President Daniel Arap Moi meets US President Jimmy Carter in Washington on February 20, 1980, 10:30 a.m.
According to details of the recorded meeting, the two leaders discussed a number of issues touching on Africa, East Africa, and US-Kenya bilateral relations, but the most interesting bit was on Tanzania.
Moi told Carter that Kenya was surrounded by very hostile neighbours, with Tanzania being one of them. He revealed to the US president that he had hoped that Nyerere’s invasion of Uganda would make things better, but instead, things were getting worse.
He also accused Nyerere of exploiting Uganda by demanding that the cost of the war plus the salaries of all Tanzanian soldiers in the country be paid by Uganda’s interim government led by Binaisa. According to Moi,Tanzania had around 30,000 soldiers in Uganda, which cost 6 million pounds monthly, a bill that Nyerere was slapping on the new Ugandan government monthly.
Moi noted that this was unfair because Tanzania was already diverting revenues generated from the sale of Ugandan coffee and tea to its own coffers in Dar-es-Salaam instead of using the money to reconstruct Uganda.
President Carter then asked Moi whether he thought Godfrey Binaisa, the leader of Uganda’s interim government, was a puppet of Nyerere. But Moi said it was impossible for Binaisa to be independent of Nyerere because his security depended on the Tanzanian forces.
Moi, however, assured Carter that he was doing everything possible to make sure Binaisa stayed away from Nyerere, further revealing that he had already spoken to Binaisa about it and hoped that Binaisa would not reveal their conversation to anyone.
President Carter then asked Moi whether he favoured an open border with Tanzania,and Moi replied that he had no problem with that except that Tanzania had a habit of closing its borders forcing Kenya to retaliate by closing its borders too.
Moi then expressed his worries about Nyerere’s efforts to expand Tanzania’s influence in Africa, e.g, by engaging Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Mengistu in Ethiopia. He complained that Tanzanian soldiers were already all over in Uganda, Seychelles, and Mozambique. For this reason, he urged that the US government should stop providing economic assistance to countries that invest too much in arms.
The discussion also focused on Kenya’s relations with other countries such as Sudan, Ethiopia, and Saudi, with Carter also asking Moi’s views on the political situations in these countries and liberation movements in Africa. For example, Carter asked Moi what he thought about the situation in Iraq, and Moi replied that he thought it was a country “in between. ” Carter then asked Moi whether he had ever visited Iraq, and Moi replied that he had been invited at some point but was yet to honour the invitation.
About the US forces using Kenyan facilities, Moi said that he had no problem with that and that US soldiers were free to continue using the facilities. Moi, however, made it known to Carter that he preferred the word “facilities” being used instead of “bases.” Carter assured Moi that the US would try to be careful and refer only to “use of facilities “
