The Mungiki Three Sides of the Same Coin!

Ogilo O.

Book Title: 1 The Mung Three Sides of the Same Coin! Author: Ojijo Copyright © 2010, Ojijo. All rights reserved. This work is copyrighte parts of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, form, without permission of the publisher. a belated eulogy! FIRST EDITION, 2010 SECOND REVISED & EXPANDED EDITION, 2011 …to Oulu GPO and Oscar King’ara, and the ideas you For enquiries or orders, Email ojijop@gmail.com or Call (256) 070-1-10-0059 *(256) 77-6-10-0059 died with! Ojijo’s Financial Literacy & Personal Development Books 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Making My Child Financially Intelligent: Money Lessons by Age Group (from 4-18 yrs) Talanta: Ojijo’s Guide to Identify, Develop & Commercialize My Talent & My Skills Invest: Ojijo’s Guide to Financial Instruments & Alternative Investment Vehicles Sell Something: Ojijo’s Entrepreneurship & Raising Capital Guide I Am A Network Marketer: Ojijo’s Network Marketing Guide Making Money Together: Ojijo’s Investment Club Manual The Gift of E11even Moves to Make Me Wealthy Ojijo’s Other Books 1. My Body Parts (Causes, Prevention, Natural Remedies & Medicinal Cures of 111 Common Ailments) The Mungiki! Book Title: The Mungiki Three Sides of the Same Coin! Copyright © 2012, Ojijo. All rights reserved. This work is copyrighted by the author. No parts of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, without permission of the publisher. FIRST EDITION , 2012 ISBN: 978-9966-123-24-4 2 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo allpublicspeakers.com Tirupati Mazima Mall, Nsambya, Ggaba-Road, Plot 2530, P. O. Box 34416. Kampala, Uganda. Tel: +256 41 4696004/31 251 7908 Email: info@allpublicspeakers.com Website: www.allpublicspeakers.com (256) 0776 1000 59 * (256) 0701 1000 59 * (256) 772 864 893 The Mungiki! The Mungiki! first, they came in the name of god, and they got legitimacy, then they came in the name of politics, and they got money, then they became greedy, they maimed, shot, extorted and beheaded, then they were besieged, arrested, killed, extra-judicially executed, then they changed religion, …and they were still persecuted, then they changed names, then they went back to politics, ethnic politics, and it seems to be working, they are becoming ‘legitimate’ again, they are killing again, they are becoming rich again! 3 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo …and they were still executed, O JIJO S 47 B OOKS F INANCIAL L ITERACY B OOKS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Sell Something-5 Steps to Entrepreneurship (Bible for Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Trainers, and Business Coaches) Successful Saccos - Managers' Guide to Acquire, Retain and Grow Membership, Savings and Assets Making Money Together: Ojijo s )nvestment Club Manual Making My Child Financially Intelligent: Money Lessons by Age Group (from 3-13yrs) Invest: Ojijo s Guide to Financial )nstruments & Alternative )nvestment Products Retire Happy: 21 Questions to Plan My Retirement What Can I Sell? 101 Business Ideas for Youth in Africa I Am A Network Marketer - Ojijo's Network Marketing Guide P ERSONAL B RANDING B OOKS 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Stupid Writers: Ojijo s Guide to Writing Articles, Reports, Plans, Profiles & Proposals Talanta: Ojijo s Guide to )dentifying, Developing & Selling My Talent This Is How To Treat A Man (Fathers, Husbands, Lovers, Sons, Brothers) Soft Sweet Words: Romantic Whispers to My Woman Cause Action: Ojijo s Public Speaking (andbook The Gift of E11even Moves to Make Me Wealthy Seventy-7 Moves of a Sexy Woman Self Discipline - What, Why & How 99 Ways to Make People Laugh L AW B OOKS 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. Business Transactions & Contracts Law Handbook Family Law Handbook Intellectual Property Law Handbook Alternative Dispute Resolution Law Handbook Real Estate Law Handbook Civil Litigation Law Handbook Energy Law Handbook Labour Relations Law Handbook Administrative Law Handbook Environmental Law Handbook Criminal Litigation Law Handbook Ojijo s Financial Services Law Rich Lawyers, Poor Lawyers : Law Firm Management Handbook African Jurisprudence, Luo Jurisprudence: Theories, Institutions and Procedures of Law and Justice (Introduction to Law) Legal Rhetoric: Ojijo s Guide to Legal Writing, Legal Arguments & Legal )nterpretation Policy & Legal Issues in E-Commerce & E-Governance (ICT Law) P OLITICS AND R ELIGION 34. Why Did Hitler Kill The Jews? 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. Politics of Poverty: The Odinga Curse to the Luos Open Religion: My Religion is the Best Religion Garveyism: The Philosophy of Marcus Garvey Upright Men: World s Greatest Revolutionary Politicians The Mungiki: Terrorists, Victims, Saints: Three Sides of the Same Coin! This Is How To Manipulate Voters: Ojijo's Guide for Politicians and Aspiring Politicians! O THER B OOKS 41. Fireplace Stories: Ojijo s Performance Poems 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. The Half Story of My Life: Follow Your Heart, Live Your Dream I Speak Luo: Conversational Phrases of Luo Language The Luo Nation: History & Culture of Joluo (The Luo People Of Kenya) Luo Traditional Medicine : Curative and Preventive Plant, Animal and Mineral Extracts Tuongee Kiswahili: A Conversational Phrasebook With Audio CDs Eat Rich, Keep Fit-Foods & Exercises for Healthy Living The Mungiki! …table of Mungiki! A LETTER TO OULU GPO AND OSCAR KING ARA............................................. 3 HISTORY & ORIGIN ...................................................... 9 GROWTH OF THE SECT! ............................................................................ 16 LEADERSHIP ................................................................................................. 24 RITUALS! ......................................................................................................... 34 OPERATIONS STRATEGY: THE ORGANISATION.............................. 39 TRAINING ASSASSINS AND KILLERS: THE BAGATION SQUAD! 44 FUNDRAISING & HOW THE LEADERS GET RICH! ........................... 46 MUNGIKI IDEOLOGY................................................................................... 48 MUNGIKI POLITICAL WING ..................................................................... 51 STREET GANG ............................................................................................... 55 THE MAFIA: EXTORTIONISTS................................................................. 60 VANDALS ........................................................................................................ 65 FEMALE CIRCUMCISION ........................................................................... 66 MURDERERS: ANGELS OF DEATH! ....................................................... 72 POLITICAL THUGS FOR HIRE!................................................................. 86 RAIDING POLICE STATIONS, KILLING THE POLICE! ..................... 92 FACTIONAL FIGHTING .............................................................................. 93 ETHNIC GANG: KILLING LUOS! .............................................................. 95 THE PIRANHAS: KILLING DEFECTORS! ............................................ 104 COLLATERAL DAMAGE: INNOCENT BYSTANDERS...................... 115 PART 2: THE VICTIMS ............................................... 117 BANNING & AMNESTY! ........................................................................... 118 THE KILLING FIELDS ............................................................................... 122 EXECUTION STYLE DEATHS ................................................................. 134 MUNGIKI IN EXILE .................................................................................... 139 PART 3: THE SAINTS ................................................. 140 A DIVINE CALL ............................................................................................ 141 RELIGIOUS REBIRTH................................................................................ 144 POLITICAL REBIRTH ................................................................................ 147 2 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo PART 1: THE TERRORISTS ........................................... 54 The Mungiki! A letter to Oulu GPO and Oscar King’ara Too My Brothers, the courageous and inspirational Oulu GPO, and the generous and humble Oscar King’ara. My brothers, On 5 March 2009, at around 6 pm, roughly 3 hours after the Government spokesperson had given a televised address that the government would take action against the Oscar Foundation for sponsoring the Mungiki, you Director Oscar Kamau King’ara and you Programme Coordinator George Paul Oulu Otieno, you were shot severally and killed while en route to a meeting with a Commissioner Kamanda Mucheke, a senior human rights officer with KNCHR, concerning how to formally respond to accusations made by Government Spokesman, Dr. Alfred Mutua, that the Oscar Foundation was funding the Mungiki. The purpose of the meeting was to present evidence of the extent to which the government, through the police squad, Kanga Squad, was exterminating and extrajudicially killing suspected and known members of the Mungiki sect, as well as innocent youth, some of whom were not even Kikuyus, the tribe to which Mungiki belong. 3 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Your bodies are buried, but your spirits survive. Now I address your spirits, The Mungiki! Earlier that day, the government spokesman, Dr. Alfred Mutua, had publicly accused your organisation of being a fundraising front for Mungiki; an accusation, which to this date, three years after your execution, has not been proved. Everyone was saddened by your demise, except two people groups; the ignorant, and the guilty; those who were ignorant of the circumstances that led to your death; and those who caused your deaths. Your mission was to inform and mobilise Kenyans to exploit their natural, human and physical resources towards realizing their full potential and participating in the process of development. Indeed, you Oscar King’ara challenged Kenyans thus: “you can either be a fullstop or comma in the struggle for change; but you must represent something.” And you Oulu GPO challenged us thus: 4 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo My friends, you are not the first to die, and neither will you be the last, in fact, we are just late in coming, and we will join you in our time. I did not grieve you; I neither had the pleasure, nor the luxury, but now I address your spirits. The Mungiki! “be informed and transform your thoughts and approach to issues.” Your foundation, The Oscar Foundation for Free Legal Aid, was a registered and regulated charity which offered free legal services to poor people in Kenya. It had carried out research on police brutality in urban areas of Kenya, as well as corruption in the police force and in prisons: indeed, I took part in and was a volunteer consultant researcher. On 18 February 2009, the Oscar Foundation presented its findings on ongoing extrajudicial killings in Kenya to Hon. Peter Mwathi of the Ministry of Education for use in a parliamentary debate. The organisation also provided information for Prof. Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions in the context of his fact-finding mission to Kenya in February 2009. 5 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo You were executed, murdered, and to date, nothing has been said of your demise, just the way they kept quiet for T.J. Mboya, Argwings Kodhek, J.M. Kariuki, and Pio Gama Pinto. Just the way they kept quiet for Dedan Kimathi, Gen. China Itote, Patrice Lumumba, and Thomas Sankara. Yes, just the way they did to Che Guevara, Samora Machel, Amical Cabral and Muammar Ghadhafi: the silence of the innocent and the guilty. You were taken out by the enemies. They who are more organized, more rich, and more united in tyranny against the weak and powerless. The Mungiki! Furthermore, the report, entitled “The Killing Fields”, was also presented to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and a further report on organised gangs was presented to the Kioni Committee of the Kenyan Parliament: all these have been read and shelved. After all, it is time for elections, and as Githongo aptly writes, it is time to (plan how to) eat. According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the minibus was in police uniform whilst the other men were wearing suits. Then they looked around, and an eye witness, one citizen who was unlucky to be using that public road at that time was shot and wounded on the knee, and her whereabouts has never been known to date. We do not know what happened to her; we might never know my friends, my heroes. The cowardly killers, the agents of death, then jumped into their minibus and a Mitsubishi Pajero vehicle, and drove away. Killings do not come more cold-blooded and calculated. You were killed just yards from the heavily guarded residence of Kenya's President, the State House, and less than 1 km from the Central Police 6 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo On 5 March 2009, you Oscar Kamau King'ara and John Paul Oulu “GPO” were shot to death on Mamlaka Road outside Hall 11 in Nairobi. Oulu, they shot you eleven times, wounding you mortally, and when you came out of confront them, they shot you again, finishing you, having laid you on the ground, they shot you on the back again, a total of fourteen rounds. King’ara, they shot you nine times, on your face. As if one bullet on the head would not kill you. The Mungiki! Station. But more chilling, you were shot right outside the university gate: what a clear message. Oulu and Kin’gara, you need to know that after your valiant deaths, the police from the Central Police Station did not arrive at the scene of the crime until more than three hours after the incident, although the station is situated only 1 km away. And when the police finally came, the students hid the body, so that they would not hide the evidence, but the police were violent, shooting indiscriminately at unarmed students, and they killed Ogato, a final year student. Three policemen were arrested for that killing. To date, we do not know what happened to them. They were released, evidently. Phillip Alston was right, and we knew this all along, the Kenya’s police, You Oscar Kamau King'ara and George Paul Oulu “GPO” were murdered because of your legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights, in particular your work to denounce extrajudicial executions in Kenya. My friends, the police attributed the killings to "rivalry or thuggery", without telling who the thugs, or rivals could have been. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the UN demanded an independent 7 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo “kill often, and with impunity; they are a law unto themselves.” The Mungiki! investigation, with the US offering help from the FBI. Of course it was rejected. Professor Alston called for the sacking of Kenya's police chief, Hussein Ali, and the resignation of the Attorney-General, Amos Wako. But who would do such a cowardly thing, resign, be sacked, sack them, their agents. No surprise registered when the Kenyan government rejected the report (which they had commissioned) and accused Professor Alston of exceeding his brief, which was to draw up an independent assessment of alleged illegal killings by police. My friends, the abuses you investigated, and the killing you reported, with over 6,452 "forced disappearances" by police and 1,721 extrajudicial killings, are still unaddressed. The struggle continues. 8 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo …farewell my firends, bye-bye my brothers! The Mungiki! history & origin “like a river of many sources; or a tree of many roots, so is the Mungiki.” 9 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo -Ojijo The Mungiki! ORIGIN A cult. A religious movement. A street gang. A political force. All these descriptions are true of the Mungiki. But who exactly are the Mungiki? The Mungiki is a politico-religious group amongst the kikuyu tribe of Kenya; and it is currently banned and proscribed as a criminal organization. Mungiki derives from the kikuyu word muingi, meaning masses or people or multitude or united people. The name means, A united people" or "multitude" in the Kikuyu language. inspired by mau mau One theory states, inspired by the bloody Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s against the British colonial rule, thousands of young Kenyans drawn from Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu flocked to the sect whose doctrines are based on traditional practices. Indeed, the Mau Mau never referred to themselves as such, but rather, called themselves, muingi, a movement. The founders supposedly modelled Mungiki on the Mau Mau fighters who fought British colonial rule. During the 1990s, the group had migrated into Nairobi with the acceptance of the government under 10 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Specifics of the origin and doctrines of Mungiki are unclear due in part to the organisation s secretive nature, and the fear of retribution instilled in potential informants. But this notwithstanding, there are as many a theory as to the formation and purpose of Mungiki as there are sources of such information. The Mungiki! the then president Daniel arap Moi as a quick political intrigue and machination, and they began to dominate the matatu (private minibus taxi) industry. political origin The emergence of Mungiki as a social movement indeed responded to Moi s single party kleptocracy policy. In the nineties, during the period of ethnic upheaval and multiparty politics, Mungiki mobilised against the government, which it accused of starting and fuelling ethnic clashes. Reminiscent of the MauMau rebellion, the Mungiki started administering oaths as a way of uniting its members politically. In April 1999, Molo Democratic Party of Kenya MP Kihika Kimani alleged that the sect was the brainchild of Kenyan exiles who wanted to subvert the Government. The MP told a rally at Sipili in Laikipia District that some scholars in exile wanted to overthrow the Government using the sect as a recruiting agent. Mr. Kimani said the sect had recruited 800,000 members and was out to enlist 1.5 million. 