Crackdown on MRC must avoid pitfalls

The Government has justified the new security crackdown in parts of Kilifi and Kwale counties in Coast province on the need to end what it calls the illegal activities of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC).

According to the Government, the outfit is still a banned organisation despite a judge of the High Court ruling otherwise.

This raises the question of whether the Government has the cover of the law when it arrests and charges alleged members of the MRC in the event they are taken to court.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the MRC has a huge following among the jobless and landless youth of Coast province, a majority of them from the indigenous population.MRC has over the years exploited the historical injustices suffered by the residents to recruit the youth into its ranks and bind them with elaborate oathing ceremonies tinged with witchcraft.

Distorted history

The group has been advocating for secession and police allege that it has adopted militarism as part of its doctrine to drum up support for its slogan, Pwani si Kenya (Coast is not part of Kenya).

It does not appear to matter for MRC that its claim that Coast Province should secede is based on a distortion of historical fact regarding deals signed between the old Sultanate of Zanzibar and the British for a ten-mile strip of Kenya’s coastline.

What is an undisputed fact is that the most of the indigenous residents of Coast Province are technically landless. The problem is particularly acute in Taita-Taveta and Kilifi counties.

It is also a fact that MRC has called on the Mijikenda youth not to register for voting in the General Election.

Despite the group’s denials, the police insist its members have threatened to unleash violence on officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in an effort to block the impending voter registration in the province.

The attack on Fisheries minister Amason Kingi was an outrageous and despicable act.

If indeed the police prove members of the MRC organised the violence, then it is a major indictment of the group.

Given the level of insecurity already posed by Al Shabaab insurgents, the Government can ill-afford to be seen as lenient to perpetrators of violence.

The elections are around the corner and memories are still fresh of the massive failure of State security organs to prevent the post election violence of 2008 that displaced hundreds and left over 1,000 Kenyans dead.

Also not to be forgotten is the activities of the so-called Sabaot Land Defence Force, a rag-tag military wing of an ethnic organisation that promoted xenophobia in Mt Elgon region and committed atrocities.

But the flooding of Kilifi and Kwale counties with State security personnel is worrying because of the risk that innocent Kenyans might suffer their wrath simply because of being in the right place at the wrong time.

Brutalised

Human rights groups allege that when the military was called in to quell the SLDF, many innocent residents were brutalised by security forces, claims the army has strongly denied.

The Government must therefore tread carefully and ensure that the local population does not feel victimised by the security operation to flush out leaders of the MRC.

This gains significance when placed alongside the fact that it was villagers who came to the rescue of the Fisheries minister by setting upon the attackers, and even offered him safety.

This shows that the MRC problem is not as cut and dry as it appears to be.

The State must win the confidence of the local population through concrete action to deal with the land problem that we have previously warned is a time bomb.

It is a travesty of justice of unimaginable proportions for a few political families to own close to 80 per cent of land in large swathes of Taita-Taveta and Kilifi, for instance, yet the absentee landlords do not need the land, but hold onto it largely for speculative purposes.

We urge caution as State security personnel go about flushing alleged MRC adherents out of “hiding”. The rules of engagement must be clear. How, for instance, will they prove that one is a member of MRC since many youths in Kenya do not have identity and voters’ cards?