JMA,
You asked:
IIRC there is an Anglo-Kenyan defence agreement, dating back to independence, which allows the UK access to Kenyan facilities, but not fixed bases. Google defeated my research to find a reference for a formal treaty; there is this official MoD website entry:
http://www.army.mod.uk/operations-de...nts/22724.aspx
Note the declared training is not all-year and is well explained officially on:
http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.ph...and&Itemid=105
My recollection is that for many years after Kenyan independence in 1965 there were no permanent UK presence, let alone exercises and I expect relations only changed in 1979-80 when Kenya contributed to Rhodesia's transition to Zimbabwe. The Royal Navy regularly visited Mombasa for a long time.
Responding to a coup is
not a rationale for our presence. The British Army engineers did once deploy in Nairobi, when the US Embassy was attacked in 1998, with their heavy lifting equipment, although you will not readily find any newsreel or photos of this - a sign perhaps of Kenyan sensitivity?
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