ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of national security considerations on Kenya and Tanzania's refugee policies. It analyses the official discourses surrounding specific items of policy in order to found out what motivates those policies. State security is central to the international refugee regime that evolved after the Second World War. The chapter shows that host-state policies toward refugees were based on whether they perceived refugees as humanitarian problems or security threats. An examination of Kenya and Tanzania's policies towards refugees shows that they largely view them as security threats. Control and containment also dominate Kenya and Tanzania's national refugee legislation. The two countries' generosity is partly explained by humanitarian considerations, their international obligations, their leaders' allegiance to pan-Africanism and the OAU principle of burden sharing and Nyerere's policy of Ujamaa. Restrictive policies were pursued in a number of areas and were often justified on security grounds.
