Kenya's Coast Province and the Mombasa Republican Council: Islamists,
Separatists or Political Pawns?
Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 20
November 5, 2012 09:16 AM
By:
<
http://www.jamestown.org/articles-by-author/?no_cache=1&tx_cablanttnewsstaf
frelation_pi1%5Bauthor%5D=153> Andrew McGregor
Kenya's decision to launch a military intervention in Somalia to eliminate
the threat posed by the Islamist al-Shabaab movement has resulted in
battlefield successes but has also led to terrorist attacks and riots in the
cities of Nairobi and Mombasa and even the formation of a Kenyan chapter of
al-Shabaab. Simultaneous with these events are a growing number of incidents
of political violence in Kenya's largely Islamic Coast Province, a region
with an active secessionist movement that operates under the name of the
Mombasa Republican Council (MRC). Formed in 1999, the MRC has until recently
focused on legal means of attaining independence for the Coast region, which
has significant cultural, linguistic, ethnic, historical and religious
differences from the inland regions of Kenya where national power is held.
In the Coast Province, the dominant culture and language is Swahili, which
reflects a Bantu core and strong influences from Arab, Asian and European
sources. Most indigenous residents refer to themselves as "Coasterians"
rather than "Kenyans" and have numerous grievances with the Nairobi
government over issues such as underdevelopment, poverty, land ownership,
unemployment and government projects that bring few benefits to Coast
residents.
Background: A Question of Sovereignty
The Coast Province consists of the coastal strip of Kenya on the Indian
Ocean and is inhabited by Mijikenda, Swahili and Arab peoples, representing
a population of roughly 22.5 million. The coastal region came under the rule
of Omani Arabs based in Zanzibar after they expelled Portuguese colonists in
the late 18th century following 200 years of rule. The Sultan of Zanzibar
agreed to lease the coastal region of modern Kenya (then known as "al-Zanj")
to the Imperial British East Africa Company in 1888. An 1895 treaty between
Britain and the Sultan brought the region under formal British protection,
with the residents remaining subjects of the Sultan rather than subjects of
the British crown, as in the Kenya colony. It is this point that is the
principal basis for the MRC's legal challenges to its incorporation into
post-independence Kenya. [1]
Some MRC members also claim that Jomo Kenyatta, the first prime minister of
Kenya, had signed a separate 50-year lease agreement for the Coast strip
with Zanzibar that will expire next year, when the Coast region will become
independent. However, the movement cannot produce documentation of this
claim and there is no reference to it in the existing agreements on which
the Kenyan state was founded (Institute for Security Studies [Nairobi], June
27).
A 1908 British ordinance usurped most of the traditional claims to
land-ownership on the Coast by declaring all land not under cultivation to
be "crown land," thus transferring title to most of the Coast to the state,
a system inherited by modern Kenya, which has used the distribution of such
lands to up-country Kenyans as a means of patronage or as the basis of
resettlement schemes and industrial projects that do little for Coast
residents. Little of the wealth created in the region by its busy ports and
flourishing tourist industry makes its way into the hands of locals, who
face wide-scale unemployment and land loss through various land reforms
favoring landholders from the interior. In this economically depressed
environment many young men are turning to heroin use while impoverished
young women are often absorbed into Mombasa's sex trade.
In the lead-up to Kenya's independence in 1963, Coast residents tended to
join either the mwambao (Swahili, lit. "coastline"; in this context meaning
"self-governing") or majimbo (Swahili, lit. "regions," i.e. federalist)
camps. The mwambao movement began in the years prior to independence as
Coastal Arabs and Swahili feared being taken over by local Africans and
migrants from the "upcountry" regions of Kenya. Unfortunately, many Coast
residents believed Kenyan independence would mean the restoration of their
lands, not their transfer to a new authority. [2] The majimbo current
ultimately prevailed, but many of its proponents on the Coast later changed
their mind when various protections and guarantees granted to the Coast were
pushed aside by the post-independence government. The new nation of Kenya
was, in part, an assembly of unwilling elements under the dominance of the
tribes of the highland region, with many in the coastal region and the
north-eastern ethnic Somali region having serious reservations about union
with Kenya.