11 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Another theory posits that the Mungiki was formed in 1988 with the aim of toppling the government of former President Daniel arap Moi. The sect was, at one time, associated with Mwakenya, an underground movement formed in 1979 to challenge the former Kanu regime. The administration of then Kenyan President and ethnic Kalenjin Daniel Moi had favoured the Kalenjins and reduced the influence of the Kikuyus, which the Mungiki sought to revive. The Mungiki! And two years ago, before President Moi at Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, 50 Mungiki members confessed that they had taken an oath to destabilise the Government. The President pardoned them, together with others who had been arrested in Embu. When some of the members of the sect visited President Moi at his home in Kabarak, near Nakuru, they claimed that their sect planned a revolution. They told the President that forced female circumcision, taking snuff and praying while facing Mt Kenya were some of the sect's characteristics. President Moi asked the group not to do anything that would bring a curse on the Kikuyu people. The report also recommends that people cited, including then Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, and head of public service Francis Muthaura should face a local judiciary or the International Criminal Court (ICC); and indeed, they faced the said commissions. As Kenya entered the post-Moi era, the Mungiki entered a new phase of its metamorphosis and became, according to Kagwanja, a full-fledged criminal group. 12 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo A commission set up to investigate the 2008 postelection violence reported that Mungiki members were suspected of perpetrating the violence. The Waki Report states that a meeting was held in Statehouse to coordinate revenge on Luos and Kalenjins. The Mungiki! youth movement in kikuyu land Yet other theories assert that the Mungiki was founded in 1987 by some young students in central Kenya to reclaim political power and wealth which its members claim was stolen from the Kikuyu. This school of thought argues that Mungiki has its roots in discontent arising from severe unemployment and landlessness arising from Kenya's rapid population growth, with many disaffected unemployed youth attracted to an organisation giving them a sense of purpose and cultural and political identity, as well as income. A further theory states that the group began in the late 1980s as a local militia in the highlands to protect Kikuyu farmers in disputes over land with Maasai and with forces loyal to the government, which was dominated by the Kalenjin tribe at the time. Between 1964 and 1966 one-sixth of European settlers' lands that were intended for settlement of landless and land-scarce Africans was cheaply sold to President Jomo Kenyatta and his wife Ngina, his children, and others. Jomo Kenyatta himself benefited immensely from irregular allocations of land that should have benefited those who lost land to Arab and British colonizers, the report said. President Kenyatta's direct engagement in irregular land allocations compromised his position to prevent or remedy similar cases of land grabbing by his close associates. 13 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo local militia The Mungiki! religious origin Yet another postulation is religious origin with, Maina Njenga, one of the sects leaders, and de facto chairman, claiming that he had a vision from God (Ngai) commanding him to unite the Kikuyu and fight foreign ideologies. According to this theory, the first leader of the Mungiki leaders was an old man known as Kamunya. The last time the police heard of him he was living at Ol Joro Orok, but has of late moved to an unknown location, shaking off the police trail on him. The old man, whose full name is Kamunya Maina, is the father of John Maina Njenga, the Mungiki national chairman, and his elder brother Njoroge Kamunya, who used to be the movement's national organising secretary. 14 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Using the matatus as a springboard, the group moved into other areas of commerce, such as rubbish collection, construction, connecting water and electricity, and even protection racketeering. Inevitably, the group's actions led to involvement with politicians eager for more support. In 2002, Mungiki backed losing candidates in elections and felt the wrath of the government. The group's activities became less visible although it still received revenue from protection taxes, electricity taxes and water taxes. They have been newsworthy for associations with ethnic violence and antigovernment resistance. The Mungiki! Ng'arua Division in Laikipia West constituency has the unenviable reputation of being both the birthplace of the Mungiki sect and the bedrock of its activities. A place called Karandi, for many years, has been the centre of Mungiki activities, including massive recruitment and the performance of initiation rituals. Apparently, in those days the Mungiki sect operated openly and was tolerated by the authorities, despite its strange rituals, many of which were carried out at the home of Mzee Kamunya. 15 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Kanyuka dam in Likipia West is reputed to be the most famous site for the initiation of new Mungiki recruits. The dam has been described as a Mungiki shrine but there are no structures near it. It is in its shallow waters that Mungiki recruits would be submerged for "cleansing" during initiation ceremonies, sometimes described as a kind of baptism. There were times one would see crowds of people from faraway places dropped at the dam in numerous vehicles for the initiation ceremonies. The Mungiki! GROWTH OF THE SECT! As the Mau Mau had, the Kikuyu militias required fighters to take an oath and a vow of secrecy, and soon the militias morphed into the Mungiki -- "masses" -- developing extortion and protection rackets and luring jobless young men into its fold, often by providing work such as hawking vegetables. By the 1990s, the movement, along with millions of Kenya's rural poor, spilled into exploding shantytowns. And there, despite their vitriolic hatred of Kenya's corrupt and Westernized elites, the sect members eventually were coopted as armed youth wings for ruling politicians. Today, Mungiki followers no longer sniff tobacco in public and have traded the dreadlocks and unkempt appearance for neat haircuts and business suits. They extort, engage in fraud, robbery, murder and even kidnap their victims. The sect has subsequently evolved over the years into an organised and intimidating underworld gang with bases in the capital, Nairobi, and parts of Central and Rift Valley Provinces. recruitment Recruitment into the Mungiki is generally voluntary, although some forced recruitment 16 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The group has morphed from a fellowship that once wore dreadlocks and eschewed the trappings of Western life, such as television, hip hop caps and blue jeans, into a vicious criminal mafia. The Mungiki! reportedly occurs. Young men who refuse to join the group face harassment, attacks, and forcible recruitment from Mungiki members. The Mungiki people move about rapidly, efficiently, and most secretly. Since they took over bus and matatu stages they have established cells everywhere; Mungiki is today a faceless organisation, and keeping track of it is very difficult. There are lots of Mungiki adherents, but one cannot pin them down. Mungiki members are forced to swear an oath of secrecy upon initiation, betrayal of which is punishable by death. New recruits must attend a ritual house, undress, and sit with their legs apart. They are told that ―this is a holy place and you are the children of Mau Mau, matigari ma njirungi. A leader dressed in traditional Kikuyu clothing issues a series of threats while another member slaughters goats. After 17 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki has also recruited among the country's large population of disaffected Kikuyu youth. It has been used by some Kenyan politicians to intimidate the electorate and frighten off political opposition. Maina Njenga used to occasionally turn up to try and recruit young men into the movement. A few idlers registered and were initiated. However later, even university graduates, working class people, politicians, businessmen, and security officers were alleged to be members. The Mungiki! entering another room, the recruits are forced to eat mutura-local sausage made of raw chopped meat and intestines-, and drink the goat s blood, after reciting ―from today I have joined the Mungiki movement. And if I come out of Mungiki, I have agreed to die. They then must recite ―if ) am given any property [like a gun, or money] by a member, I will keep it and I will not tell anybody; and if I tell anybody, I will accept to die. Recruits then face a council of elders, who tie each of the recruits penises to a string that they pull on in case the recruits try to rise/erect, while advising them, They are also informed that they must not worship in a church, and must be buried according to Kikuyu traditions, under which a dead body is covered with goat skin rather than soil. Recruits are commanded to source three new members and pay a registration fee of ten Kenyan shillings, before being threatened with death by beheading if they violate the oath. At the end of the initiation ritual, each recruit receives four aliases to be used as code names in case of emergency. 18 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo …not to wear underwear; never to marry an uncircumcised woman; not to take a bath before 14 days after the initiation rituals; and not to sleep with their wives during that period . The Mungiki! The group s elaborate oath taking ceremony is held at various centres and shrines across Nairobi, central province, and rift valley. The most notorious one is a shrine in the Karandi area of Laikipia District in the Rift Valley Province. The ceremony, which lasts from late in the evening to dawn the next day, involves the slaughter of black sheep and goats, whose blood is mixed with wild plant roots and drunk, roast meat which recruits and Mungiki leaders eat, the passing around and sniffing of tobacco, and the baptism of recruits in a dam at dawn. ―disappear from the public domain to avoid such punishment. Former Mungiki members also continue to be treated with suspicion and fear by their family members. military and security officers involvement Mungiki claims to have thousands of police officers who have taken the oath and who are loyal to the sect and its cause . As a result of people s distrust in the police, police corruption and police and politicians involvement with Mungiki, as well as credible 19 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Denouncing the Mungiki attracts a severe punishment because anyone who joins the sect becomes aware of all its secrets, including sources of funding and operations. Many Mungiki members who wish to leave the group The Mungiki! fear of Mungiki retaliations, people refrain from reporting violations committed by the Mungiki. The Mungiki leader, Chairman Maina, once boasted that he had recruited thousands of members from the police and military. The then Police Commissioner Philemon Abong'o said they were concerned by another leader s claims. Later, another national leader, Mr. Waruinge, specifically claimed that Mungiki had recruited and administered oath to more than 6,000 regular police and 1,500 Criminal Investigations Department officers. In addition to this, there had been reports of conspiracy in the armed forces and in early 2003, soon after Mwai Kibaki came into power, the government gave the military leadership three days to explain why ten of their Land Rovers were given to the outlawed Mungiki sect. In the lead up to the General Election, then Chief of the General Staff General Joseph Kibwana was asked to investigate the scandal in person and present his findings to the Office of the President. The report was to detail the value of the ten vehicles, who got them, and why they were disposed of. Military sources at the time said that the orders were issued by National Security minister Chris Murungaru during a meeting with then Chief of General Staff, General Kibwana and other top 20 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mr. Ndura Waruinge, the then sect's national coordinator, several times alleged that the group had recruited members of the Armed Forces, police, and other security agents also. The Mungiki! generals at the Department of Defence headquarters in Nairobi. The issue of Land Rovers cropped up when Murungaru made his first familiarisation tour of the DoD, a month after NARC came to power. Murungaru, who as security minister was responsible for the military, reportedly expressed shock that a cartel of high-ranking officers could have been involved in subversive activities by diverting the Land Rovers to Mungiki, as detailed in a Daily Nation report on the scandal. Senior DoD officials involved in the cartel were said to have held secret talks shortly before Dr. Murungaru arrived to plan their next course of action. The report and its findings have never been made public. The Mungiki have indeed deeply penetrated government to the high levels. It is estimated that membership of the Mungiki could range from a few thousand to 2 million, although accurate statistics are unavailable due to the secretive nature of the group. According to Mungiki leader Njenga, the group boasts five million followers, primarily located in Nairobi and the Central and Rift Valley Provinces. They claim to have infiltrated government offices, factories, schools and the armed forces members who would not necessarily sport dreadlocks but support and finance the sect behind the scenes. The majority of Mungiki members are poor uneducated Kikuyu males between the ages of 21 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo numbers The Mungiki! 18 and 40.13 Unemployed youths are drawn to the group by promises of employment and money. The Mungiki reportedly continued to recruit boys from schools in 2010. Most members are in the 18-40 age bracket, although there are exceptions, with some senior members in their 40-60s. Most members are very poor with little or no education. The most visible leaders tend to have university degrees. It is contended that 400 000 members are women, but most sources, hence Mungiki is predominantely male membership, with 80 percent of Mungiki s adherents being male. The number of Mungiki members rapidly increased as Kikuyus were subjected to so-called ethnic violence under Daniel arap Moi s regime. Following widespread poverty, frustration and desperation, young Kikuyus became easy targets for mobilisation and recruitment efforts by Mungiki. Following the election in December 2007, and the post-election violence into 2008, and the oncoming elections of 2012, the Mungiki is now aggressively stepping up the search for new 22 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki claim to be the masses. The people. And indeed, there is a Mungiki Menace; there has been a Mungiki Menace. Although the Mungiki claims thousands of members, it is difficult to say how widespread the sect is, much less what it is: the dying embers of a more violent 1990s Kenya or perhaps a sign of the growing urban poverty afflicting cities across Africa. The Mungiki is a brutal politically connected extortion racket. The Mungiki! 