely to be influenced by El Nino conditions. It also warned that the rains could have devastating consequences, including flooding and disruption of businesses and transport.

According to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority, a state agency, peak demand for electricity in Kenya has increased by an average of 3.1 percent annually and currently exceeds 2,000 megawatts (MW).

Kenya, like many other African countries, has not been spared the challenge of energy shortage, with government statistics indicating that about 25 percent of the East African country’s population lacks electricity connection.

In addition, power supply disruptions linked to drought and the high cost of maintaining diesel-fired power plants have undermined efforts to realize universal access to electricity.

To address the energy access gap, the government wants to replace diesel-fired power generation by drilling geothermal wells across the country’s Rift Valley.

Currently, geothermal accounts for 39.15 percent of power installed in the national grid, followed by hydropower at 26.47 percent by the end of 2022, according to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority.

President William Ruto said during the Africa Energy Forum held in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, in June that the country aims to achieve a 100 percent clean energy transition by 2030.

He said Kenya has 10,000 MW of untapped geothermal energy, spread across some 20 locations in the Rift Valley, which is enough to meet the country’s electricity needs even during peak hours.

Kenya’s development blueprint, Vision 2030, projects that its geothermal power generation will reach 1,600 MW by 2030, accounting for 60 percent of overall power generation.

In the middle of picturesque escarpments on the northern edges of the Rift Valley county of Nakuru, the Menengai Geothermal Power Plant, financed and constructed by a Chinese firm, stands out for its architectural finesse.

Major civil works on the plant are 98 percent complete, according to local officials, and upon commissioning, it will supply 35 MW of electricity to the national grid, boosting Kenya’s clean energy switch.

The exploration of geothermal power at Menengai crater, a geological marvel at the heart of the Great Rift Valley, commenced in 2011 but paused later, only to resume in 2021 when a group of Chinese financiers and contractors came on board.

One of the Chinese companies implementing the geothermal power project is Kaishan Group, the project’s contractor, which was involved in securing financing as well as designing and constructing the plant.

Guo Rui, the project manager at Kaishan Group, said that through a contractual arrangement with Sosian Energy, a local privately owned independent power producer, it has been possible to mobilize funds and technology required to exploit geothermal resources in Kenya.

“We are at the final stages of constructing the power plant and once it is completed, we shall hand it over to Sosian Energy company, which will later sell electricity from geothermal wells to the national grid,” Guo told Xinhua during a recent interview.

Kaishan’s manufactured equipment has slashed the geothermal project’s implementation timeline significantly, saving on cost, Guo said.

“The equipment produced by Kaishan Group is highly energy efficient and has a shorter construction lifespan,” Guo said, adding that transferring skills to local technicians has been a major priority for the Chinese firm.

Venugopal Varanasi, the managing director of Sosian Energy, in an article published on June 1 by China Global South Project, noted that air compressors manufactured by the Kaishan group convert geothermal steam into electricity speedily.

Varanasi added that through the use of Kaishan technology, it has been possible to convert low-pressure geothermal steam into power, noting that the Menengai geothermal project will serve as a model for innovative blending of Chinese capital and technology to promote clean energy access in Kenya.

Kenya could become a regional hub for geothermal generation and supply, thanks to the injection of Chinese funds and modern technology to hasten the implementation of the Menengai geothermal plant, said Lin Juntao, a site engineer at Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina).

PowerChina, according to Lin, has since January 2022 been undertaking civil and installation works at the Menengai geothermal plant.

“All the installation works are finished,” Lin said, noting that equipment supplied by Kaishan Group, including turbines, can use high steam temperature to generate power twice, compared to only once with Japanese or European equipment.

Moses Kachumo, a project engineer at Geothermal Development Company, a state-owned firm, hailed the Chinese for their flexible and no-strings-attached financing model alongside technical prowess for hastening the implementation of the Menengai Geothermal Power Plant.

Kachumo singled out technology supplied by Kaishan Group for maximizing generation of geothermal power from steam and hot water, adding that replicating similar technology in other geothermal projects in the country is being mooted.

“With Kaishan technology, we can use a low-pressure mixture of steam and water to generate power. The technology maximizes the energy from steam,” Kachumo said.

According to Kachumo, Kaishan Group has a 14-year contractual agreement with Sosian Energy to run and maintain the Menengai geothermal plant, and the Chinese firm will later hand it over to the Kenyan energy firm upon recouping its investments.

Kachumo said that Sosian Energy has a 25-year power purchasing agreement with Kenya Power, the state-owned utility, where it will be supplying electricity generated from the Menengai geothermal plant

Cavince Adhere, a Kenyan international relations scholar, said that BRICS has provided an opportunity for developing countries to make their voices count in global governance.

The expert noted that BRICS is a platform for collaboration where developing countries can work together to overcome their development challenges.

Northeastern Regional Commissioner John Otieno confirmed the incident on Wednesday evening, saying the deceased were ambushed and killed by unknown gunmen while they were inside their vehicle.

“We have launched investigations to establish the cause of the incident. The police have already arrested one suspect who is aiding with investigations,” Otieno told journalists.

Otieno said the attack is suspected to be a revenge mission after another person from the rival clan was murdered.

He added that at least 10 people from either clan have been killed in the inter-clan clashes said to have been caused by a longstanding land scuffle. Residents said two of the victims of the attack were school students who were on their way home for a holiday.

“The six people who were killed were traveling in a vehicle but were stopped along by the attackers and all of them were executed, including two high-school students who were going home for the holiday,” a local resident who declined to be identified said on phone.

Tension remained high amid fears of retaliation from the affected group. Inter-clan clashes over pieces of land are common in Garissa County, with several people losing their lives and scores getting injured as a result.

Residents said the loss of communal grazing land to farming and environmental degradation has also fuelled conflicts in a number of pastoral areas across northern Kenya, noting that freedom of movement over large areas was a crucial element of the pastoralists’ dry lands resource management system.

Edward Gowele, Rufiji district commissioner, said the elephants were shot dead between late July and mid-August and the five zebras, four antelopes and one buffalo were found dead after they were trapped in the Juhiwangumwa wildlife management area located close to the Nyerere National Park.

“A recent investigation by the Rufiji district defense and security committee, and wildlife authorities found carcasses of the animals snared in different parts of the wildlife management area,” Gowele told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

“The poachers had removed tusks of two of the three elephants,” said Gowele, adding that during the anti-poaching crackdown, one game ranger was wounded by the armed poachers.

He said the district defense and security committee has launched a manhunt for the poachers. “We have gathered intelligence in the area, and we managed to arrest one suspected poacher who is being questioned by the police.”