The Kaya Bomba Raiders
Prior to Kenya's 1997 general elections, shadowy figures thought to be
agents of the governing Kenya African National Union (KANU) began organizing
Coast youth and veterans bitter over alleged discrimination in the Kenyan
military and government land distribution policies at a base at Kaya Bombo
in Kwale District. Most of the recruits hailed from the Digo, one of the
nine tribes composing the Mijikenda group (a largely colonial construct).
Dressed in black robes bearing a star and crescent moon and armed with
firearms and machetes, the Raiders slaughtered up-country people as well as
many non-Digo coastal residents who could not respond to Digo greetings,
this being the main method of determining who was native to the region and
who came from up-country.
The performance of the General Service Unit (GSU) paramilitary and other
Kenyan police units in combatting the Kaya Bomba Raiders was so inept that
even some of the militants came to the conclusion that the repeated refusals
of the security forces to engage or pursue the raiders even under favorable
conditions and the transfer out of the region of veteran police officers
familiar with the terrain meant the militants were serving a political
purpose, likely by disrupting coast society during voter registration. GSU
methods focused on rounding up unarmed members of the Digo and subjecting
them to arbitrary arrest, beatings, torture and rape. [3] The MRC has
repeatedly denounced the Kaya Bomba Raiders, characterizing their "revolt"
as an episode of state-organized political violence at odds with the
objectives and methods of the MRC.
The Rise of the Mombasa Republican Council
Since its formation, the MRC has pursued its quest for independence in the
courts, citing the questionable status of the Coast region at the time of
independence. The movement employs two main slogans; Pwani Si Kenya ("The
Coast is not part of Kenya") and Nchi Mpya Maisha Mpya ("New country, new
life"), and is jointly governed by a Leadership Council composed of the
movement's executives and the more secretive Council of Elders. All MRC
recruits go through an initiation known as "oathing." This ceremony is an
important exercise in the creation of secret societies on the Kenyan Coast.
From various descriptions, the oathing usually consists of a ritual applied
to recruits in a spiritually important place (such as a forest) involving
ritual bloodletting and the taking of an oath to maintain secrecy and follow
orders explicitly. In return, the new member receives supernatural
protection from enemy weapons and the ability to render himself invisible
from his enemies. [4]
Belief in supernatural forces has always been strong in the Coast region,
but there are a growing number of young, educated "Coasterians" who reject
what they describe as the deceptions practiced by local sorcerers and
practitioners of witchcraft. Oathing itself is clearly based on pre-Islamic
beliefs and folk traditions beyond the pale for most members of Salafist
groups such as al-Shabaab or their allied organizations in Nairobi and
Mombasa.
When the Kenyan government banned the MRC in October, 2010, the movement did
not take up arms but instead took the government to court, achieving a
surprising repeal of the ban from the Mombasa High Court on July 25 of this
year. This success, however, only raised suspicions in some Kenyan quarters
of the movement's source of financing in light of the generally impoverished
condition of its leadership (Nairobi Star, October 20). On October 9,
security officials announced they had opened an investigation of several MPs
and a number of businessmen related to support and funding of the MRC (The
Standard [Nairobi], October 10; Capital FM, October 13). A prominent Muslim
leader and member of parliament, Shaykh Muhammad Dor, was arrested on
October 17 on charges of inciting violence after endorsing the MRC and
promising to fund it "if asked" because it was "not an outlawed group"
(Capital FM [Nairobi], October 19; AFP, October 18).
Violence Begins to Spread in the Coast Region
Grenade attacks in the Coast Province began in late March with an attack on
a restaurant in Mombasa and another in the town of Mtwapa (AFP, March 31).
