Trepidation at the Kenyan Coast: MRC's mad stampede towards anarchy and war.

The graffiti says it all -- the Coast is not part of Kenya, the writer claims

  
The Mombasa Republican Council is one deluded group. Not so much because they don't know or they don't have the right to what they are demanding , but because their whole crusade has become a blind-sided, passionate enterprise, devoid of forethought and is led by unscrupulous individuals who are veritably going to plunge the Coastal region into the abyss.

This tragic entity is comprised of a subset of Kenyans that is imbued with bitterness over the desperate and still worsening economic circumstances at the Coast. As is often the case, it is mostly the disillusioned youth who are being exploited by jihadist villains whose stock-in-trade strategy in creating cohesion has been to callously whip up ethnic animosity and anger against the government. The situation is evidently  degenerating as the masterminds (worryingly, amongst their number can be counted some religious leaders and political leaders) forge ahead in their quest to rapidly build a broad nucleus of fanaticism that would spearhead a possible violent uprising.

The disenchantment of the Coastal people with the way they have hitherto been treated by successive governments, is not something recent or spontaneous and it has already been simmering for a long time. But never before has there been such a mass phenomenon as the MRC, where a significant number of the population seem to have been made extremely aggressive by means of deliberate agitation and indoctrination. What is more alarming is that these young people of the MRC have become unreceptive to pleas for amicable and peaceful resolution of the various issues, some kind of large-scale and profound form of brainwashing seems to be taking place or has taken place. 

One and all they are torn from reality, afflicted by chronic myopia, espouse violence as a valid means to press for their demands and more curiously they are bound by greed -- it is the promise of economic windfall rather than the fabled martyr's paradise with seventy odd virgins that has got them ticking.

So what is it precisely that the Mombasa Republicans want? Awakened by the pangs of poverty and understandably embittered by the marginalization of successive governments, some denizens of the Coast region have sadly come to the conclusion that their socio-economic problems stem from ethnic roots ( i.e. domination of the coastal people by those from the hinterland) and that the ideal solution to their problems would be to turn back the clock, and revert to pre-independence and pre-colonial arrangements .

More importantly, by throwing furtive glances at the projected economic boom of the entire East African region in the coming decade; that is, the currently thriving hinterland, Uganda's and South Sudan's oil and the rapid growth of neighbouring landlocked economies -- they have naturally stumbled onto the notion that if they can call the shots then they can hive off a big chunk of this prosperity for themselves. Intoxicated with covetousness they have allowed greed to utterly drown whatever sense they had left.

 Astonishingly all members of the MRC imagine and ardently believe that somehow there is considerably greater benefit by cutting themselves off from the hinterland and seceding. According to this misconceived arithmetic all coastal people would grow rich overnight! Their cynical ploy would be to hold the massive hinterland economies hostage. This can only be effectively achieved through complete control of the strategically important but narrow strip of the Kenyan coast. Once that is achieved through secession they would sit pretty, produce nothing but reap massively from galloping international trade which to them would mean endless cargo traffic -- just like in the good, old slave-trading days.

There have also been claims of external support for the MRC.  Sudan which is still fuming from it's own secession is a prime suspect, in fact Sudan has been helplessly and warily watching plans by South Sudan to completely cut off the economic dependence and links with the north by routing all trade through the Kenyan coast. That could only mean catastrophic loss for the North in favour of Kenya -- why wouldn't they want Kenya to taste a dose of it's own secession medicine and scuttle the South Sudanese plans in the process? 

Eritrea as usual is another increasingly troublesome suspect. If the plan to build a major link from the Kenyan coast to Ethiopia is realized, it would have fought and seceded from Ethiopia for nothing. It will forever be locked out from the economic boom in the 80 million strong Ethiopia. Eritrea   only has a paltry, impoverished 5 million people in comparison.
(Click this link to read a more comprehensive analysis of these regional dynamics in a past posting on this blog: The Fugitive President - Al Bashir and the Shambles of Kenyan Diplomacy)


Formally and immortalized within treaties that were validly agreed upon under International Law the sultanate's borders stretched only ten miles inland, hence the furthest extent of any possible claim that can be premised on secession. This is what probably Kenya would be pressing to be the the furthest limit of the international border with any such secessionist entity!! An inch more and the MRC would have no valid claim whatsoever over the state of Kenya and further claims can be declared as flagrant acts of aggression -- open conflict and perhaps the most ferocious war ever fought on Kenyan soil would ensue. Every building on that narrow strip could be flattened.

But that is literally jumping the gun and getting way ahead of ourselves. Since there are some legal hoops and hurdles to be jumped before we even get to that point. The proponents of Coast independence would have to win the right of secession through a constitutional amendment and referendum which has to be approved by a majority of Kenyans, two thirds of parliament, two thirds of the senate and over half the counties.