23 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo members, having deployed recruiters in most of the Kikuyu-dominated IDP [internally displaced people] camps. It is particularly targeting vulnerable Kikuyu youngsters displaced by violence . The Mungiki! LEADERSHIP Existing knowledge on Mungiki's organisational structure is scarce, as the organisation is highly secretive, and because of the mentioned fear of retributions. Indeed, in addition to the self proclaimed leaders, it is believed there are other leaders and backers who do not directly participate in its governance and leadership. This is vindicated by the finding of the ICC investigations into the post election violence where the Mungiki were exposed to have had a meeting in state house to plot the retaliation and avenging of the Kikuyus who were killed during the post election violence. Mungiki s highest organ is The National Coordinating Committee (NCT), although the organisation is not highly centralised. Under NCT, there are hundreds of coordinating units at provincial, district and village level. Each unit, or cell, comprises 50 members who operate in platoons of ten. Each platoon has its internal hierarchy among members. Ndura Waruinge, the 15 year old grandson of General Waruinge, a Mau Mau fighter, was reportedly the leader of the group, and Mungiki s founding father. When Ndura Waruinge defected in the early 2000s to join formal politics, Maina Njenga succeeded him. Njenga is described as a charismatic leader, and some followers considers him to be a prophet. Njenga is also known as John Kamunya, and his brother, Njoroge Kamunya, is another 24 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo national leadership The Mungiki! alleged leader. Whether or not Maina Njenga is still the top leader of the organisation, is not known to Landinfo. He was arrested in February 2006 on drugs and weapon-related charges, and re-arrested in April 2009, following the Mathira massacre. Another name mentioned as a leading profile in the Mungiki organisation is Robertson Buili, also known as Joe or Ndegwa, but no further information on his person or position is available. Njuguna Gitau is a spokesperson of Mungiki, and of the KNYA in particular. The Mungiki also believe in the kikuyu philosophy of itwika, that is, rightful transfer of power from the old to the young. This has been a key reason for their argument that the old guard should let the youth take over leadership in the kikuyu, and ultimately, country politics and governance. The Mungiki Defence Council (MDC) is the primary armed fraction of Mungiki. MDC is responsible for retaliations against defecting members, revenge killings included. MDC is heavily armed and carries AK-47s and other types of guns in addition to the more widespread swords, machetes and knives that regular Mungiki members may carry as well. It also trains the members on the use of the guns, and other weapons, as well as monitoring their training in martial arts in the various social halls. The defence council is a new creation that came to life in the late 2005, and is led by a reputed team of five (5) cousins. The MDC is also more, and well armed than other sections of the Mungiki. The general assortment 25 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo defence and security The Mungiki! of weapons used by the Mungiki, and controlled, supplied, and replenished by the defence council include Somali swords, machetes, knives, AK-47, G-3, and assortment of pistols. Most of these are stolen from security forces, though some are also bought from the black market. political wing The Kenya National Youth Alliance (KNYA) was registered as a political party until the government unlisted it early in 2007. Attempts to take over other political parties by senior members of Mungiki, as well as their aspirations to increase Mungiki s influence as parliament members after the election in 2012 are reported. In various raids, the police recovered the sect's paraphernalia which included snuff, bottles of honey, swords, axes, machettes, hand gloves and other alleged oathing materials including cow horns painted black green and white. Also recovered were neatly printed documents on the sect's ideals and motto. The movement has a flag in the sect s green, black and red colours. The document, printed with colours identified with the sect - green, black, white and red - was entitled Reformation and talked of violence as a way of achieving desired changes in the society. 26 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo identity The Mungiki! Various Mungiki leaders have been victims of extra judicial killings by the police, including Kimani Ruo, who used to be the Mungiki Rift Valley coordinator; the national spokesman of the political youth wing, one Njuguna Gitau, and the women wing leader, and Mungiki Chairman, Maina Njenga's wife Virginia Nyakio. The wife of jailed Mungiki leader Maina Njenga was brutally murdered and the involvement of a new elite squad directly answerable to police commissioner Mohamed Hussein Ali. It emerged that Ms Virginia Nyakio s execution was plotted by an elite squad codenamed The Eagle, which was recently formed by Maj Gen Ali to replace the disbanded Kwekwe Squad. Just like Kwekwe, the Eagle Squad is directly answerable to Maj Gen Ali and it was formed to exclusively hunt down members of the dreaded Mungiki sect. The killings and disappearance of suspected members of Mungiki was a systematic attack against a civilian population and could, thus qualify as a crime against humanity. Police officers who spoke on condition they would not be named for security reasons said Nyakio was seized by members of the Eagle Squad in Nairobi on suspicion she had taken over the leadership of Mungiki on behalf of her husband, who is serving his jail term at the Naivasha Maximum Security Prison after he was convicted for being in possession of an unlawful gun and bhang. They said the Eagle Squad interrogated the woman on the activities of the outlawed sect and how 27 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo execution of leaders The Mungiki! much money she had in her bank account. The police claim they had received information that Mungiki members were still channelling part of the cash they extorted from public service vehicles and businesses, mostly in Nairobi Central and Rift Valley provinces, to Mr. Njenga s wife. She believed the officers and obeyed their instructions. The officers then accompanied Ms Nyakio to the meeting place and seized Mr. Njoroge. They then proceeded to the bank and ordered Ms Nyakio to withdraw all the cash she had in her account. The account was reportedly holding more than Sh million. )t s unclear what became of the seized cash since it has triggered bad blood in the squad, with junior officers accusing their head of pocketing all of it. The officers who spoke to us said Ms Nyakio and Mr. Njoroge were later taken to a forest in Kajiado District where the driver was told how the woman had betrayed him. The police tricked him they would release him if he carried out their orders which required him to rape the Mr. Njenga s wife and then slit her throat with a dagger that was provided by the officers. Mr. Njoroge was threatened with death if he defied their orders. 28 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Afterwards, the officers said, Ms Nyakio was tricked to call her driver, Mr. George Njoroge, to meet pick her in a certain location in Nairobi. The officers from the elite unit ordered her not to betray she was under arrest when making the call and they promised to release her if she cooperated. The Mungiki! As soon as Mr. Njoroge had finished executing the police orders, an officer from the squad who was standing behind him gave him a vicious blow at the back of his head using a sledge hammer and his lifeless body slammed to the ground. The officers then loaded the two bodies in their vehicle and ferried them to Gatundu District where they dumped them at Gakoe forest. Police later discovered the bodies and transferred them to City Mortuary in Nairobi and booked them as unknown. Family members discovered the bodies a day after they were dumped in the morgue. Family members later accused the police of executing the two. But Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe said detectives were investigating the killings and denied that police were responsible. He said detectives suspect that the killings could be connected to feuding within the Mungiki sect over leadership after their chairman was sentenced to a five-year jail term. Police have gone further to allege the execution was ordered by Mr. Njenga after he was allegedly informed that Mr. Njoroge was having an affair with his wife while he was in jail. They claim the execution was carried out by Mr. Njenga s loyalists. 29 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Even before anybody raised a finger against them, the police quickly informed the media that the two were allegedly abducted while driving in a Toyota Rav car along Lang ata road towards Ongata Rongai. The Mungiki! It emerged today that the National Security Intelligence Service (NSIS) had gathered intelligence about the protest and passed on the information to Maj Gen Ali. But the police chief dismissed it saying Mungiki was wiped out last year and the remnants were incapable of organizing any protest. He got a rude shock when he was worked up by his aides at 3am when Mungiki struck with vengeance in the dead of the night. That explains why the police were caught napping when Mungiki struck plunging Kenya into grief just a few hours after they had celebrated the naming of the muchawaited Grand Coalition Cabinet by President Kibaki. 30 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo It emerged today that the love affair theory was coined by Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali, then Police Commissioner, and his advisors, including Mr. Kiraithe included, to shift the blame and heat from the force. The trick did not fool Mungiki followers. Under the Kenya National Youth Alliance, the sect members last week one of the most violent protest in Central, Nairobi and Rift Valley provinces as they barricaded key highways with heavy trucks paralysing road transport for four days. The well-coordinated protest saw business premises remaining closed, vehicles and other property being burnt or damaged and an estimated 15 people dead. The worst affected was Murang a and surrounding areas where residents remained indoors and businesses remained closed for four days. The Mungiki! The Eagle Squad, headed by Inspector Zebedeo Maina, was formed by Maj. Gen Ali to deal with Mungiki after he quietly disbanded its predecessor, the Kwekwe Squad, following local and international outcry that greeted the discovery of bullet-riddled bodies of Mungiki suspects in Ngong forest late last year. An estimated 5,000 youth who were branded Mungiki followers by the Kwekwe Squad were rounded up from their homes at night in parts of Central, Nairobi and Rift Valley provinces by members of the elite unit and never to be seen alive again. The human rights abuse scandal became a matter of public knowledge when some Maasai herdsmen discovered some of the rotting bodies, which wild beasts were unable to feast on due to plenty of human flesh, at Ngong Forest and alerted human rights organizations and media houses. Officials of the state-owned Kenya National Commission on Human Rights have since documented hundreds of cases of young men who vanished and their bodies have never been found after they were arrested by the Kwekwe Squad officers. Although a furious Maj Gen Ali called a press conference to deny his officers were involved in 31 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The seized youths were then shot dead and their bodies dumped in parts of Ngong, Kiserian and Kajiado to be eaten by wild beasts while the rest were loaded into police vehicles and ferried to the crocodile-infested River Tana. The Mungiki! any of the extra-judicial killings, he has never made any attempt to have them investigated. The police chief was at pains to explain how the youths went missing yet there was evidence that some of them were even booked in police stations. After Kwekwe was disbanded, its head, Mr. Francis Njiru, who also reported directly to Maj Gen Ali, was rewarded with a promotion of Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police. The rank is held by all provincial CID chiefs. The officers disguise themselves as Mungiki followers in order to infiltrate the sect. They use car hire vehicles instead of police cars. Unlike Kwekwe who betrayed themselves by killing the youths using police bullets, the Eagle Squad uses the tactic of executing their victims in the Mungiki-style of beheading and using pangas and other crude weapons to look like the sect members were eliminating each other. The Eagle Squad does not take or book its victims in police station to avoid leaving any trace. They detain victims lined up for execution in discreet houses they call Safe (avens during the period of interrogation. 32 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo It emerged yesterday that the Eagle Squad was more ruthless and discreet than the Kwekwe Squad. To avoid the pitfalls of Kwekwe, the Eagle Squad draws it members from Gikuyuspeaking police officers since Mungiki s followers are predominantly from the Kikuyu community. The Mungiki! 33 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The tragedy with the Kenyan media is that crime reporters swallowed the lies fed to them by police headquarters regarding Ms Nyakio s grisly murder and never bothered to dig beneath the surface. The Mungiki! RITUALS! Dark tales of moonlight oath ceremonies have been followed by vows from politicians to end the violence and by police crackdowns targeting one of the city's sprawling slums, where members of the secretive sect extort money from the poorest of the poor. What is known is that the sect operates in secrecy, taking unusual oaths and saying strange prayers in forests and rivers in Central Kenya, Nairobi and Rift Valley. The initiation as involving oath taking, the removal of clothing and the performance of rituals in the dark making it hard to identify the others who are present. The ceremony is said to involve the slaughtering of a goat, followed by the eating of its raw flesh and drinking its blood. The members are also bathed during meetings, or initiations, and this takes place in dark rooms, near forests, rivers, dams, or recently, in market centres in early hours of the morning. During the bathing, they sniff tobacco. The bath water is a mixture of goat blood, urine and tripe. The Mungiki oaths are gory images of their ritual scenes: Grown-up men with loincloths wrapped around them, standing bare foot in rivers, 34 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki demand that female members undergo ritual genital cutting as part of initiation and a women in charge of initiations reported that women who changed their minds were forcibly restrained. Indeed, the Mungiki has been criticised for encouraging, demanding and enforcing female genital mutilation practices upon girls and women in its communities . The Mungiki! engaging in snuff sessions and bathing in blood mixed with urine and goat tripe. Then the person in charge, dressed in traditional kikuyu attire, gives a series of threats, and informs the new recruits of the process they are about to go through. At the other side of the room, someone slaughters goats. These rituals give the Mungiki adherents a very strong bond of brotherhood and enables them to confront outside infiltration and to confront any form of opposition. The initiation and oathing rituals, which take place in the early mornings, also involve drinking human urine, eating a human being's umbilical cord, sniffing tobacco and burning of scents. Before a meeting commences the attendants pass around snuff tobacco, which is a traditional practice for males in the Mungiki community. One meeting that is described is conducted in the dark, with most of those in attendance sitting on the floor. After the threats, the recruits are ordered to stand up one by one and enter into an adjacent room. 35 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Police have continuously arrested tens of half naked suspected Mungiki adherents during initiation ritual at various places, including at the shoes of Nairobi dam; at the Nyayo market in the city, and other areas. In such swoops, the police recovered basins full of blood and some Mungiki related paraphernalia next to bonfire, include human hair, adult male body parts, and flywhisks. Almost all these scenes have adult male body with parts removed. The Mungiki! Whoever hesitates to stand up is beaten with sticks and pushed into the room. The entrance is covered with goat skins with dripping blood and fresh banana leaves. At any one point, if a recruit refuses to perform as the leaders demand, he will be beaten and threatened on his life. In the other room, the recruits are asked to sit down, and then receive a piece of raw meat called mutura.7 Once holding a mutura, they repeat after the person in charge: From today ) have joined the Mungiki movement. And if I come out of Mungiki, I have agreed to die , upon which they are told to eat a part of the mutura. )f ) am given any property [like a gun, or money] by a member, I will keep it and I will not tell anybody; and if I tell anybody, I will accept to die . When this part is finished, the recruit is asked to drink the blood that remains. Whoever refuses to drink the blood is whipped until he does. According to our source, the blood is very bitter. He told us that he struggled hard to swallow it and that eventually, the blood was poured on the ground. In return, he received 73 stick lashes. He almost lost his conscience. After drinking the goat blood, the recruits are asked to sit down and face the council of the elders. 