An oathing ceremony at Kaloleni in the Kilifi District turned deadly on
September 27 when a village elder was killed by people alleged to be
involved in an oathing in the nearby forest. Local residents had watched the
strangers arriving in the area and feared they were preparing an attack on
Kaloleni. Villagers pursued the roughly 200 men and killed eleven of them,
including seven by stoning. Four more men alleged to have been MRC members
escaping the initial massacre were lynched after they tried to hijack a car
in Samburu (Daily Nation [Nairobi], September 29). Eight men, including an
alleged "witchdoctor" responsible for administering the oaths were arrested
and charged with various offenses (Standard [Nairobi], September 28; October
2).
After the lynchings, local police displayed items used in the oathing
ceremonies, including flags, sheep heads, fresh sheep skins, black and red
cloth, machetes, knives and various "concoctions" (Daily Nation [Nairobi],
September 29). However, one security source told journalists that "This was
not the MRC. It is an entirely new group and it looks like we have a bigger
security problem" (PANA Online, September 29).MP Najib Balala, the leader of
the Republican Congress Party of Kenya, said that the MRC has legitimate
grievances and was only fighting for justice: "We know what the MRC is. We
have not seen terrorism in its face" (Nairobi Star, October 2).
Kenyan authorities blamed the MRC for a vicious machete attack on Fisheries
Minister Amason Kingi at a campaign rally just north of Mombasa on October
4. Kingi survived the attack due to the efforts of his bodyguard, who was
hacked to death before those attending the rally beat the three attackers to
death (PANA Online, October 22). The Minister is considered the point man in
the Coast region for Prime Minister Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic
Movement (ODM), who is running for president in the coming elections (PANA
Online, October 5). Odinga commented on the violence in the Coast region:
"It looks to me like there are people who want to disrupt the elections and
the registration of voters especially in the Orange Democratic Movement
(ODM) zones so that people cannot register and eventually vote" (PANA
Online, October 9). According to Coast Provincial Police commander Aggrey
Adoli, the attackers were MRC members who had just arrived from a forest
where they had taken the oath. Adoli went on to advise local politicians to
examine the MRC's beliefs closely before offering their support to the
movement (The People [Nairobi], October 8). However, MRC spokesman Rashid
Mraja said that these and other youth found taking the oath in Coat region
forests by security forces had been paid by local businessmen and
politicians to join a violent militia ("the Muyeye movement") designed to
discredit the MRC's calls for secession and ultimately lead to fighting
between the two groups (The People [Nairobi], October 8).
GSU detachments are currently engaged in a disarmament campaign in the Tana
River district and the pursuit of some 2,000 youth alleged to have taken the
MRC oath in September (Daily Nation [Nairobi], October 22). A group of Tana
residents have threatened to sue the GSU for alleged atrocities carried out
during the campaign (KBC-TV, September 26). The district is host to
long-standing tensions between Pokomo agriculturalists and Orma
pastoraslists over access to water. These tensions exploded on August 22,
when the Pokomo attacked an Orma camp, killing 62 men, women and children
with machetes, spears and handguns (al-Jazeera, August 22). Further violence
followed in a pair of retaliatory attacks on other villages in the district,
killing another 50 people, including nine police officers (K24TV, September
7; Daily Nation [Nairobi], October 1). Despite the dispute over water
rights, it appears to have been political considerations that set off the
violence, with the Pokomo hoping to disrupt voter registration amongst the
Orma in Tana River District, where all three MPs currently hail from the
Pokomo tribe. A local MP, Dhadho Godhana, was dropped from cabinet and
charged with inciting violence in the Tana River delta amidst claims from
villagers that their attackers included many people they did not recognize
and who appeared to be organizing the massacres (AFP, September 14). Muslim
clerics in the region have told the tribes they are being used for political
purposes and have urged them to form a peace council to prevent further
violence (Nairobi Star, October 2).
