John Keen (Kenya politician)

John Keen was a Kenyan politician. He served as an assistant minister for agriculture and member of parliament (MP) for Kajiado North Constituency from 1969 to 1979. In 1991 together with Mwai Kibaki, he founded the Democratic Party, for which he served as secretary general. He carved a reputation as a defender of the Maasai community's land rights.

Keen was born to a German-British man and a Samburu woman in Kajiado in 1930. He joined Government African School in Narok in 1937. After completing his studies there, he went to The Alliance High School in Kikuyu. After graduation from Alliance, he joined the British Army regiment in Kenya for a short while.

In 1962 together with, among others, Jomo Kenyatta and Ronald Ngala, he was part of the Kenyan delegation to the second Lancaster House Conference that negotiated for Kenya's independence from British colonial rule. At the conference, Keen pushed for the compensation of Maasai land forcefully taken by British colonialists.

After independence, Keen was one of the first Kenyans chosen to represent the country in the East African Legislative Assembly in Arusha. In this capacity, he fought for the union of the three countries to form on East African Community. In 1967, Keen became the first person to be detained in independent Kenya. He was put behind bars by the Kenyatta administration after he accused him, Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Uganda's Milton Obote as being the main obstacle towards the formation of the East African Community.

As a member of KANU, Keen served as the party's national organizing secretary.

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