The Struggle For Freedom, Justice and Equality
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Mombasa secessionist in Kenya Lessons from East Africa’s warriors
cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com
In recent months, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has been in the news quite a bit. The MRC is seeking secession - or is it independence? - for a chunk of coastal Kenya.I am not interested in whether the MRC have a case or not. Rather, I have been fascinated by the business of secession (yes, it is political business) for many years, especially the factors that determine whether it fails for succeeds.
East Africa is interesting, because it seems the ripe region to set up secessionist shop. It has produced 99 per cent of Africa breakaway states/territories of the last 25 years: Eritrea, South Sudan, Puntland and Somaliland. Secessionist sentiment is up and about in Zanzibar, Darfur region of Sudan, the Ogaden province of Ethiopia, and in Democratic Republic of Congo.
These cases tell us that secession is very expensive business. It only comes cheap when it is “opportunistic” secession; as in the case of Somaliland, and Puntland (which has not said it intends to break away permanently) where a region moves off on its own because the central government has collapsed and can’t keep it in the fold.
Otherwise secession in all other cases in our region has been won through the barrel of the gun. South Sudan became independent after more than 20 years of war in which 2.5 million were killed. Eritrea won back its statehood after a 27-year war, part of the “Ethiopian Civil War” in which at least 1.4 million were killed. In Nigeria, the Biafra war last just three years, and ended in failure. In that short period, more than 2 million people died!
So it seems that because you will, anyway, lose more than a million people fighting to be independent, secessionist folk need to be at least three million. That number ensures that you are able to produce enough people to replenish the ranks of the fighters, and to have the civilian infrastructure to support the campaign, without everyone being killed off.
If you are to have an independent state, you need warm bodies to populate it. It makes no sense if they are all dead at the end. Going by this, the picture is not very bright for the MRC. Someone who is knowledgeable about Coastal Kenya tells me the “MRC base is less than 500,000”. Those are terrible numbers to work with.
The second factor necessary for successful secession is history. You need to have a good or emotional story. Either your territory was independent before and had a proud past, like Eritrea; or independent like South Sudan, but also with a highly emotional narrative that grabs international attention—a “Muslim” north oppressing a “Christian” south; or a racist northern Arab elite tormenting a large “black” southern politician. The differentiations are nonsensical in strict scientific terms, but nevertheless they evoked a lot of emotion.
The MRC’s strongest card is marginalisation of the coast, but the coastal strip doesn’t have a sexy history and does conjure up an emotional modern-day narrative.
Then, successful secessionists need the clock. All successful secessions have taken more than 20 years of struggle. This creates a large number of refugees and exiles that scatter to the corners of the world and create the bodywork that enables secession to succeed. The Eritrean Diaspora was successful enough, it was able to raise money to fund the war by the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF) for years.
The South Sudanese were able to mobilise rich conservative Christian constituencies in the west to support their cause, and to draw in countries like Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda to give the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army military support.
The MRC base of “less than 500,000” is not enough to establish a critical Diaspora constituency. This doesn’t mean they should give up. Rather, the MRC should do what all groups that are hopeless outnumbered, outgunned, and out-moneyed do; negotiate, persuade, charm, bribe, and work the system to your advantage.
No man understood this better than the African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (MLK) when he called for non-violent protest. The radicals mocked him, and he was assassinated. But black America lived to fight another day. In 2008, America elected Barack Obama, its first African-American president, 40 years after the death of MLK. This is where the violent and non-violent takes are similar - they both take forever.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is the Executive Editor of the Nation Media Group’s Africa and Digital Media Division
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In recent months, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) has been in the news quite a bit. The MRC is seeking secession - or is it independence? - for a chunk of coastal Kenya.I am not interested in whether the MRC have a case or not. Rather, I have been fascinated by the business of secession (yes, it is political business) for many years, especially the factors that determine whether it fails for succeeds.
East Africa is interesting, because it seems the ripe region to set up secessionist shop. It has produced 99 per cent of Africa breakaway states/territories of the last 25 years: Eritrea, South Sudan, Puntland and Somaliland. Secessionist sentiment is up and about in Zanzibar, Darfur region of Sudan, the Ogaden province of Ethiopia, and in Democratic Republic of Congo.
These cases tell us that secession is very expensive business. It only comes cheap when it is “opportunistic” secession; as in the case of Somaliland, and Puntland (which has not said it intends to break away permanently) where a region moves off on its own because the central government has collapsed and can’t keep it in the fold.
Otherwise secession in all other cases in our region has been won through the barrel of the gun. South Sudan became independent after more than 20 years of war in which 2.5 million were killed. Eritrea won back its statehood after a 27-year war, part of the “Ethiopian Civil War” in which at least 1.4 million were killed. In Nigeria, the Biafra war last just three years, and ended in failure. In that short period, more than 2 million people died!