Kenyan police reported that a group of suspected MRC members raided their
camp in Likoni with "crude weapons" in the early hours of October 20. Three
days earlier, a GSU officer was killed in a grenade attack (Daily Nation
[Nairobi], October 17, October 20).
Sweeping Up the MRC Leadership
The MRC's existence as a legal entity was short-lived, as the Mombasa Chief
Magistrate accepted an application by the state and once again outlawed the
MRC, ordering police to arrest all its leaders and present them in court to
face fresh indictments (PANA Online, October 22). By coming back under an
official ban, MRC activists will now be subject to the sweeping new powers
given to security forces by the Prevention of Terrorism bill currently on
its way to a third and final reading in the Kenyan parliament (KBC-TV,
September 27; Standard [Nairobi], September 27).
On October 14, police raided the home of MRC leader Omar Hamisi Mwamnuadzi
in Kombani, south of Mombasa. Mwamnuadzi had gone into hiding after security
forces began a crackdown on various groups on October 8. Police reported
that they were met at the road leading to the MRC leader's home by two
bodyguards who threw a petrol bomb at a police vehicle. The bomb failed to
explode and the two men were killed by police who then arrested 38 people,
including Mwamnuadzi and his wife. The entire arsenal seized consisted of
only four petrol bombs, one AK-47 rifle and 15 rounds of ammunition (Daily
Nation [Nairobi], October 15).
After his arrest, Mwamnuadzi was charged with possession of the firearm and
15 rounds of ammunition. Both the MRC leader and his wife, Maimuna Hamisis
Mwavyombo, were additionally charged with practicing witchcraft and
possessing articles used in witchcraft (Daily Nation [Nairobi], October 22).
Police pointed to the MRC after a local administration official accused of
giving out Mwamnuadzi's location was the victim of a violent murder shortly
after the MRC leader's arrest (PANA Online, October 16).
At his release, Mwamnuadzi appeared to have been the victim of a severe
beating, which he claimed was administered during his arrest, his death
having been prevented only through the intercession of his bodyguards. The
MRC leader lost four teeth while being detained and was unable to raise the
$36,000 bond for his release and that of his wife (Nairobi Star, October
20).
Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki used a national "Heroes Day" broadcast on
October 20 to warn the MRC that the government "will take firm and decisive
action in dealing with those who have issued threats of secession or those
who threaten our security. Kenya is one unitary state. The constitution is
clear and so is our history. Let us learn from that history and not seek to
distort it." (KBC TV, October 20).
Other MRC leaders have been systematically rounded up or surrendered to
security forces in recent days:
* Spokesman Muhammad Rashid Mraja was arrested on October 8 for
calling for the secession of the Coast region and failed to make bail (KBC
Online, October 8);
* Secretary General Randu Nzwai Ruwa was charged with incitement to
violence on October 10 and released on $24,000 bail. (KBC, October 10);
* Treasurer Omar Suleiman Babu (a.k.a. Bam Bam) surrendered to police
on October 23; and
* Council of Elders' chairman Hassan Mbwana Mwanguza was arrested in
early October.
Islamist Connections?
In late September, Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamists announced the creation of
a Kenyan branch of the movement to be led by Shaykh Ahmed Iman Ali, the
founder of the Shabaab-allied Muslim Youth Center (MYC, a.k.a. Pumwani
Muslim Youth - PMY). Shaykh Ahmed quickly indicated the group would pursue
revenge for al-Shabaab's loss of the port of Kismayo to the Kenyan military
by calling for "all means possible" to be used to kill the "infidels" in
Mombasa, Nairobi "and across East Africa." [5] In this environment, it is
likely that Kenyan authorities will conflate political resistance (violent
or non-violent) by the Coast Muslims of the MRC with the more serious
pro-Shabaab Salafist threat. During an October 11 cabinet meeting, Kenyan
ministers downplayed the possibility the recent violence on the Coast was
motivated by local dissatisfaction with the government, suggesting instead
that it was the work of al-Shabaab infiltrators and absentee landlords who
had been adversely affected by changes to the land laws (Daily Nation
[Nairobi], October 12).
