MOMBASA, Kenya — Kenya on Saturday told members of a separatist group to surrender or face arrest as the east African country intensified a crackdown on the movement ahead of an election next year. The Mombasa Republican Council's (MRC) campaign for the secession of Kenya's Indian Ocean coastal strip, a tourist hotspot and trade hub, is just one of many concerns ahead of the March election, the first since the 2007 vote after which some 1,200 people were killed and thousands were displaced. “I am asking all MRC officials and members who are still out there to surrender voluntarily and also surrender their weapons this weekend,” Coast province commissioner Samuel Kielele said at a gathering for national day celebrations in Mombasa. “We know them and we will go for them if they don't heed this call. We will go for them and arrest them,” he said. President Mwai Kibaki also said his government would take decisive action against those who “issued threats of secession or those who threaten our security”. — Reuters