Suspected members of the MRC; it has become a staple on the news to see bands being indicted

Nevertheless, it can only be wanton folly for grown, rational adults to start daydreaming that all the chips can miraculously and peaceably fall into place as they seem to suppose. In their scheme of things the Coast would monopolize all trade all the way to the Congo and South Sudan through the single port of Mombasa , when this revenue is amalgamated with income from tourism and agriculture they postulate that they would be all rich as the Arab emirs, the East African sultans and sultanas. If this isn't how the most despicable form of stupidity is supposed to sound like, then with resignation I willingly pass the offer to experience a more debasing, disgusting variant.

By making the hinterland extremely furious and inimical with the rancour of secession how then can they really believe, even by any stretch of imagination, that their gains would be meekly sustained and their 'state' gleefully supported to viability? Indeed it would only be a matter of time before all the trade traffic is diligently and spitefully rerouted through Tanzania and Somalia -- even if only to subsume them with chagrin.

As mentioned earlier, Eritrea which covers a far much bigger area than what the misguided MRC could wish for their hypothesized state, once had hopes along such lines. An embittered Ethiopia rerouted all it's cargo through the small and far much more distant port of Djibouti rather than the closer one of Asmara. Needless to say the Eritreans are only poorer and more clueless for all their greedy efforts that has already culminated into three wars.

Tellingly Uganda and Rwanda have grown tired of the unreliability of the Kenyan route and there is a railway line that is being built with dizzying rapidity through Tanzania to the port of Dar es Salaam. This is chiefly to mitigate the effects of instability and growing inefficiencies through the Kenyan route, but could there be another grievous, clandestine reason?

Somalia on the other hand would be the biggest beneficiary as inevitably South Sudan, Kenya and Ethiopia will very well have to depend on her splendid ports, flat topography  and expansive room for mega-projects.  The lucrative international tea and coffee auctions would follow the cargo and end up in Mogadishu or Kismayu further crippling Mombasa. In fact with this permanent stream of revenue and investment Somalia might spectacularly emerge from the doldrums -- at the expense of the Kenyan coastal people! They are unwittingly pressing to switch places with Somalia! Could anything be more astoundingly foolish?

 For the rest of the thirty million Kenyans all that would be needed in the Kenyan hinterland would be pipelines and railways which obviously would be given the highest priority and built within five to ten years. At most it would be a painful decade for the entire East African region, but that is it! With the combined resources and effort of all and equally desperate states, some re-alignment of infrastructure alongside the active participation of Somalia, the effect will be short lived.

As for the Mombasa Republic, if it should ever come to existence, peace would not be guaranteed, domestic tourism would be utterly shattered, capital outflow would be instantaneous and crippling and they would be left at the mercy of foreign tourists. That is, if they even manage to revive that industry following the cataclysmic shock of a fallout that would come with an acrimonious and messy separation. Why would tourists bother anyway without the Safari package which the Kenya brand is famous for and has become the staple for the international tourist community? They could as easily go to similar beaches in Seychelles, Tanzania and South Africa.

Furthermore they would need to import drinking water from the hinterland and the rivers that they assume would keep flowing to irrigate their land would probably cease to exist as massive irrigation schemes upstream would suck them dry. Electricity would become an expensive and rare commodity, the old refinery would eventually turn into a giant monument of scrap metal after being shut down as others spring up inland and in Somalia, Uganda, South Sudan and Tanzania.

The Coast would be reduced to a thin strip at the coast, the rest turned into perched arid land. Yet there is nothing they could do in retaliation apart from holding 3 or 4 fibre optic cables hostage, which would be long replaced before they even solve the problem of finding enough water to drink.

This imagined coastal state will have the headache of creating institutions, educate it's children with non-existent teachers, form an army and police, print worthless currency and create a working government all with nothing but hot air. Interestingly all their communication needs will be imported services from Kenya until they make their own arrangements.

Members of MRC are known to have close links with the Al Shaabab the bane of Somalia

Wake up and smell the coffee you MRC idiots, the coast stands to lose more than gain. Woe unto the coastal people who are being misled by the MRC, which is embarking on a far much more complex game than it's myopic members could ever fathom. It is a road veritably fraught with perils and international challenges that can only deepen, not lessen the problem of poverty at the Coast -- and for which future generations will bitterly curse the by-standers, supporters and instigators of these actions forever into eternity.

Marginalization was not just a coastal phenomenon, how much more fitting is it then for the people of Mandera, Turkana, Pokot, Samburu and other chronically underdeveloped areas to secede if that is the genuine reason. The new constitutional dispensation and counties will give more than enough consideration to the plight of the people of the Coast region alongside those of other Kenyans.

Persistence on this path will not make the MRC as infamous as the Al Shaabab -- it will make them a hungrier, poorer and more incompetent version of the Al Shaabab not mentioning the regional butt of ridicule. They will forever be known as the people who not only threw away their loaf of bread in anger but who also went ahead and gave all rights to crate loads more to a more wily neighbour. The secession that is being clamoured for will surely turn the coast into a wasteland. The politicians and leaders instigating for this move will have by then skulked abroad -- probably to the hinterland of Kenya! Beware of what you pray for -- sometimes you just get what you ask. And abundantly so.