Despite the attempt to paint the MRC as a religious-based movement, some
Mombasa businessmen have more concrete reasons for disliking Kenya's
intervention in Somalia, as many made sizable profits by dealing contraband
across the mutual border (Business Daily [Nairobi], October 8). It should
also be noted that the MRC is not an exclusively Muslim organization.
Pentecostal churches and pastors are reported to play a large part in MRC
organizing activities. A pastor was among those MRC suspects arrested in a
recent GRU operation in Tana River District (Daily Nation [Nairobi], October
22).
Conclusion
There is suspicion that Nairobi's sudden offensive against MRC leaders is
designed to disrupt election preparations in the Coast region, where Raila
Odinga's ODM took most of the vote in the 2007 elections, in which 1,200
people were killed and 600,000 displaced in post-election violence across
Kenya after Odinga accused President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the vote.
Outlawing the MRC brings the risk of greater political violence as the
membership is forced to go underground. In current conditions, it appears
unlikely that the MRC will be allowed to continue their recourse to the
courts to address the group's core issues.
Nevertheless, the MRC's actual commitment to secession appears rather weak;
the coast, after all, was never an independent state, coming at various
times in various places under the rule or protection of the Portuguese, the
Omani Arabs, the Germans, the British and finally the rule of Nairobi.
Coastal independence is a goal not shared by the Salafists, who are pursuing
an East African Islamic Caliphate that would include Somalia, the coasts of
Kenya and Tanzania and other predominantly Muslim parts of the region.
The loose organization of the MRC and its informal membership system creates
several problems for the movement, including the risk of infiltration by
security forces, political manipulators or militants who do not share the
MRC's the movement's goals and non-violent strategies. The MRC Youth Wing
especially is agitating for stronger responses to state repression of the
movement, but the repeated lynching of those believed to be planning
violence in the region reveals a popular distaste for any repetition of
Kaya-Bomba-type attacks and the often indiscriminate repression that
followed. Despite this, movement leaders admit they are having difficulty in
keeping the youth wing in check.
MRC statements do not display any mention of or support for jihadi/Islamist
agendas and the religion practiced by most Muslim MRC members incorporates
traditional Islamic and folk beliefs rather than the austere Salafism that
characterizes most of the Islamist movement. However, continuing
speculation from government administrators that the MRC is allied with
al-Shabaab and the challenge posed by the MRC's call for a boycott of the
forthcoming March 2013 general elections is likely to keep the MRC on the
list of banned organizations. With the incarceration of most of the
movement's leadership, the MRC youth wing will remain susceptible to both
political manipulation and even enticements from foreign jihadists able to
promise a more forceful response to the government crackdown in the Coast
region.
Andrew McGregor is the Managing Editor of the Jamestown Foundation's Global
Terrorism Analysis publications and the Director of Aberfoyle International
Security, a Toronto-based agency specializing in security issues related to
the Islamic world.
Notes:
1. James R. Brennan, "Lowering the Sultan's Flag: Sovereignty and
Decolonization in Coastal Kenya," Comparative Studies in Society and History
50(4), 2008, pp. 831-861.
2. See Paul Goldsmith, "The Mombasa Republican Council Conflict Assessment:
Threats and Opportunities for Engagement," Kenya Community Support Center,
November 2011,
<
http://www.kecosce.org/downloads/MRC_Conflict_Assessment_Threats_and_Opport
unities_for_Engagement.pdf>
http://www.kecosce.org/downloads/MRC_Conflict_Assessment_Threats_and_Opportu
nities_for_Engagement.pdf , and "Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation,
Political Violence and Human Rights in Kenya," Human Rights Watch, New York,
2002.
3. Ibid, p.13.
4. "Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence and Human
Rights in Kenya," Human Rights Watch, New York, 2002, pp. 30-32.
5. Al-Kataib, October 19, 2012,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdY8IDaBGTU
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