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

The truth about the chaos in Mombasa

The Somali youths at the forefront of running battles with police seem determined to escalate the violence and insecurity in Mombasa to the kind of levels they are used to back home in Mogadishu. Muta-do?

Yesterday police commissioner Mathew Iteere lost his cool when he was put on the spot over the security situation in the country. In my view he had every right to lose his temper because the police are NOT to blame for what is going on and if you understand the way Kenya works you will agree with what I am saying.

Mombasa is perfect, most of all because it is a coastal town just like Mogadishu.

My late dad used to complain (until I got sick of hearing it) about how the government had lowered the standards of the police force they inherited from their former colonial masters and continued to do so on a daily basis for political reasons not realizing that the “snake” they were rearing and feeding would one day turn against them and bite so hard that they would never recover. Okay my dad was not that eloquent in portraying his ideas but that was the gist of what he used to say over and over again during his retirement. He would finish off by emphasizing that standards would take years to build but could be destroyed in a flash.

The problem with our police force started when a deliberate effort was made to ensure that the top brass was always “politically correct.” That necessitated favoring the home boys for the top positions and shunning others who came from the wrong part of the country. If you investigate the history of the force properly you will quickly discover that the first commissioner should have been a man who was brushed aside simply because he hailed from Luo Nyanza.

Later on it became purely commercial in the police where the corrupt were quickly promoted to the top while those who blocked the high and mighty from doing their deals and refused to be bribed were forced out of the police force. I actually witnessed a senior police officer who stole cash raised by his juniors get promoted to police commissioner at the expense of other better qualified and principled policemen who refused to accept bribes let alone “steal.”. What would you expect from a force run by such a man?

Over the years the police force was reduced to a private army of the political elite. And so if you were a criminal who happened to be from the ruling tribe and close to State house no policeman would dare dream of arresting you, even if they caught you red handed. Everything had to wait for orders “from above.”

Now let’s get relevant to what is happening in Mombasa. When illegal immigrants started crossing over to Kenya from Somalia in the 1980s the Moi government did not see this as a security risk. They yawned and went to sleep. Security organs who were very aware of what was happening did nothing because they were waiting for orders from above that never came. This security problem that the government ignored spilled over to the United Kingdom where prior to the late 80s Kenyans did not need a visa to travel to the UK. Everything changed when Heathrow started being choked by Somalis with Kenyan passports arriving but hardly leaving. Most of these Somalis were illegal immigrants to Kenya who had easily obtained national identity cards and then Kenyan passports.

Today Somali immigrants are so many in Kenya that they have the kind of numbers that can easily tilt a closely fought presidential elections.

Impeccable sources from Mombasa have confirmed to this blogger that these “foreigners” are the ones causing chaos in Mombasa. Mombasa youths have always been outspoken in many ways but they have never been radicalized and cannot stand violence. The kind of youths throwing grenades at the police in Kenya’s coastal city are battle hardened and you can guess where they got all their experience from.

Word on the street is that the assassinated sheikh was murdered by his own people and judging from the well co-ordinated chaos that have followed in such an intricately choreographed manner that is becoming increasingly believable. The Somali youths at the forefront of running battles with police seem determined to escalate the violence and insecurity in Mombasa to the kind of levels that they are used to back home in Mogadishu. Mta-do?

Folks we are paying the price of decades of laxity in security where the idiots making the decisions spend most of their time barking orders like “kwenda rokoto hio mtu” (go and pick up so and so). And many times this order was given for the flimsiest of reasons like you delaying to pay somebody’s debt of a few hundred Kenya shillings.

And so while the cops were collecting petty debts for individuals and serving only the interests of the elite, security went to the dogs where it is now irretrievable. Yes, it is not Iteere’s fault is it? I would direct most of my security questions at one Daniel Toroitich arap Moi.
==========================

Breaking News: Mombasa erupts yet again;

This evening the uneasy but optimistic calm that had settled into Mombasa was shattered when a grenade was hurled into a police car seriously injuring at least 7 police officers. There were unconfirmed reports of deaths from the incident that took place very close to the Mombasa Pentecostal Church.

It is now clear that there are some elements within the town who are very determined to ensure that peace is not restored in the coastal city any time soon. Attacks of this magnitude against police officers during riots and demonstrations are very rare in the country and yet this is the second such incident in the last 3 days or so.