Nairobi: Mungiki & Police Clash in Shack Settlements

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Aljazeera.Net
FRIDAY, JUNE 08, 2007
19:07 MECCA TIME, 16:07 GMT

Kenyans flee sect crackdown

Hundreds of people have fled a shantytown in Kenya’s capital, where at least 33 people have been killed during a police crackdown on a gang accused of a series of beheadings.

Residents of the Mathare slum have accused police of indiscriminate violence as at least 500 officers tore down shacks and attacked people during a search for weapons.

The crackdown began after two police officers were killed by members of the Mungiki sect on Monday.

“Most of the men have already left,” one woman told Reuters news agency on Friday. “We thought it was okay for us to stay with the children but yesterday we found out it was not.”

Residents loaded their mattresses, cooking pots and furniture onto pickup trucks and wheelbarrows or simply carried them out of the slum on their backs.

Many headed to the nearby Eastleigh neighbourhood and found shelter in churches or a sports centre.

Traumatised

“I have never witnessed in my life anything like what is happening,” Jane Wachira, a 37-year-old mother of three, told The Associated Press news agency as she left the slum. “My children and I are traumatised.”

Police have denied using excessive force, saying they are doing what is necessary to wipe out the sect, which is accused of causing the deaths of at least 20 people in the past three months, including 12 found mutilated or beheaded since May.

The government has warned that the crackdown will continue.

Mungiki claims to have thousands of adherents drawn from the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe.

Members of the group, whose name means “multitude” in the Kikuyu language, claim to be inspired by the 1950s Mau Mau uprising against British rule.

But they have become linked to murder, political violence and extortion.

Ken Ouko, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Nairobi, said the crackdown was doomed to fail because the group is an underground gang.

He said: “The problem lies in the fact that the government doesn’t know whom they are wiping out.

“You cannot crack down someone you can’t see. The sect members are slippery and they do their work with secrecy.”

The recent bloodshed has raised fears that Mungiki members are out to disrupt elections in December, when Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan presdient, will seek a second term.

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TUESDAY, JUNE 05, 2007
15:43 MECCA TIME, 12:43 GMT

Kenya in deadly sect crackdown

Kenyan police have killed at least 21 suspected members of a banned sect in a crackdown in a Nairobi slum after the killing of two policemen.

Police raided Nairobi’s Mathari slum area – a stronghold of the Mungiki sect – to recover stolen weapons.

“Following the killing of two policemen, we launched an operation to recover the firearms that were stolen [from them] … and 21 people who were resisting arrest were killed overnight,” Eric Kiraithe, a police spokesman, said on Tuesday.

“They are Mungiki members who started resisting arrest when police launched the operation to recover firearms,” he said.

Beheadings

The two slain policemen had been carrying out a routine patrol in the Mathari slums of northern Nairobi when they came under heavy gunfire from suspected Mungiki members, he said.

The politically-linked Mungiki sect has been blamed for a wave of recent murders including several gruesome beheadings.

The religious group, with alleged historic ties to the Mau Mau independence uprising, comprises mainly of snuff-taking, dreadlocked youths which supports traditions such as female circumcision and oath-taking.

Slum residents said there were scenes of chaos as heavily-armed riot police sought out Mungiki members on Monday evening.

“I just heard gunshots and I could not tell what was happening. I could not go out to check, but I could hear the noise of people screaming,” Kennedy Mwaura, a resident, said.

The group – notorious for criminal activities including extortion, murder and harassment of women – was banned in 2002 following deadly violence.

“I was beaten by five policemen. They didn’t want to know whether I was Mungiki or not,” Peter Njenga, a resident, said.

“They hit me with machetes and clubs. They told me to show them where the Mungiki are, but I don’t know them.”

Rape claims

Others also accused police of heavy-handedness and several women reported rapes.

“The police came, broke down doors and arrested men, then raped women. One of my daughters was raped,” Mama Njeri said.

As others frantically searched mortuaries and police stations for missing relatives, Kiraithe said the crackdown was continuing.

“The operation will not stop until all the firearms they stole from the police are recovered. But so far, we have have recovered three pistols, six rounds of ammunition and 15 machetes,” he said.

Meanwhile, a senior police official said that Mungiki members killed at least four people in Karuro town – about 80km northeast of the capital – in the early hours of Tuesday.

Hundreds of paramilitary police then patrolled the area seeking Mungiki members.

Mwai Kibaki, Kenya’s president, vowed on Friday to crack down on the Mungiki, after it was blamed for the killings of five people, including one in his own constituency.

“We will not allow criminals to get away with wanton acts of violence,” Kibaki said.

Many Kenyans believe corrupt politicians and police officers have been in league with the group.

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Kenyan sect accused of beheadings

Six people, including a 10-year old, have been killed in a firefight between police officers and suspected robbers in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city.

So far this year, more than 300 people have been shot dead across the country.

Mohammed Adow reports from Kenya on a wave of violence that is being blamed on the Mungiki, a quasi-political religious sect that many say is closer to a criminal gang.

Robert Kiunjuri, a 45 year old farmer, was terrified when members of the Mungiki sect recently struck his village. They left the severed head of one of their victims in his compound.

He said: “I found the head right here, right on top of the chicken pen.

“You can see the blood.”

Kiunjuri’s neighbours in Kianjogu village, in central Kenya, share his concerns about the sect, which has been accused of a number of grisly killings across Kenya.

Mohammed Adow, reporting from Kinanjogu, said the village market was “deserted”.

He said: “Since the killings the village has been almost empty.”

Intimidation

What began as a religious movement in the late 1980s has for many turned into an intimidating underworld gang.

Mutuma Ruteere, a Mungiki researcher, told Al Jazeera that the original Mungiki had all but disappeared, but that a new, more violent Mungiki had taken their place.

“Mungiki has several faces … there is a political Mumbiki, which has been associated with elections. They have vigilantes for political hire during elections.”

Followers of the Mungiki were once better known for tobacco-sniffing and their trademark dreadlocks. The sect rejected “westernisation” and challenged Kenya’s government.

But when Adow met four Mungiki leaders on the outskirts of Nairobi, he found they had traded their dreadlocks for neat haircuts and business suits.

They denied being involved in any criminal activity and bragged instead about being a formidable organisation with nearly three million followers across the country.

Joe Waiganjo, who styles himself as one of the Mungiki’s “executive officers”, said: “We can say we are present to a percentage of around 15-20 per cent in the country.”

He said that said among the members of the Mungiki “there are a number of ministers and a number of assistant ministers”.

“Wipe them out”

The Kenyan government has in the past cracked down on members of the sect.

The sect has accused the police of being heavy-handed in its dealings with the Mungiki, but they have only succeeded in driving the sect further underground.

John Michuki, Kenya’s internal security minister, told Al Jazeera: “The government will do everything possible as mandated by the law to wipe them out.”

But so far the government is a long way from making good on that promise.

Back in Kianjogu the villagers are united in grief. They bury one of the dead and long for the day they will be allowed to live in peace.