36 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Subsequently, the spiritual leader holds a cart full of goat s blood. The ritual performer forces the recruits to drink a good portion of that blood. Each new recruit then have to say the following: The Mungiki! One of the elders sits on a traditional chair. The elder addresses the spiritual leader and says that these are the new members, and ) m asking you to acknowledge them . Next, the elders tie each of the recruits penises to a string that they pull on in case the recruits try to rise. This is very painful. Behind the recruits, Mungiki male members tell the recruits the Mau Mau history while they whip them. Furthermore, they are commanded to recruit three new members, and must pay a registration fee of ten Kenyan shillings for the elders that lead the initiation rituals. During the initiation ritual, the recruits are asked questions, and in case they refuse or hesitate to answer, the string that is tied to the penis is pulled. Finally, the recruits are told that the suffering they have endured during the ceremony is nothing compared to what will happen to them in case they violate the oath. Any violation can be punished by death. While the recruits are told this, another Mungiki member puts a large knife 37 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Then they are given a number of advices. They are told not to wear underwear; never to marry an uncircumcised woman; not to take a bath before 14 days after the initiation rituals; and not to sleep with their wives during that period. They are not allowed to worship in church, and must be buried in the traditional Kikuyu way, according to which the dead body is not covered with soil but with a goat skin. The Mungiki! against the recruits neck to illustrate how a violator will be beheaded. Once the ritual is over, the master of the ceremony apologises for what the recruits have gone through, and each receives four aliases that will help them in case of an emergency situation and that will be their code names in their respective cells. 38 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Although far from as detailed as the above recount, the initiation rituals include drinking raw and fresh goat blood. The Mungiki! OPERATIONS STRATEGY: THE ORGANISATION The Mungiki has multiple coordinating units at provincial, district and village levels that are overseen by the National Coordinating Committee (NCT). Each unit comprises 50 members who operate in platoons of ten according to an internal hierarchy. The group has an armed faction under the Mungiki Defence Council (MDC) which has responsibility for carrying out retaliations against defecting members, such as revenge killings. The political wing of the group is the Kenya National Youth Alliance (KNYA), registered as a political party until it was unlisted by the government in 2007. Senior Mungiki leaders have reportedly attempted to take over other political parties, and have expressed aspirations to be elected as members of parliament in 2012. The current leader of the Mungiki is Maina Njenga, who succeeded Ndura Waruinge in the early 2000s, after Waruinge defected to join formal politics. secrecy What is known is that the sect operates in secrecy, taking unusual oaths and saying strange prayers in forests and rivers in central Kenya. Kikuyu oral literature portray gory images of their ritual scenes: Grown-up men with loincloths wrapped around them, standing bare foot in rivers, engaging in snuff sessions and bathing in blood mixed with urine and goat tripe. 39 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo oganisational leadership The Mungiki! Followers of the sect are bound by a traditional oath of secrecy, which the mainstream Christian churches have denounced as evil. The sect is known to operate in secrecy, a fact that is complicating efforts by the police to identify its members as the crackdown on them continues. headquarter state house Besides having secret hideouts in Nairobi, the sect has a farm in Laikipia District, where its "state house" is located. The sect's headquarters, the defectors said, are in Mukuru kwa Reuben slums in Nairobi where its secretary resides. It also has a farm in Laikipia district where "state house" is located. With the move to Nairobi came the development of a cell structure within the group. Each cell contains 50 members and each cell is then divided into 5 platoons. The sect's leader takes the cell, which is made up of over 50 members, as his paramilitary unit. The sect has cells in Riverside in the city centre, Mwiki, Kayole, Lunga Lunga, Kawangware, Githurai Kimbo, Juja, Rongai and Mukuru kwa Reuben, among other places. It also has hideouts in Mombasa, Murang'a, Nakuru, Nyeri and Laikipia, plus a poultry farm in Kitengela. The cell in Riverside, referred to as Bargation, a source said, is the most dangerous for Bargation means there is no bargain over death. 40 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo cell system The Mungiki! The group members divide themselves in platoons. Every platoon has 10 members and a leader. The platoon leader is given the responsibility of collecting money from the bus terminus they control and coordinating other members activities including crime. identity Followers of Kenya's outlawed Mungiki sect were once known for tobacco sniffing, trademark dreadlocks and praying while facing Mount Kenya. But the sect, which was banned in 2002, has undergone a metamorphosis since it first emerged in the 1980s. The members normally have long dreadlocked hair -- associated with the Mau Mau movement which fought for independence from Britain in 1950s -- but police have insisted it is difficult to identify and arrest them. But little is known about Mungiki numbers. The movement's national co-ordinator, Ibrahim Ndura Waruingi, once noted that it had four million followers and its principal aim was to "spearhead African socialism". In the register, details of concoctions to be taken as an oath during the 'bagation' graduation are clearly indicated. Many members state that at the height of its influence. This includes even members of police force, members of parliament and influential former politicians, former members of army and other security agencies and influential businessmen. 41 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo register of members The Mungiki! Its leaders claim they have more than four million members, mostly comprising jobless youth on the streets of the capital. The sect claims to have more than four million members. Its followers reject Christianity as a foreign, imposed religion and claim it is against their forefathers' beliefs. Mr. Wariunge claims that the sect, whose male members identify themselves with dreadlocks, has recruited hundreds of ex-police and military personnel. Police are also going over a register recovered from arrested Mungiki people on which there are more than 5,000 names of people believed to have enlisted with the sect. platoons Mungiki operations are organized into platoons. Mungiki's Platoon One - Bagation Number 10 operates in Korogocho, Mathare, Kayole and Dandora. The platoon in Dandora is also backed by a Number 3, which is in charge of Githunguri, and Kiamaiko. In Buruburu, Machakos town and Mlango Kubwa in Eastleigh, it is Bagation Number 8 that carries out the killing duties. It is important to note that these platoons are also available for hire to kill for business deals gone bad political quarrels, and such other private non-mungiki engagements. They are in essence, 42 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In one police raid, a part of national register was retrieved, which the police used to net thousands of members. Also in the register were photo copies of national identity cards, which has led police to believe that enlistees are required to surrender the copies to the leaders of the sect upon recruitment. The Mungiki! private assassination squads on hire; mercenaries. And the cost runs from Kshs. 200,000 (USD $2500) to take out an enemy. certificates Upon recruitment, the new members are given certificates. On the arrest of Mr. Waruinge, the police took away the life membership certificate, 30 photographs of his followers, documents related to the organisation, its bank account and insurance. The Mungiki have underground cells which are used for a variety of actions and activities, including top secret oathings of senior politicians, armed force personnel, and security officers. It is also in these cells that concoctions are made for the swearing in ceremonies, and that torture chambers are located. These torture cells are reminiscent of the former president Moi Era s torture chambers in the former Nyati House, where political dissidents were shown the light . Although some Mungiki members defected and managed to escape the wrath of the sect, the others who did not heed the amnesty of the sect to come back were hunted and tortured before being beheaded and skinned. These cells offer the best place to torture defectors. Indeed, the latest victims of the sect members were abducted and tortured before being hacked to death and their bodies dismembered. 43 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo under ground torture cells The Mungiki! TRAINING ASSASSINS AND KILLERS: THE BAGATION SQUAD! There is a killer Mungiki unit and it is among the highest organs in the hierarchy of the outlawed sect. Those who graduate into the squad are known in the Mungiki fraternity as members of the 'bagation' squad. The word bagation, police sources reveal, is a corruption or contraction of the words "no bargain over death." At least 500 strong young people have graduated into the death squad in Nairobi since January. They are hten given guns, and defectors said that members' guns number 300 Dandora estate alone. It is puzzling, and the police have expressed bewilderement that the 'graduands' would be required to pay that money to be initiated into the business of killing people. It is members of the 'bagation' unit who have been used by Mungiki to murder or execute their adversaries in the country. When ordered by their leaders to kill so and so, they do it because of the oath taken during graduation. 44 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The young people, in their teens and early 20s, paid a sum of between Sh1,200 and Sh1,800 before they could pass out as members of the 'bagation' unit. The Mungiki! They said police were holding some sect members who were found taking the 'bagation' oath at a slum behind Riverside Hotel in Nairobi's River Road area. 45 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Police also confiscated several 'certificates' that were to be issued to the 'graduands' after the oath. The Mungiki! FUNDRAISING & HOW THE LEADERS GET RICH! The Mungiki leader, Chairman Maina, once stated that the sect's bank account had more than Sh800 million from their members who he boasted he had recruited from tens of thousands of youth, and further thousands of members from the police and military. Among the sect's fund raising techniques are extorting from matatu drivers, controlling bus terminus, violent crime and contribution from rich members. Also in that conspiracy of fear are many landlords who quietly pay protection fees to Mungiki operatives. Among the matatu routes the group exercised control over before the transport reforms are Kayole route 1960/1961, Dandora-32/42, Huruma-46 and Kariobangi - 14, 28, 40. It also controlled other routes outside Nairobi. At the height of its blood-soaked reign, the sect members have been taking Sh200 from drivers violently. The members intimidate the drivers by showing them guns. 46 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo They also demand money from households in certain estates in order to "maintain security" in the estates. In Mathare slums, an area the group refers to as Kosovo , the group changed its name to "Wazalendo" and are acting as security agents, collecting money from residents. In Mathare, Mlango Kubwa and St. Teresa's estate in Eastleigh, the sect members demanded Sh50 a month from every household to maintain security. The Mungiki! However, some of the drivers are still members of the sect and therefore give willingly. They have been making electric connections from power lines to some houses and charging monthly fee of between Sh100-300 a month to the residents. The money collected by the members from different sources, the sect defectors said, is distributed four ways - members salaries, contribution to the sect chairman, to buy weapons for members, including guns for senior members and finally a share goes to bribe the government's security system particularly the police collaborators. 47 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Besides, all members are required to pay one shilling everyday to the sect's National leader. The Sh30 is delivered to the leader every month. The Mungiki! MUNGIKI IDEOLOGY The Mungiki has been variously described as a cult, a street gang, a political force, a criminal organisation, and ―a secretive, quasi-religious, part gang, part mafia-like group that engages in criminal activity and violent intimidation. Mungiki as a religious movement clothed with diverse aspirations ranging from political to religio-cultural and socio-economic liberation. traditionalism They claim that is what their movement must bring back, even as they sip beer. Accordingly, the Mungiki is about empowering people, making people have morals, and so many other things. Mungiki followers in Nairobi tried to burn down Nairobi's Freemasons Hall, which they claimed was being used for devil worship. They have hence christened themselves as morality policy. They have been whipping and stripping at public places, notably slum areas, people whom they found wearing trousers. They waved the women's trousers in triumph. The Mungiki shares common ideologies with the Mau Mau colonial resistance movement, whose members were known for their long dreadlocks, secret oaths, and guerrilla-style attacks on the 48 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The ideology of the group is characterised by revolutionary rhetoric, Kikuyu traditions, and a disdain for Kenyan modernization, which is seen as immoral corruption. Mungiki is often referred to as Kenya s Cosa Nostra, Yakuza, or Mafia due to its organization. The Mungiki! British. In addition, the Mungiki have espoused anti-imperialist and anti-Western views, criticised Christianity, and advocated traditional African, and particularly Kikuyu, beliefs and practices. However, the group has in recent years become more flexible regarding religion, and some Mungiki leaders have converted to Islam and Christianity. violence The Mungiki violence is wrapped in the ideology of the dispossessed and a warped tribal identity. The sect brainwashes members to participate in unlawful acts. Pamphlets urging young people to "Arise! Arise!" have been circulating in the capital. violated" The violence also stems from a feeling among the Mungiki that they have been betrayed by senior civil servants, politicians, security officials and ex-members of parliament who once backed them. redistributory justice! They say that in this country, there is not fair distribution of wealth. They state that there is a gap, and they want to bridge that gap. To work through the system is impossible. "What do you do when you find 10 friends in your house asking for help?" one Buili, a leader said, referring to the young men who come to his Nairobi home seeking jobs. "Then you have 20, 49 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo They direct violence to people who Mungiki rules. The Mungiki! then you have 50? Do you tell them to walk away?" According to the leaders, the Mungiki sought to push back the sources of inequality in Kenya. Buili, whose father was a Mau Mau fighter before becoming a relatively well-off businessman, offered the young men Mungiki ideology: a blend of revolutionary rhetoric and Kikuyu traditions that Buili believes are fading in a modern society he calls "useless." Mungiki National Co-ordinator, Mr. Ibrahim Ndura Waruinge announced his organisation's new year master plan to fight for the downtrodden. He said Mungiki now has a wider plan to resettle the landless and displaced people especially those in the Rift Valley following the 1992 tribal clashes, establish businesses like hawking in major towns and spearhead civic education seminars ahead of the next year's general election. )n the teeming slums of Kenya s cities and in rural squatter settlements, Mungiki grew by providing casual jobs, protection, housing and other social services. The Mungiki called for a generational change in Kenya to pave way for youthful leadership. According to Mungiki, Kenya s current leaders are remnants of, colonial home-guards. 50 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo leadership change The Mungiki! MUNGIKI POLITICAL WING The Mungiki sect has over the years metamorphosed from a religious-cultural movement into a massive political set-up with a wide and secretive following across the country. The Political wing of the Mungiki is called the Kenya National Youth Alliance. Its leadership claims to have two million members around the country and to have infiltrated government offices, factories, schools and the armed forces members who would not necessarily sport dreadlocks but support and finance the sect behind the scenes. Indeed, over and beyond their claims of religious and social movement organisation, the Mungiki is a politically motivated gang of youths. The religious bit is just a camouflage. It's more like an army unit. During the previous regime, they seemed to be complementary to the government. But now they seem to be antagonistic. One theory has it that Mungiki was formed in 1988 with the aim of toppling the government of former President Daniel arap Moi. The sect was, at one time, associated with Mwakenya, an underground movement formed in 1979 to challenge the former Kanu regime. 