Goodbye Mombasa?

Spare a thought for the families of the policemen who have died in Mombasa in the line of duty protecting Kenyans. RIP brave officers.

I have sources on the ground in troubled Mombasa and the information coming out of Mombasa raha is not good.

The police have called those causing chaos “criminals." Even presidential hopeful Martha Karua has called them criminals. The strange thing is that these “criminals” do not behave like criminals at all they in fact behave more like people who are out to cause chaos. If your objective was just to loot the last thing you would want to do is kill a policeman let alone hurl grenades into vehicles that you think are full of policemen. What is even more telling here is the timing of last night’s grenade attack. Over 3 lorries of GSU personnel had arrived in Mombasa and had spent the better part of the day moving from house to house in the troubled areas of Mombasa city. Actually calm and a semblance of normalcy had been restored and the media reported exactly that. It looked like the worst was behind us. But suddenly… yet another grenade attack that seriously injured 7 policemen. Actually police reports contradict eye witnesses on the ground who say they saw at least 2 dead policemen after the attack.

When you examine these unfolding events next to the assassination of sheikh Aboud Rogo it becomes crystal clear that there is more than meets the eye in the whole saga. For starters it is highly unlikely that the radical sheikh was killed by Kenyan authorities. Actually the possibility that makes the most sense now is that he was gunned down by his own people who already had the grenades and the well laid plans to cause chaos ready and finalized. It is highly unlikely that the grenades and planning all happened hours after the assassination, after all such weaponry is not sukuma wiki (kales, which are a staple of Kenyans) that you just walk to the market and purchase on demand.

Secondly the attacks on churches were clearly designed to provoke some kind of retaliation. Fortunately this seems to have been planned by somebody who does not know Kenyan Christians too well and was operating on assumptions that Kenya is similar to Nigeria. That gives us yet another important clue that may help point to the source of the troubles at the Coast. There are those who have said that since the late Sheikh Rogo’s radical teachings were against churches, it is only natural that his followers would burn churches after his death. A more believable angry retaliation would be against the government rather than churches.

Following this train of thought the next question is who would want to bring trouble to Mombasa? Who would have the most to gain from such troubles? Or who would have a motive?

In previous posts in this blog there have been spirited efforts to defend radical elements of Somali immigrants living in Kenya. According to them the current troubles at the Coast are the work of locals working alone. And yet it is a well known fact that these radical Somali elements support Al Shabab and have been very busy in recent years “educating” Mombasa Muslims on how they can be “better” Muslims. Their message has been rejected by older and wiser Muslims but has been embraced by the young, the jobless and the restless.

P.S. Is it only me who has noticed that no senior Muslim religious leader has appeared in the media to appeal for calm since the Mombasa troubles started. It is only Muslim politicians and ordinary Muslims. What are they fearing?

See earlier post: The truth about the chaos in Mombasa