By Owen Yaa Baya
During the MUHURI, MRC, GOVERNMENT
negotiations initiative as proposed by MUHURI sometimes this year, I was
invited to participate as a member of the team to broker the peace and initiate
dialogue. Since that meeting I stopped my positive demeanor towards the group.
In that meeting was a respected old man, once a chief Kadhi and prominent
Muslim scholar. He gave long treaties of the Portuguese in Mombasa and the
advent of the Omani Arabs and the wars fought. His family fought in the wars
and got killed. He spoke with bitterness and knowledge. May be Maur Bwanamaka
whom I regard very highly as coastal historian would find fault.
At the end he was very clear what MRC was
about. "We fought to protect Mwambao, Mwambao wa pwani was never colonized,
Kenya was. We gained our independence through the efforts of the sultan from
the Portuguese and nobody should take that right for us to govern ourselves. We
are an independent state" "Hawa kina Ngala sold us out in Lancaster.
It's a problem they caused and they must undo"
He continued in his eloquent Kiswahili, "the leadership of Mwambao, now Mombasa, is known and the owners
of Pwani are very well known, he
mentioned four Arab/Swahili oriented groups and I can recall the Abusaid, the
Mazuri and two others. These are the known owners and rightful Mombasa people.
Then he went in to what earned him unprintable abuses from those who like me
understood nothing at this point. These were shocking revelations said in
sincere bitterness
“When we succeed in getting independence, we shall install our leader (he gave
him a Swahili/Arabic title) that family is the first class family, the rulers,
then the aristocrats, the business people, he gave the name of the tribe. And
lastly he said this, " the fourth class ni hava wanyika na ni vijakazi na
walinzi Wetu, hawamo Kamwe Katika Mwambao kama viongozi ama uongozi wake"
Then he explained why it is called
MRC. MRC is indeed a Mombasa thing,
Himaya ya Sultan period, not Pwani. And he chided us; if it was Pwani it would
have been given the appropriate name to include Pwani. In fact those who gave
the name MRC did not make a mistake, he said, they knew Himaya is more than
16miles from the beginning and if they get Mombasa then they can now start
fighting for the Wanyika to join it so that they can have workers. (For the
first time I heard the 16 nautical miles thing upto and including sultan Hamud)
In Q&A it emerged that the grievances of the coast are indeed a decoy to
get back the independent state taken away by Kenyatta. In fact whether there
were grievances or not the Mwambao is an independent state according to them.
It also emerged that as early as the 60s the agitation for the independence of
the Coast had started and in fact Kenyatta either detained one person who
raised this issue or sent him to exile. One of the Mazruis who was in that
meeting actually did not contradict the story. He gave many insights about the
Coast and MRC. He spoke bitterly about how the Mazruis were the biggest losers
in independent Kenya.
So from that point onwards I do not support MRC and I will never do so. It has
taken the local (Wanyika) on a long ride. The seekers of power are there. They
will never allow Mwanwadzi and his rag tag cabinet to be leaders of Pwani. They
are waiting in the wings the real owners of the liberation movement. Poor Wanyika
we shall continue to be misused. They have fooled everybody into believing that
MRC is about us, even research has been done and written and they also say it
is about us, no my brothers and sisters, MRC Ina wenyewe and you and I are just
an arsenal.
Regards,
Owen Yaa Baya