51 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Ndura Waruinge, Mungiki s leader in , was first and foremost a radical political activist, and that today, Mungiki is a highly politicised movement utilising violent, criminal and intimidating means to achieve its goals. The Mungiki! Ibrahim Ndura Waruinge, one of the leaders, and opposition member of parliament David Mwenje had been detained along with 29 others in connection with the violence on Sunday and Monday in the slum district of Kariobangi North slum, Nairobi police chief Geoffrey Muathe said. On their arrest, the police said that they had picked (up) the national co-ordinator of the Mungiki...for interrogation. He did not elaborate on the reason for Mwenje's arrest, saying only he was helping police with inquiries. The politician belongs to the opposition Democratic Party. It is supported mainly by Kikuyus, Kenya's largest tribe, which also provides much of the membership of the Mungiki sect. it was clear then, in the s, as it is now, in new millennium, that Mungiki looks like an illegal political movement, and operates like a political movement, with membership of politicians. It indeed must be political. Indeed, in 2006, they claimed to have raised Sh800 million and planned to collect Sh3.5 billion to finance their candidate in the 2007 general election. It also noteworthy that on the arrest of Mr. Waruinge, the police took away the life membership certificate, 30 photographs of his followers, documents related to the organisation, its bank account and insurance, 52 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo It was the Kenyan capital's worst bloodshed in years and some commentators have associated it with tensions between two of the country's biggest tribes that could prove particularly troubling ahead of a general election in December. The Mungiki! Mungiki leaders said they will disrupt future Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association (Gema) meetings if all stakeholders in the country are not involved. The Mungiki leaders said the Central Kenya MPs have failed to include all stakeholders in the province, adding that their sect has a larger following in the area than any other group. They were reacting to the Gema Members of Parliament's five-hour meeting held last Thursday at a Naivasha hotel. The Mungiki leaders, led by the sect's national selfproclaimed chairman, Mr. Maina Njenga (real name John Kamunya), said the youth were not involved in the meeting and urged them to ignore the Gema MPs. Njenga had warned that Mungiki would lobby for a youthful candidate whom they are yet to name come the 2002 General Election. 53 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo and a booklet on the Goldenberg International, which is owned by tycoon Paul (Kamlesh) Pattni.Pattni was known to be embroiled in various political-business dealings with Moi government. The Mungiki! part 1: the terrorists 54 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki: A league of extortionists, beheaders, murderers and assassins! The Mungiki! STREET GANG Mungiki operates primarily in the Nairobi slums, in the Central Province and in the Rift Valley. Although Mungiki offers poor residents in slum areas protection and social services, extortion and violence tend to constitute their mode of operation. Gross human rights violations perpetrated against civilians, adversaries and defecting members are attributed to them. The Mungiki s strongholds included ―Dadora, Mathare, Thika, Mlango Kubwa, and Jithurai in Nairobi; the Central province; and finally certain parts of Rift Valley, most notably Nyahururu, Nakuru, Laikipia, some parts of Eldoret and Naivasha. The areas most affected by Mungiki activities in Central Province are the districts of: Thika, Kiambu, Murang a South, Nyandarua, and Murang a North. Mungiki operations in slums essentially constituting a "street gang" or a criminal network that contributes to, and feeds off of, an 55 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki operates most extensively in Mathare, Nairobi's second largest slum, where poverty and crime are pronounced, also in Kayole'Murang'a District and Ruai, Nairobi [waithaka, dagoretti] the Mungiki seems to thrive in rural areas and overcrowded slums where the Kenya government does not quite reach. However, due to their connections with the matatu (minibus) industry, the Mungiki are believed to have a presence and information network across the regions of Nairobi, central and rift valley province. The Mungiki! environment plagued by a state of perpetual security crisis. Every resident of the slum pays a variable sum of money to the organization, in exchange for protection against theft and property damage. In addition, the gang "mans" public toilets, and charges a fee for use of the facilities. Such acts of extortion, along with the general lack of effective local law enforcement, have generally enraged residents of Mathare. They control public transport routes and demand illegal levies from operators. Mungiki followers reign supreme within city slums, notably Mathare in the east of the capital. Here they provide illegal water and electricity connections to hundreds of makeshift shacks. In episode after episode, many of which were documented by Kenyan reporters, innocent people were beheaded, skinned, raped, murdered and tortured by members of a secretive outlawed sect called Mungiki. In response the Kenyan police and domestic security services began to jail thousands of young men. Human rights organisations began calling attention to the apparent "disappearances" of several of them. The "Mungiki threat" became a national, if not an international, obsession. 56 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Residents of the slums also have to pay a levy to the sect to be able to access communal toilets and for security during the night in the crime infested slums. The Mungiki! Fears about the Mungiki seem well founded. In an interview with Newsweek last summer, Hezekiah Ndura Waruinge, co-founder and former national coordinator of the sect - it's name means multitude in Kikuyu - said the sect had changed drastically from its original conception as freedom fighters modeled on the Mau Mau rebels who fought for independence from Kenya's British colonizers. "Mungiki no longer exists," warned Waruinge, adding that the new gangs are dangerous because "there is no more central control. There is no leadership to negotiate with, just a bunch of rogue groups taking money from the highest bidder." While much of the Mungiki's ritual and 57 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Like other gangs, the Mungiki fights other gangs. Chest thumping and devoid of fear, Mungiki youths have been noted saying that the sect is "here to stay." "Some people in the current Government thought they could finish us," said the youth, "but they soon realised Mungiki was a force to reckon with." "There are no farms in Nairobi to dig," but the Mungiki youths who are sent to collect the money reason that their families "must eat and dress just like other Kenyans". That is why they have had to organise themselves as the only powerful cartel in the transport sector by fighting off any other existing groups such as Kamjesh. In Eastleigh, the battle to control and wrestle the route from the Kamjesh gang was violent and brutal. The Mungiki! history is shrouded in secrecy, their attacks have tended to follow distinct patterns. Prior to attacking they make a bonfire and roll their pantlegs up to alert fellow members in the area. They believe that women should be circumcised - and sometimes force the procedure on them. In other cases Mungiki behead and circumcise their victims, usually scattering body parts in different public locations. No outsiders know what all their initiation rituals are for certain, but some are said to involve drinking or bathing in blood. Many others, seen filling up the backs of old pickup trucks and steering their belongings on wooden carts, are following suit, heading toward the displacement camps that are growing in number outside churches, police stations, and military bases. Hustling out toward a safer haven on Sunday afternoon, Louis Etiyang sported thick bandages on his head and machete gashes on his arms. On Dec. 30 he was walking alone through a Kikuyu area when someone shouted "Luo!" and a group attacked him. "If a KTN (Kenyan Television Network) truck had not passed, I'm dead." 58 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo With postelection Kenya becoming increasingly volatile, many residents fear a brutal boost to Mungiki power. Many Luo slum residents, like 29-year-old Rachel - who was afraid to give her surname - was planning to flee Mathare. "We don't even talk in our own language because of Mungiki," Rachel says. "We can't sleep here, so we are staying with a relative in a Taliban area." The Mungiki! The conflict has pitted tribes, voting blocs and even best friends against one another. The majority Kikuyu and the Kamba tribes are together. Kenya's third- and fourth-largest tribes, the Kalenjin and the Luo, as well as a hodgepodge of many of the country's 40-odd tribes, have also forged an alliance. "Everything is different now. It's all tribes and partisans," said Rogers Wanyonyii, a 35-year-old teller at a currency exchange bureau who was hovering near a group of Luo men clutching makeshift weapons outside a barricaded restaurant in Taliban stronghold Area 4-A. "What I see isn't Kenya; it's like war." Given the tensions between the Taliban and the Mungiki, that war isn't likely to end anytime soon. And in their operations, even the police stated that some police officers of collaborating with the sect members. 59 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo As a gang, they also engage in armed robberies. When police raided the hideouts of one of the people who had participated in the Kayole incident, they discovered firearms, electronic goods, police uniforms and thousands of litres of traditional brews. The Mungiki! THE MAFIA: EXTORTIONISTS Countless Kenyan lives being ripped apart and there are plenty of people ready to exploit the fear and instability. The Mungiki demand money protection money in city estates; and people living in areas controlled by the Mungiki pay a mandatory Kshs. 30, per month. They also end up hooking homes to power, and water, and charge for these services as well. They further extort money from the public by manning public washrooms in various parts of the city, Nairobi, where household plumbing is unknown. Any public transport vehicle that uses Juja Road must pay between Sh50 to Sh100. Mostly matatus from Dandora, and Kariobangi (route 60 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Since its formation in the late 1980's, Mungiki — which means multitude in Kikuyu — has drawn its resources from extortion and operated openly. At this point it has no apparent ethical meaning, says nothing about the quality of my personality and does not guarantee these. It could be applied equally to the Italian Mafia as a very particular form of collectivity with a strong sense of kinship and group consciousness based on norms of participation, co-operation, sharing, respect and loyalty, where vendetta could be seen as a form of reciprocity in kind and omerta as a form of group solidarity. In recent years they have been battling with public transport operators who refuse to pay them protection fees. The Mungiki! Nos.14, 42 and 46) which occasionally divert to Juja Road also have to pay for it. Failure to remit the money is done at the matatu owners risk. In Eastleigh alone, it is believed there is an excess of 200 matatus operating daily on the route, together with about 100 others from Kariobangi and Dandora that also use the road. In one day the cartel collects at least Sh50,000 not for doing any work, but for trouble they unleash on those who fail to please them or their business. Some have to pay 10,000 shillings ($180) - more than a month's wages for many - to get protection. Mungiki extortion rings target garbage collectors and Matatus, the armada of battered mini-buses that ply Nairobi streets, police say. The cult burns down shacks of shopkeepers who refuse to pay protection "fees." Mungiki followers have been demanding protection fees from public transport operators, slum dwellers and other businessmen in and around Nairobi. Those who refuse are often brutally murdered. 61 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The gang operates like a mafia, recruiting from the slums youngsters with absent fathers, bringing them into what is billed as a family. Elders govern the group, meting out punishments and privileges. Recruits work their way up through the ranks, from fighter to spy to manager. According to current members, the Mungiki pay recruits' hospital bills and some housing costs. The Mungiki! The Mungiki runs an extensive extortion operation and is reported to have connections high up in Kenya politics. They are said to have been revenge attacks on people who had leaked information about their activities to the police. The Mungiki gang, which recruits young, unemployed members of the Kikuyu tribe, runs petty extortion rackets, shaking down bus drivers and landlords for a cut of fares or protection money, according to drivers and current and former Mungiki members. The Mungiki operate within the country's system of Matatus -- the ubiquitous, rattletrap minibuses most Kenyans use for daily transportation. Mungiki agents collect a daily tax from Matatu drivers, from $1.50 to $4.50, depending on the size of the bus, according to Matatu drivers and gang members. Njoroge Kamunya, who is in his mid forties, was arrested on Tuesday at his home in Ongata Rongai, 20 kilometers outside the capital, by ten officers from a special squad formed to combat the gang, known as the 'Mungiki'. Kamunya's cousin, who asked for anonymity for fear of police reprisals, said Kamunya was arrested in the presence of his wife and four children. 62 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki retaliates against holdouts to the extortion, and competitors, with beatings or beheadings by machete, the group's signature execution method. Current and former members don't deny the allegations. The Mungiki! When Mr. Kibaki was elected in 2002, he stepped up pressure on the group. The most aggressive push came last year. According to a report by the independent Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, violent crime linked to the Mungiki declined significantly, coinciding with the crackdown. Mungiki elders from around the country gathered in January at a farm outside Nairobi, according to Njihia, a Mungiki member. A Mungiki elder said in an interview he attended the meeting. At the meeting, the Mungiki decided to take revenge on the Luo tribe, which was responsible for much of the violence against the Mungiki's ethnic group, the Kikuyu. Naivasha and Nakuru, two nearby towns with sizable Luo populations, were chosen as targets. According to Njihia, who said he helped arrange transportation for the mission, fighters were bused in small groups to the towns and unleashed. Some were Mungiki, and some were young men recruited with cash. The account by the two Mungiki members corresponds with a March report published by the independent watchdog group Human Rights Watch about the violence in Naivasha and Nakuru. The report broadly blamed groups of 63 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The commission also uncovered evidence of violence that it attributed to security forces. The bodies of about 450 young Kikuyu men were found in the space of five months last year, dumped at mortuaries or left in the bush. Mr. Kiraithe, the police spokesman, dismissed the report's suggestion the police were behind the killings. The Mungiki! young Kikuyu men, but didn't specify whether they were Mungiki. Luos in Nakuru were hacked to death, and some men were forcibly circumcised and left bleeding. (Young Kikuyu boys are traditionally circumcised; Luos aren't.) The Mungiki control all Dandora matatu routes that comprise number 32, 42 and 45. In so doing, they have paralyzed public transport system. The police have been searching for Waruinge, who has publicly declared that the Mungiki, an unregistered movement, would paralyze the transport system within the city should police interfere with their bid to take over the manning of all matatu termini. The Mungiki have so far taken over the management of several routes around the city including Dandora, Baba Dogo, Kayole, Kikuyu, Wangige, Kariobangi and Waithaka. One of their leaders, Waruinge, during a broadcast press conference warned police against interfering with Mungiki operations in the matatu termini. Waruinge had earlier yesterday morning allowed matatu manyangas (minibuses) to start operating in Kayole after a twoday "ban" before his arrest. 64 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In Naivasha, a group of 19 people, including women and children, were burned alive in a home where they were hiding. After several days of violence, 202 people had been killed, according to the Human Rights Watch report. "We choose people randomly because it inspires fear," Njihia said. The Mungiki! VANDALS Mungiki left a trail of destruction in their wake, smashing window panes, doors and motor vehicle windscreens. They stormed bars and other business premises. 