The secessionist Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) is re-grouping in Kenya’s Coast region, which has been strained by political tensions and insecurity after series of attacks by armed groups in the past month, security officials say.
Kilifi County Commissioner Albert Kobia said the government has strong intelligence reports indicating that the MRC is re-grouping and recruiting new members for training to cause violence in the country.
“Residents have also confirmed to us of seeing groups of people moving in and out of local forests,” he told Sabahi. “Residents also informed us that a group of people have been going around asking people to join MRC to fight for the Coast residents’ rights.”
In addition, in a raid on July 3rd, security forces arrested seven suspected MRC members in Kaya Choni forest, while dozens of others fled, he said. Police recovered an array of weapons including improvised guns, bows and arrows, machetes, and axes.
“We are pursuing those who escaped since we have details on some of them,” Kobia said. “Since the group was dealt with in Mombasa County, the members are relocating to remote villages in other counties in the hope that their activities will not be detected.”
A history of confrontation
In the lead up to the 2013 general elections, the government carried out a crackdown on the MRC, which had threatened to boycott elections in the Coast region.
The crackdown led to the killing of several MRC members and the arrest of tens of others, including the group’s chairman Omar Mwamnuadzi and spokesman Mohammed Rashid Mraja.
The members were released from jail on the condition that they maintain peace and drop their calls for secession.
However, Kobia said, some MRC members are now operating under different guises and inciting violence against non-natives of the Coast region.
“With the help of residents, we have managed to foil the MRC plans to cause chaos during the culmination of political rallies on July 7th. We are on high alert not to give them room to cause havoc,” he said, adding that “the group now has a countrywide agenda to cause violence”.
With the arrest of the alleged MRC members earlier this month, officials are not ruling out the group’s possible involvement in the recent Lamu County attacks in their bid to push their agenda, Kobia said.
Kenyan security analyst and retired army Major Bashir Haji Abdullahi said lingering political tensions and general insecurity in Kenya can easily aid any group seeking to destabilise the country.
“The government failure to tackle the sporadic violence and convict perpetrators can embolden any group,” he told Sabahi. “There have been arrests of alleged suspects in connection with the Lamu County attacks, but it appears to be a knee-jerk reaction by the government to appease a disgruntled public.”
The arrests have taken on political and religious dimensions and have increased the already chaotic situation, which militant groups can take advantage of, he said.
He said the government should address some of the legitimate grievances advanced by the MRC and other people in the region — such as economic development, education and infrastructure development — and act on what is possible.
Further, Abdullahi said, the MRC never fully disbanded, but only retreated in a bid to avoid confrontation with security forces.
“First of all the MRC is still alive since it is a registered group,” he said. “The High Court further gave the group legitimacy by overturning a government designation of the group as a terror group in 2012.”
MRC ‘scapegoated’ for government failures
MRC Secretary General Hamza Randu said the government’s claims against the group are unfounded.
“MRC has a pact to maintain peace and as far as we are concerned that pact has not been broken,” Randu told Sabahi. “Some of us are fasting and have no time or plans to cause havoc as the government claims.”
“The government wants to appease the public by showing that it is doing something on security and MRC is being scapegoated for the government’s failure to protect its people,” he said. “These accusations could also be a government ploy to drive the hypothesis by President Uhuru Kenyatta that local political groups are involved.”
Security analyst and retired army Colonel Daud Sheikh Ahmed said the accusations against MRC could be government propaganda in an attempt to restore waning public confidence in the security apparatus.
He said since Kenyatta absolved al-Shabaab from the attacks in Mpeketoni and other towns in Lamu County, authorities in Coast region have been dishing out unsubstantiated accusations against the MRC.
The accusations intensified when Deputy President William Ruto issued a 48-hour ultimatum for the arrest of the killers in the town of Hindi, he said.
“For fear of losing their jobs the local authorities are blaming MRC on the basis of their violent past,” Ahmed told Sabahi.
“The Kenyan law requires that a suspect has to be produced in court within 24 hours after an arrest,” he said. “But more than two weeks since they arrested the MRC suspects in Kilifi, no one has been arraigned in court.”
“The government authorities have to be careful with their accusations or the propaganda will backfire,” he said.
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