So it seems that because you will, anyway, lose more than a million people fighting to be independent, secessionist folk need to be at least three million. That number ensures that you are able to produce enough people to replenish the ranks of the fighters, and to have the civilian infrastructure to support the campaign, without everyone being killed off.
If you are to have an independent state, you need warm bodies to populate it. It makes no sense if they are all dead at the end. Going by this, the picture is not very bright for the MRC. Someone who is knowledgeable about Coastal Kenya tells me the “MRC base is less than 500,000”. Those are terrible numbers to work with.
The second factor necessary for successful secession is history. You need to have a good or emotional story. Either your territory was independent before and had a proud past, like Eritrea; or independent like South Sudan, but also with a highly emotional narrative that grabs international attention—a “Muslim” north oppressing a “Christian” south; or a racist northern Arab elite tormenting a large “black” southern politician. The differentiations are nonsensical in strict scientific terms, but nevertheless they evoked a lot of emotion.
The MRC’s strongest card is marginalisation of the coast, but the coastal strip doesn’t have a sexy history and does conjure up an emotional modern-day narrative.
Then, successful secessionists need the clock. All successful secessions have taken more than 20 years of struggle. This creates a large number of refugees and exiles that scatter to the corners of the world and create the bodywork that enables secession to succeed. The Eritrean Diaspora was successful enough, it was able to raise money to fund the war by the Eritrean Peoples’ Liberation Front (EPLF) for years.
The South Sudanese were able to mobilise rich conservative Christian constituencies in the west to support their cause, and to draw in countries like Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda to give the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army military support.
The MRC base of “less than 500,000” is not enough to establish a critical Diaspora constituency. This doesn’t mean they should give up. Rather, the MRC should do what all groups that are hopeless outnumbered, outgunned, and out-moneyed do; negotiate, persuade, charm, bribe, and work the system to your advantage.
No man understood this better than the African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King (MLK) when he called for non-violent protest. The radicals mocked him, and he was assassinated. But black America lived to fight another day. In 2008, America elected Barack Obama, its first African-American president, 40 years after the death of MLK. This is where the violent and non-violent takes are similar - they both take forever.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is the Executive Editor of the Nation Media Group’s Africa and Digital Media Division
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Monday, June 18, 2012
Un Officer in Ethiopia accused of terrorism Supporting the Ogaden struggle
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"The defendant has not convinced us that he did not commit a crime... he's guilty," Judge Mulugeta Kidane said.
Abdurahman Sheikh Hassan, who was based in Ethiopia's troubled south-eastern Ogaden region, was charged last July with having links to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), a secessionist rebel group.
He is charged along with Sherif Baido, whom the charge sheet lists as a senior member of the ONLF and was convicted on the same charge in absentia, according to Kidane.
The two men face five to ten years in prison. The court is expected to deliver a sentence on Friday.
Hassan was arrested after negotiating the release of two UN World Food Programme (WFP) officers kidnapped in the Ogaden.
Evidence
Judge Mulugeta said defence witnesses failed to prove Hassan did not have links to ONLF members.
The key evidence used by the prosecution was recordings of phone conversations between Hassan and his co-defendant.
The judge said the voices of Hassan and Baido had been matched to those on the tape after it was analysed by the cybercrimes unit.
"It has been proved by the cybercrimes section that it was their voices," he said.
Hassan - an ethnic Somali who does not speak Ethiopia's main language, Amharic - stood expressionless as the judge read the verdict in Amharic. He appeared in court wearing a clean white shirt and holding Islamic prayer beads.
The prosecution called for the court to impose a strong sentence against Hassan, saying his case should serve as a warning to would-be offenders.
"We want the court to take this as a really serious offence, he has a connection to the ONLF and he is a real danger to the country," the prosecutor told the court.
Leniency asked
But Hassan's lawyer Netsanet Getahun asked the court to be lenient towards her client.
"My client hasn't harmed anyone, he hasn't done any concrete damage... we want the court to be considerate because he has already served one year in jail," she said, adding that Hassan suffers from high blood pressure and heart disease and has a large family to support.
Rights groups have criticized Ethiopia's 2009 "anti-terrorism" legislation for being far-reaching and used to stifle peaceful dissent and freedom of expression. Close to 200 people, including opposition members and journalists, were charged under the law in 2011.
In December, two Swedish journalists were sentenced to 11 years in prison after an Ethiopian court found them guilty of supporting ONLF rebels in the Ogaden.
Hassan was arrested in the remote Ogaden region, where ONLF militants have been fighting for independence since 1984, claiming they have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.
Oil and gas reserves in the region have brought hopes of wealth but also fears of increased conflict.
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