65 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki leaders denied the sect participated in the orgy of violence and promised a detailed statement after consultations. The Mungiki! FEMALE CIRCUMCISION The Mungiki sect urges people to return to traditional lifestyles. The sect was banned because it advocates the practice of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation. In 1999, 15 female teachers at Kiandutu Primary School in Thika failed to report to school after Mungiki members threatened to circumcise them. The threat came through a letter addressed to the headmaster. "Threats by Mungiki adherents to circumcise all Kikuyu women aged between 14 and 45 years, and their commitment to de-Christianise the country could trigger public outrage that may end up fanning tribal and religious animosity," he said. An unsigned leaflet, which the PPO availed to the Press, said the sect members will invade churches, schools and even homes to conduct the "cleansing ceremonies". According to the statement, the sect members threatened to circumcise all the Kikuyu women in Kiambu aged between 18 and 40 years of age. The group alleged that they were sent by God in a dream, to 'cleanse' the Kikuyu community from the social evils that had invaded the community. 66 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo He said police have intercepted leaflets which are being circulated in the district, where the sect members have threatened to invade girls' schools and circumcise the female students on July 7. The Mungiki! They attributed the rise HIV/Aids pandemic to women who are not circumcised, saying they are more vulnerable to the disease. They further threatened to launch tougher campaign against those who are against the activity saying they were a disgrace to the society. They threatened to start with Hon Beth Mugo, Martha Karua and one of the Constitution of Kenya Review commissioners, Dr Wanjiku Kabira. "They are not mature hence they need to set a good example to the fellow women by being circumcised," the statement read in part. He said the sect members had sent leaflets to many schools in the district and lamented the activities of the sect in the province. The sect members have given women in parts of Kikuyu and Kiambaa divisions until July 7, commonly known as Sabasaba, to undergo the Kikuyu customary exercise failure to which they will perform it by force. In a one page leaflet circulating in the two divisions and authored by unnamed sect members, they have vowed that the exercise must go on to mark Sabasaba celebrations. 67 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Chesereck said police officers have been sent to various girls schools in the district to beef up the security adding that they have been instructed to deal ruthlessly with any sect members they came across. The Mungiki! The leaflets said that the operations will start at PCEA dominated areas of Mai-a-ihii, Gikambura, Kanyethi and Kangemi. Those are the areas on which Christian missionaries from Scotland settled when they arrived in Kenya in mid 1850s. The Mungiki are just like another government. But they are more feared. Indeed, amongst the government security forces, the Mungiki can be likened to the Kanga Squad, which went around killing executing the same Mungiki extra judicially, without court process. The kanga squad took over from the rhinos quad, which had been formed with the purpose of ending the Mungiki menace, but which was disbanded in 2005 after failing, and allegations of corruption, collusion, and extortion. The sect promotes female circumcision and oathtaking and was outlawed in 2002. In a giant Nairobi slum called Mathare, the Kenyan police are battling a mysterious society called the Mungiki. More than 50 people have died. 68 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The gang's laws require all women in the Mungikis' community to be circumcised, even if they aren't members themselves. Michael agreed to the procedure for his wife. But he said he abandoned the group when he was ordered to have the procedure performed on his mother. The Mungiki! They even threaten government officials. A female district commissioner of Nairobi, one Bikundo, confessed to the threats and had not one, but two pistols, and armed guards whenever she goes. The Mungiki mystery is sweeping across Kenya, taking a lot of lives with it. In a month, more than 50 people have been killed in a crime spree and brutal police crackdown related to the shadowy outfit. The Mungiki came from the Kikuyu highlands north of Nairobi that carpeted green, straight-off-apostcard Out of Africa side of Kenya. According to Hezekiah Ndura Waruinge, one of the Mungiki s founders, the group began as a local defense squad during land clashes in the late 1980s between forces loyal to the government, which was dominated by the Kalenjin tribe, and farmers who were Kikuyu, a rival tribe. The Mungiki, whose name means multitude in the Kikuyu language, modeled themselves after the Mau Mau, Kenya s independence fighters who sprouted dreadlocks, took secret oaths and waged a hit-and-run guerrilla war against British colonizers. 69 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki Menace, as local papers call it, plays into many of Kenya s sore spots: tribal frictions, political shenanigans, poverty and crime. The flash point is Mathare, a giant slum and mountain of rust near downtown Nairobi, the capital, where 500,000 people fill a warren of corrugated metal shanties. The Mungiki! By the late 1990s, the Mungiki went urban, Mr. Waruinge explained, taking over the city s minibus trade. Then they diversified into garbage collection, building materials and eventually the protection racket. )t was beautiful, Mr. Waruinge said. We had 500,000 members and millions of shillings coming in every day. But then the Mungiki made a mistake and dabbled in politics, supporting losing candidates in the elections of 2002 and falling on the wrong side of the government. But when the Mungiki tried to raise taxes on bootleggers who brew a toxic form of homemade alcohol, called changaa, on the banks of the smelly Mathare River. The bootleggers armed a rival gang called the Taliban (no Muslim, Afhganistan, or terrorist connection — the gang members just thought the name sounded cool) and the fighting between the sides killed more than a dozen people and drove thousands away. The causes of these fights included the refusal by Taliban members to pay protection fees to Mungiki, and the Taliban instruction to Luo and Luhya women brewing illegal brew, chang aa, to pay taxes to the Mungiki. Chang aa is made of fermented 70 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki leaders were rounded up and charged with inciting violence. The Mungiki went underground, though they continued to levy protection taxes, electricity taxes and water taxes. They even gave receipts. The Mungiki! cornmeal, or millet and sorghum and molasses, and is quote potent. Sometimes, to enhance potency, the brewers add ethanol, and even formalin, for preservation of dead bodies, has been used. In May, the Mungiki were suspected of beheading four defectors. Then the two officers were ambushed. The police responded by storming Mathare with machine guns and tear gas. More than 30 people were killed and hundreds arrested. 71 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Before the smoke cleared, accusations began to fly. Opposition members blamed the government for letting the Mungiki Menace spin out of control. Government ministers threatened to arrest opposition leaders, including a presidential candidate. The Mungiki seem dormant now on Mathare s dirt boulevards. But several residents said that was not necessarily a good thing. Apparently, the muggings are back. The Mungiki! MURDERERS: ANGELS OF DEATH! assassins for hire They also use assassination as a business tool. Life is cheap to the Mungiki gang, Kenya's answer to the Mafia. Kenyatta and Muthaura are accused of providing funding, uniforms and weapons to Mungiki and pro-PNU youth to carry out their attacks. Muthaura, as chairman of the National Security Committee, and Ali as commissioner of police are accused of instructing the Kenya Police not to intervene in the attacks. The prosecutor claims that in preparation for the post-election violence a meeting took place at the State House in Nairobi on 26 November 2007 between Muthaura, Kenyatta, Mungiki representatives and President Kibaki. During this meeting it is alleged by the anonymous "Witness 4", one of the Mungiki representatives present at the meeting that Francis Muthaura gave money to the Mungiki representatives. 72 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In the trial by ICC, the prosecutor alleges that Muthaura, Ali, Kenyatta and the leadership of the outlawed Mungiki sect "agreed to pursue an organizational policy to keep the PNU in power through every means necessary, including by orchestrating a police failure to prevent the commission of crimes". He claims that prior to the election Uhuru Kenyatta was the mediator between the PNU and the Mungiki and organised a series of meetings from November 2007 involving Muthaura, other government officials, businessmen and Mungiki leaders. The Mungiki! At a second meeting, held on 30 December Kenyatta is accused of giving some MPs and Mungiki coordinators 3.3 million Kenyan shillings each (approximately $35,000) with which to buy guns to attack Nakuru. In late January 2008, before the crimes in Naivasha, the Mungiki leader Maina Njenga was allegedly given 20 million shillings and that in return for that money and other concessions Njenga placed the Mungiki at the disposal of Muthaura and Kenyatta. deathly, stealthy raids They slashed many people within a very short time after stealthily sneaking into the area. Police officers cannot fire at them because the area is normally crowded and innocent people could have been injured or killed. More than 50 people died in 2002 in clashes involving the sect and owners of Matatu in Nairobi alone. In 2002 the sect was banned and in February 2003, the sect was in the news following two days of clashes with Nairobi police which left at least two officers dead and 74 sect members in police custody. In June 2007, the Mungiki embarked upon a murderous campaign to instill fear by beheading Matatu 73 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki attack in night raids, raining horror and terror to slums. The orgy and bloodbath in which people were indiscriminately hacked to their deaths in bars, streets and seven their houses, left residents dazed and in shock. The lightning raid by Mungiki appeared to have caught police flat-footed despite the fact that a revenge raid was expected. The Mungiki! drivers, conductors, and Mungiki defectors, and those who refuse their recruitment, drawing an armed response from Kenyan security forces, who stormed the Mathare area. Some 100 people died in the operation. Mungiki has also been linked to the murder of a family in the USA in which Mr.s Jane Kurua, 47 and her two daughters were killed; the case is still under investigation by the FBI. On 12 July 2007 Kenyan authorities reported that Mungiki decapitated and mutilated the body of a twoyear-old boy, possibly as part of a ritual. Their deaths are marked with horrors. The Mungiki hack, main and behead. They come in droves, and attack in a cavalry, and leave a wave of silence. Some they throw in to the filthy Nairobi River by police and others they deposit near police stations, to send a message. They use both guns, as well as rudimentary weapons as pangas and machetes, to inflict deep panga cuts on the head and a stab wound through the ribs. The Mungiki is a murderous organisation that traces its origins to the Mau Mau rebellion 74 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Mungiki members participated in targeted violence against ethnic Luos around the time of the disputed December 2007 presidential elections. This has been confirmed by the ICC hearings which admitted evidence to the effect that a meeting at state house was organized to plan how the Mungiki would be facilitated to go to Nakuru and target Luos, and kill them. The Mungiki! against British colonial rule in the 1950s and '60s. They have been carried out some downright ugly acts: chopping off legs, skinning heads and guzzling jerrycans of human blood. They run an extortion empire and hacking up victims as a scare tactic. And by flaying and decapitating the bodies of enemies — and drinking their blood — the sect deploys its occult reputation to terrorize opponents. It gained prominence in the 1980s when it coalesced around attempts to protect land belonging to Kikuyu farmers in the Kenyan highlands north of Nairobi. It has since spread its tentacles into many other areas of Kenyan life and it turned criminal. Virtually every Matatu operating in Central Province in Kenya has had to pay a "levy" of a few hundred Kenyan shillings (less than $10) a day to operate. Mungiki mobs surfaced during Kenya's troubled election in December 2007. More than 1,500 people were killed in an orgy of violence which followed the disputed result. A series of bloody executions and beheadings, striking at the heart of the country's political establishment in the run-up to national elections in December, has been masterminded by the Mungiki leadership. The government outlawed the sect in 2002 after its members beheaded 21 75 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo It has raised a lot of money by extorting money from Kenya's ubiquitous Matatu buses. The Mungiki! people in a Nairobi slum following a turf war with a rival group called the Taliban, which drew its members from the Luo community. In a renewed bizarre orgy of murders, Mungiki adherents struck yet again in Kiambu and Murang'a districts on Sunday night, May 22, 2007, and beheaded four people among them a 70-year-old man. And in a clear indication that the sect members have a message to for the Provincial Administration, all the four chopped heads were found dumped near chiefs' camps in the two areas. In the Kiambu incident, a middle aged man Solomon Karinge Njenga's torso–a former Matatu tout– was found yesterday morning badly mutilated and whose limbs and private parts had been severed from the body and disposed in a napier grass thicket a few kilometres from Banana town and the head dumped just a few metres from Karuri chief's camp. According to his brother Michael Karanja, the deceased left the house at around 6 pm to deliver milk but never came back. When he tried calling him on his mobile in the morning he 76 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo This renewed wave of violence came barely 12 hours after Internal Security Minister, John Michuki while in Kangema on Saturday, declared total war on the sect's adherents saying "they will be phased out of the Kenyan Map unless they reverted to the rule of law and order." The Mungiki! could not get through, only later to get the news that his brother's torso was on the wayside. In a widening scope of attack, the three victims in Murang'a were not touts but they all hail from the insecurity-riddled area of Kahithe where grisly murders were almost a daily occurrence. The victims were waylaid in separate incidents and beheaded on their way home at around 10 pm. And in a telephone interview, Michuki termed the two incidents as provocative to the security apparatus and railed at what he called "isolated cases of utter stupidity from a few outlaws engaging in pure cases of unprovoked murders targeting innocent people." He said those involved have drawn the battle lines "very clearly" and that their dead end is obvious once the law enforcement agents catches up with them. "Those few elements are living in misguided notion of make believe that they can win against the rule of law. Their end is certain since the police are after them. It is just a matter of time before they are caught," Michuki said. He said that by depositing the chopped heads near chiefs' camps it was an obvious "desperate act of 77 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo They were slaughtered in Kianjogu village of Kahuro division and had their mutilated heads abandoned just a few metres from the Murarandia chief's camp (one atop a tree, another in a chicken coop and the other in a bush with their torsos tossed in various locations within a radius of 50 metres. The Mungiki! intimidation" and that the official position was that this was a case of utter provocation which would be punished with the full force of the law." Michuki said "If it is intimidation they are after, they have failed since what the security agents have translated the move to mean is a pure case of provocation. It is important that those behind the murders realise the world over that no agency enjoys a monopoly of violence better than security instruments. We will prove that to them,". He consequently declared all Matatu termini as security zones and directed security agents to camp there to rout out touts and route managers whom he branded as "dangerous criminals." The incidents mark the third month since the Mungiki menace erupted in Kiambu district pitting matatu operators against sect members. At first, it was the matatu operators resisting payment of route fees ranging from Sh100 to 200 which in respond the sect members petrol bombed five commuter vehicles, three of them 78 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In may, 2007, there was a beheading of a 20-yearold matatu conductor David Njinu whose severed head was found dumped at Kiambu's main matatu terminus with his torso and private parts dumped in a thicket 500 metres away from his Ndumberi home compound. Reacting to the incident, Michuki declared total war on members of the outlawed sect. The Mungiki! while parked in the heart of the capital city's Accra Road. Earlier on, police had concentrated their operations in tracking down one of the most dangerously armed and violent robber of recent times Simon Matheri Ikere in Kiambu's Gachie village after cases of murders of business men became rampant in the area. Matheri was eventually gunned down in March. Later afterwards, in the free bloodletting that ensued in Kiambu, the matatu operators responded by killing two suspected sect followers and torched six houses. This month, the sect members seem to have concentrated on kidnapping and beheading the matatu crew though in this recent Murang'a incident it appears the scope is widening to even other occupations. Fighting erupted last month between the banned Mungiki sect and operators of private minibuses known locally as matatus, who accuse the sect of extortion and kidnapping. Over 10,000 Mungiki members were arrested since January 2007. The cult instils fear and respect by promoting archaic Kikuyu rituals like swearing tribal oaths. Last month, matatu operators burnt down seven houses in a Nairobi suburb owned by people believed to be Mungiki. 79 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In April, a policeman was killed on Tuesday in Nairobi by suspected members of an outlawed sect accused of killings and extortion. The Mungiki! These latest clashes and others in Kenya's Mount Elgon and Tana River regions have led to fears that insecurity will worsen as the country heads towards parliamentary and presidential elections, expected in December. In June, members Mungiki gang beheaded two more people on Saturday, local media said, a day after the president vowed to crack down on those behind a wave of violence in the volatile run-up to elections. On Friday, President Mwai Kibaki pledged to hunt down Mungiki members just hours after five earlier murders rocked central Kenya, including one in his own constituency. The gang was also blamed for the murders of six people found decapitated last month. "Even if you hide, we will find you and kill you," Kibaki said in a speech to mark the 44th anniversary of self-rule. First emerging in the 1990s, Mungiki, which means "multitude" in the local Kikuyu tribal language, uses prayers and archaic rituals to bond recruits. It was banned in 2002 after members wielding knives and clubs killed more than 20 people in a Nairobi slum. 80 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Police were not immediately available to comment on the attack, which took place after about 40 Mungiki members waylaid a minibus taxi in Murang'a district. The driver and conductor were decapitated and passengers locked in a nearby church before being robbed by the gang then released. The Mungiki! Many Kenyans believe corrupt politicians and police officers have been in league with the gang, particularly in helping set up its lucrative extortion rackets. Now the government has struck back. Seven members of the gang were shot dead by police after a fierce gun battle in the slums of Nairobi a week ago. Two of those killed were later revealed to have been schoolboys. The remains were discovered hours after police said they had killed 12 people in a crackdown on organised crime gangs in Nairobi, including members of Mungiki. Once a religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, Mungiki has morphed into a ruthless gang blamed for criminal activities including extortion and murder. The sect -- which was banned in 2002 -- has been blamed for the murders of at least 43 people, 13 81 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo In July, a two-year-old boy was beheaded and chopped up in a Kenyan capital slum today, police said, amid a fierce crackdown on an illegal sect blamed for a string of murders and decapitations. The boy's mutilated torso was discovered in a maize farm and his head 500 metres away at a river bank in capital's Nairobi's crime-prone Korogocho slums, police commander Paul Ruto said. The remains had no limbs, the chest was lacerated and the genitals chopped off, raising speculation that the body parts might be used in rites by the politicallylinked Mungiki sect. The Mungiki! of whom were beheaded, mostly in Nairobi slums and central Kenya. The group also has alleged historic ties to the Mau Mau independence uprising, and is said to perpetuate customs such as female excision. The police crackdown against it comes ahead of December general elections. So far, it has resulted in the deaths of at least 79 Mungiki members and more than 3,000 arrests nationwide. Police said 11 of the 12 suspects killed were linked to a foiled carjacking and robberies in three Nairobi suburbs. At least three of them were members of the Mungiki sect, they added. Founded in the countryside 20 years ago, the Mungiki which means 'a united people' initially operated as a paramilitary outfit offering 'protection' to local farmers. Its members impoverished young men drawn from the marginalised Kikuyu tribe - wore trademark shaggy dreadlocks, sniffed tobacco and espoused an anti-Western philosophy. Christianity and blue jeans were out, as was the Kenyan political elite - seen as toadies of the West. The Mau Mau rebels that had fought the British Empire were the role models and AK47s the must-have accessory. Traditional tribal customs, such as the circumcision of women, were encouraged. 82 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo But there are suspicions that these gun battles mask a sinister deal between the government, keen to retain power, and a faction of the gang helping them do so. The Mungiki! When the paramilitary cult moved to the slums of Nairobi a decade ago it mutated into a vicious criminal Mafia. The gang offered a range of services: burning down the shacks of shopkeepers and bar-owners who did not pay its 'taxes', extorting protection money from landlords; and charging slum-dwellers for electricity tapped from the national grid. A cell structure was developed, with each cell made up of 50 members divided into five platoons. All initiates had to swear a standard oath ending with the words "May I die if I desert or reveal our secrets." Inspired by al-Qaeda terror videos made in Iraq, beheading was added to the gang's arsenal of horrors. The dreadlocks have now mostly been shaved off and the Mungiki's leaders sport bald heads and pinstriped suits. One of them - Ndura Waruinge has even declared an interest in the parliamentary seat at present occupied by a leading contender for the presidency. But then, Mungiki does have something of a political pedigree. Former president Daniel Arap Moi, in the dying days of his 20-year rule, recruited its foot-soldiers to police political rallies, get out the vote and terrorise opponents. 83 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The criminal mob now numbers tens of thousands of foot-soldiers, whose willingness to murder and extort can earn them £75 a month - a small fortune in the overcrowded shanty towns of the capital. The Mungiki! More recently, it was revealed that at least 10 serving MPs swore allegiance. Njenga was released last month but later rearrested in connection with the killing of 29 people in Mathira. While arresting him, the police, through spokesman Eric Kiraithe said they had credible information that Njenga personally ordered the killings. He had been sentenced to a total of five years by a Nairobi magistrate on allegations of possessing an illegal firearm and trafficking in drugs. The killing of 29 people in Mathira, a town in Nyeri, Central Province, on 29 April 2009, has been referred to as the Mathira massacre in the media. According to the media and police, Mungiki was responsible for the killings, and Mungiki leader Njenga has reportedly been arrested for his involvement in the crime. The massacre is understood as a Mungiki response to the killing of 15 Mungiki adherents in the neighbouring district of Kirinyaga the preceding week. These killings have been attributed to vigilantes determined to end the terror, threats and extortions they and their local communities were subjected to by alleged Mungiki members. The victims at Mathira were killed by machetes and their houses burned down while the police completely failed to intervene, according to a credible international source. Njuguna Gitau, spokesman for Mungiki s political wing, blamed the murders […] in Nyeri on vigilante mobs backed by government figures. 84 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo the mathira massacre The Mungiki! 85 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki! POLITICAL THUGS FOR HIRE! The dynamics of the Mungiki sect were as compelling as they were appalling. Mungiki had deep and growing political influence. Its 1.5 million members were drawn from Kenya's largest and most powerful tribe, the Kikuyu, who controlled much of Kenya's economy. The sect was said to have as much pull with the police as it did with senior ministers. mungiki meeting at statehouse The report also recommends that people cited, including ministers, MPs and prominent businessmen should face a local judiciary or the International Criminal Court(ICC). mungiki and ministry of defense In early 2003, soon after Mwai Kibaki came into power, the government gave the military top brass three days to explain why 10 of their Land Rovers were given to the outlawed Mungiki sect. In the lead up to the General Election, then Chief of General Staff General Joseph Kibwana was asked to investigate the scandal in person and present his findings to the Office of the President. The report was to detail the value of the vehicles, who got them and why they were 86 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The commission set up to investigate the 2008 post-election violence reported that Mungiki members were suspected of perpetrating the violence. The Waki Report states that a meeting was held in Statehouse to coordinate the revenge on Luos and Kalenjins. The Mungiki! disposed of. Military sources at the time said that the orders were issued by National Security minister Chris Murungaru when he met General Kibwana and other top generals at the Department of Defence headquarters in Nairobi. The issue of Land Rovers cropped up when the minister made his first familiarisation tour of the DoD, a month after Narc came to power. Dr Murungaru, who as security minister was responsible for the military, reportedly expressed shock that a cartel of high-ranking officers could have been involved in subversive activities by diverting the Land Rovers to Mungiki, as detailed in an exclusive report on the scandal reported in the Daily Nation. Senior DoD officials involved in the cartel were said to have held secret talks shortly before Dr. Murungaru arrived to plan their next course of action. The report and its findings have never been made public. 87 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Department of Defence has since been converted into the Ministry of Defense. The Mungiki! mungiki and senior government officials/ politicians Maina Njenga had demanded state protection to give evidence against government officials allegedly involved in the sect's activities. mungiki and narc mungiki and kanu Because of the cult's extreme secrecy, little is known about its membership or hierarchy. However, it is known to have links to both the old KANU government and some MPs in the current government. When the then Interior Security Minister Chris Murungaru ordered a police crackdown on the sect, he accused the former ruling party Kanu of having nurtured and protected the sect during its reign. But Kanu, now in the opposition, deny the allegations, saying leaders of the sect claim 88 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Association of some MPs especially from the ruling party with Mungiki was an issue that has to be tackled urgently. Association of the sect members with MPs was a clear show that the sect was not a group that should be underestimated. People like Mheshimiwa Koigi Wamwere took photographs with the sect members. And Uhuru's baby steps in politics could determine his political demise as well, courtesy of his own trifling with the Mungiki (the ICC case at the Hague is largely premised on Uhuru's association and control over the group). The Mungiki! that some senior officials of the new government are members of the sect. As they say, no smoke rises absent fire. Mungiki is a politically motivated wing of a religious organisation. Since the late 1990s, the sect has left behind a trail of blood in its rejection of the trappings of Western culture. The Mungiki were known to have killed thousands in the 1992 clashes. The clashes were sparked by a dispute over the control of the private minibuses business in some parts of Nairobi; two weeks after 30 people were killed in similar clashes in the Rift Valley province. In the 2008 elections, the Kibaki government was accused of recruiting a banned militia group to target rival tribespeople in post-election violence that resulted in the deaths of more than 1500 people. Meetings were held at the official residence of President Mwai Kibaki between members of the notorious Mungiki sect and the Government. The aim was to hire the militia to protect Mr. Kibaki's Kikuyu community in the Rift Valley. At the time of the violence, there signs of state complicity. Shortly before the violence in Nakuru, police officers were ordered not to stop a convoy of minibus taxis, called "matatus", packed with men when they arrived at police checkpoints. 89 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo On Monday night, three police officers were killed while on patrol on foot in the Mathare slums. They were robbed of their AK-47 rifles. The Mungiki! The religious bit is just a camouflage. It's more like an army unit. During the old system, they seemed to be complimentary to the system. In the new government, they seem to be antagonistic. During the late 1990s, Kenya's president, Daniel arap Moi, allowed the Mungiki to move into Nairobi and run their rackets. Many believe the Mungiki became intertwined with government officials and politicians, who used the group for financial gain and muscle during elections. Buili said he is on a first-name basis with some of the highest-ranking officials in Kenya. "I have left Mungiki," Waruinge said in an interview. "Because I am rich." Others wonder whether during a contentious election year the Mungiki have become guns for hire and part of the elaborate machinations that define Kenyan politics. The running gun battles between police and the Mungiki may be a power struggle rather than a crime crackdown to the gangsters in the run-up to the last elections. Some Mungiki leaders have 90 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Eventually, some Mungiki leaders became rich. One, Ndura Waruinge, officially renounced the sect, converted to Islam, changed his name to Ibrahim, then converted to Christianity and changed his name to Hezekiah. Now he is running for a seat in parliament. The Mungiki! vowed to disrupt the poll. Analysts say that police hit squads are being deployed to support the rise to power of one particular faction within the Mungiki - a faction which will, in return, provide muscle to ensure Kibaki's victory at the polls. The deafening silence of many in Kibaki's party on the 'Mungiki crisis' has lent weight to the view that favours are already owed behind the scenes. Before closing such a deal, the government might bear in mind the words of a recent Mungiki defector: To date, Mungiki is a powerful criminal organization, which gets its income from a protection racket directed at matatu operators and from drug dealing. The groups also entertains a complex relationship with the Kikuyu political elite. Some Kikuyu political operators use the gang as a hit squad in violent political situations, while others, particularly businessmen, loathe it as a dangerous predator which tends mainly to exploit them in the name of a spurious conception of ethnic solidarity. As a result, Mungiki is at the same time a favoured tool of Kikuyu ethnic extremists and a public enemy of organized Kikuyu business forces. Mungiki is also reported to be involved in drug trade. 91 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo "It was easy to join, but getting out was a nightmare." The Mungiki! RAIDING POLICE STATIONS, KILLING THE POLICE! He cited the raiding of the police stations in Nyahururu and Muranga as clear indicators that members of the sect were prepared to go any lengths. Further, they also raided Mwiki Police Post in Nairobi engaged in a three-hour running battle with the police. Several police officers and the sect's members were injured. In one instance, a 700-strong mob attacked a police station with sticks, stones and farm tools to try to free coMr.ades and eight raiders were shot. 92 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The gang is blamed for the deaths of over 100 police officers between April and June and 27 civilians this year. Many were beheaded. Indeed, the claims that Mungiki leaders have reformed are not taken very seriously. The fact that the sect members have begun killing police officers is a message that those leaders are powerful and very influential. Away from the running battle with the police, the Mungiki members have also been involved in other anti-social acts. They raided police stations to free their own members who were under police custody. The Mungiki! FACTIONAL FIGHTING In 2007 Mungiki was rumored to have fractured into two groups. Dramatic murders of top Mungiki leaders continued, in spite of peace gestures by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, as police denied involvement in the assassinations. The Chairman and Treasurer of the Kenya National Youth Alliance (Maina Njenga faction) were gunned down at Uplands after a car chase on the Nairobi – Naivasha highway. The Kenya National Youth Alliance KNYA is Mungiki s political wing. Charles Ndung u Wagacha and Naftali Irungu were said to be on their way to the Naivasha Prison, where Mungiki leader Maina Njenga was serving a jail term. Relatives of the two KNYA officials immediately blamed police for the killings. Earlier in the year, Njenga s wife, Virginia Nyakio, was abducted, raped and beheaded by persons believed to be working for the state. According to eyewitnesses, the gunmen in the daylight shooting first identified themselves as police. However, police spokesman Eric Kiraithe denied the claims. Police say that the recent mysterious deaths of Mungiki leaders are a result of infighting between various Mungiki factions over control of funds and differing political positions. The Mungiki leadership, however, denied reports of a split within their ranks. 93 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki has witnessed, and experienced distrust and factional fighting within its ranks. A man was killed during a bloody clash between two rival groups of the controversial Mungiki sect at Thika's Kiandutu slums. The Mungiki! 94 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo According to relatives, Wagacha and Irungu were driving to Naivasha Prison to consult with Maina Njenga over possible talks with the government, proposed by Prime Minister Odinga. The Mungiki! ETHNIC GANG: KILLING LUOS! Kikuyu and Luo politicians spearheaded the country's struggle for independence from Britain in 1963, with the then Luo de facto political leader, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, refusing to betray his friend, Jomo Kenyatta, and accepting instead to be the Vice President; through later they parted ways amid political differences. Since then, there have been tales of intrigue, assassinations, and suspicion by Luos of the Kikuyu policies elite eliminating leading Luo figures including driving the first vice president, Jaramogi Odinga, from his office and barring him from politics; assassinating Argwings K Odhek; assassinating Tom Joseph Mboya; and assassinating Prof. Crispus Odhiambo Mbai. For the past year, Mungiki and Kamjesh gangs have waged street battles over the control of Matatu routes. About 15 people have been hacked to death in Dandora after the rival gangs fought. Mungiki mainly draws its support from Kikuyus, the traditional political rivals of the Luo. The Kikuyu militias involved in the violence have been described as a well-organised and paid group that was following direction from ―local 95 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo Following the post-election violence in January , Mungiki organised systematic, brutal killings of women and children so as to expel Luo and Kalenjin from Kikuyu-dominated areas in the Rift Valley towns of Naivasha and Nakuru . The Mungiki! leaders, businessmen and, in some cases, [politicians]. The Mungiki have come out to be tribally aligned, ethnic, and anti Luo. Indeed, in 1992, 1997 and 2007/8, they were specially organized to exterminate Luos in certain regions. During the post election violence of 2008, Luo men were allegedly subjected to forced circumcision, penile amputation and castrations using broken bottles, pangas and knives by members of the outlawed Mungiki group. They fear revenge attacks by gangs loyal to the Kikuyu tribe, members of President Mwai Kibaki's ethnic group. ICC prosecutor Adesola Adeboyejo told the Pre-Trial Chamber II that the attacks were conducted with the full knowledge of the three suspects – Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura. Indeed, Uhuru has never come out publicly to deny his involvement with Mungiki, or even to condemn their actions. The BBC aired a documentary in which it was revealed that some ICC prosecution witnesses have been wiped out. Allegedly by people related to the Mungiki. In 2011, former Imenti Central Member of Parliament Hon. Gitobu Imanyara stunned Parliament when he narrated of an ordeal where he was forced to kneel down facing Mt Kenya and ordered to repeat a 96 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The men patrolling the roadblocks were armed with machetes, bows and arrows and clubs. The Mungiki carried out revenge attacks after ethnic Kikuyus were killed by rival gangs in postelection violence. The Mungiki! Uhuru Further, of interest is the content of the poison-pen letter from Mungiki Veterans Group/Kenya Sovereignty Defence Squad addressed to the Chief Justice that promises direct body harm to the Judges, Chief Justice and the diplomatic community were the courts to rule against Uhuru Kenyatta s candidature in the March th general election. The letter extols the violent exploits of the Mungiki movement and threatens dire consequences. The Mungiki use all forms of threats, intimidation and blackmail. They are It is barbaric, primitive and a thing of the past. One wonders of course the relationship between head of public service, Mr. Kimemia wanting to clear Chief Justice to travel, and the junior Kikuyu Immigration official, stopping the Chief Justice form Traveling, and of course, why the Director General, Gen. Gichangi, also a Kikuyu, apologizes for what (publicly) was not his doing. Of course, Uhuru has neither distanced himself from this letter or its alleged Mungiki authors. 97 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo scripted statement three times that Tuko Pamoja . Three months earlier, Assistant Minister and Mukurwini Member of Parliament Kabando wa Kabando had voiced similar threats to the 98 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki! The Mungiki! judges saying as Africans they ought to know better: not to offer any adversarial ruling against Uhuru s eligibility case as Kenya will be ungovernable Whether there are links between the authors of the poison-pen and Kabando s threats may not be clear but the ideology embraced by both is definitely similar. The threats confirm the fear of many Kenyans that impunity is here to stay, and that for hardcore Uhuru Kenyatta supporters, the March 4th election is a must win by all means necessary. The Mungiki sect planed and executed revenge attacks after other members of its community were driven away from their homes. But dig deeper and it is clear that the disputed election is merely a catalyst. The Kalenjin were denied access to land because Kikuyu settlers were moved in after independence, when the then President Kenyatta was given money to resettle the formerly displaced Kikuyu from but did not give them the option of taking back their otherwise fertile highlands in Central Province. vigilante In Mlango Kubwa, Mungiki also serves as the vigilante group that patrols the area at night. 99 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo But in other parts of now divided Kenya, the roles are reversed. Kikuyus are defending themselves from what they say are aggressors from other tribes. The Mungiki! "We like it that way," says a resident. "They know all the criminals in the area and we pay them promptly for the work." And in another bloody incident, Mungiki members clashed with a vigilante group in Nairobi's Kariobangi North estate leaving at least 23 people dead. Another Mungiki adherent was critically injured while dozens others escaped with slight injuries as the unprecedented battle spilled over to the neighbouring Pilot estate and the Jua Kali area. The poison is manifesting itself through what could be called the gangs of Nairobi, the swarming multitudes of young men who have begun patrolling the slums with machetes, axes anything they can find to protect themselves from one another and from the swelling tide of resentment that the election and its handling have cast over the city. In its crudest form the gangsterism has taken on tribal overtones. Ojijo Some residents said the Luo were targeted because the leader of the "Taliban," a gang of young men providing private security in the mud-walled slum, comes from the community. 100 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Residents said members of Mungiki rampaged through the slum, hacking at passers-by, in retaliation for the death of two of their own killed by a gang calling itself the "Taliban." At least one person was beheaded and the sexual organs of some of the others were mutilated. The majority of the dead in these fights are always from the Luo community, the third largest Kenya's tribe. The Mungiki! On one side are the Mungiki, the self-proclaimed protectors of the Kikuyu, but also of the disenfranchised, the poor and the outcast. On another are crowds of enraged Luo tribesmen, whose anger over the disputed election results that kept their candidate, Odinga, from taking office, have contributed to the looting, burning and killing across the country. The result, at least in the hives of Nairobi's ghettos, places like Kibera and Mathare, is a tense standoff between groups of armed men and a pervading sense of unease about the ability or willingness of either side to back off. Taliban members see themselves as providing security and justice. They first became active the Ojijo The man, who called himself Titus, was a security escort for this group of Luo vigilantes, who have taken to calling themselves "Taliban," partially in emulation of the draconian tactics of the Afghan tribesmen who enforced law and order through the barrels of their AK-47s. Looking out onto the street, these Luo Taliban searched the area for the men they now perceive as their sworn enemies: the Kikuyu Mungiki gangs who have taken up positions at intersections and alleyways. 101 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! In one such slum, known as Area 3 - a sprawl of tinroofed shacks, supermarkets and community centers that have been burned to the ground over the last two weeks - a lumbering Luo man wearing a New York baseball cap and carrying a 10-inch machete tucked into his jeans, escorted a Newsweek reporter into a Luo safehouse. "Don't worry," he said, "it's safe here." The Mungiki! day after the elections. Their men, typically tall and built like heavyweight boxers, light fires and sleep with groups of unaffiliated volunteers outside apartment buildings and shanty towns at night, trying to allay the fears of restless women and children. Last Saturday night Taliban members tried unsuccessfully to dynamite a small bridge that links a Kikuyu area to a smaller Luo area where a now vacant tenement building had been attacked. As the incursions and counterattacks have increased in this desperately poor section of Nairobi, many have been left without food or water. Food prices have skyrocketed. Three small potatoes stacked on a vendor's mat used to cost less than a nickel; today they are an unaffordable 50 shillings, about 55 cents. Moses said he thought the violence elsewhere in Kenya among similar groups of armed men was simply Ojijo Moses believed the killers were Mungiki disguised as policemen. Without the protection of the Taliban, Moses said, the Luo are in danger. Moses claimed to have seen four people butchered and said he had had to use his own panga machete in self-defense on three of the last four nights. 102 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! "Those are them," whispered one Taliban member named Moses, pointing at a group of armed men down the street manning a fruit stand. He believed they were Mungiki. Earlier that morning two non-Taliban Luo had been killed walking across an adjacent neighborhood called Stage 2930. The Mungiki! Ojijo 103 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! a long-suppressed desire for revenge. " If you are Luo, they chop you," he said ruefully. "So what do you think we do?" The Mungiki! THE PIRANHAS: KILLING DEFECTORS! Killing of sect defectors started in the early 2004, one year after the new NARC government had offered amnesty to sect members who would defect, and the sect also gave the defectors amnesty until January 2004 to return to the group. Indeed, it was after the amnesty passed that the spate of murders began. This was orchestrated through an ugly, orgy spate of tell-tale Mungiki revenge killings. Defectors were forced into hiding after information reached them that sect's diehards have orders to execute them before they provide security forces with any more potentially damaging information. Ojijo A number of reports indicate that many police officers are complicit in criminal activity, and are often involved in Mungiki operations. Corrupt police officers with links to Mungiki businesses are often involved in the deaths of Mungiki defectors for fear of being exposed. In 2003, defectors who contacted the police and offered to reveal Mungiki secrets in exchange for protection were killed after the government failed to protect them. 104 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Four street preachers were seriously injured by Mungiki adherents. They were ambushed at the road while preaching. Their worshippers scampered for safety as the gang chased them with clubs, machetes and swords. The Mungiki! Another defector, Mr. Peter Kuria, said if the Government offered them security, they would show it how to track down the sect's adherents. The Government should tell us whether it has failed to contain the Mungiki menace otherwise we shall take law into our own hands," Mr. Shadrack Nyagah said, a former member, who wanted revenge for the acts of the sect on torching his business premises in Kayole, to force him to go back to the sect. According to the defectors, the bodies of former sect members are evil to even be used in their initiation ceremonies, and their blood cannot be drained, and neither their body parts burnt into ashes to be used. The sect members have been waging underground war against its defectors. an Ojijo On another incident of hitting back on a former sect member, the severed head of a sect defector was found dumped at a Nairobi bus stop. The severed head of Simon Ndabi Kamore was wrapped in a green paper bag and dumped at the OTC bus stop on the city's Race Course road. It was meant to be grim warning against the would-be defectors. The body of the deceased was never found. 105 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The sect kidnaps the defectors are kills them gruesomely, through skinning, and removing their balls, and forcing them into their mouths. The sect members claimed that the oil they smear on themselves makes them fearless, and that god gives the courage to do anything. The Mungiki! These are the faces of death - six people ruthlessly murdered by a Mungiki revenge squad desperate to silence them for spilling the sect's secrets. Within the last six months, 14 known defectors have either been killed or have mysteriously disappeared in what is turning out to be a major underworld war. They have been killed since an ultimatum to defectors to rejoin the sect expired in January. The brutal beheading of a street preacher two weeks ago is only the latest in a chain of apparent executions to have befallen defectors from Mungiki. Mr. Bernard Wahome Kahiga and his wife Jane Nyambura who were murdered at their home in Murang'a, in April. In March, Pastor James Irungu Njenga, alias Wakaguku, and his wife Florence were shot dead at their home in the Kiamaiko slum in Nairobi as their horrified children watched. Ojijo They have so far failed to recover his body which, they believe, might have been cut up and thrown into the Nairobi River. Others known to have either died or vanished, presumed murdered, include: 106 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The death of Simon Ndabi Kamore, the preacher whose head was found at a Nairobi bus stop where he used to give sermons, was a stark warning to other would-be defectors of what they could expect if they betrayed the sect, police said. The Mungiki! In the same month, Mr. Joseph Ng'ang'a Ngunja, alias Wamuthoni, was kidnapped, and no trace of him has been found. In February Mr. Francis Njoroge Maina, alias Mabro, was found murdered in the capital, and in January Mr. Jacob Nderiitu Karanja was kidnapped and he too has not been found. It is believed many more defectors could have been executed outside Nairobi and their bodies buried in places where they might never be found. Relatives of some of these people could still be looking for their loved ones, unaware that they could have been killed. Now the remaining defectors who have come out openly to give information to the security forces about the secrets of Mungiki are living in fear as the Government looks on seemingly unable to act. The defectors have been forced to abandon the warmth of their homes and instead, now seek shelter in city lodgings as they play cat and mouse games with the sect's killers who are hunting them down. Ojijo Many members defected after National Security minister Chris Murungaru offered an amnesty early in the Kibaki administration... only to be eliminated one by one by the sect's diehards. 107 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Now former members of the banned Mungiki sect are living in fear, following the series of kidnappings and murders that the police appear unable to solve. The Mungiki! A few of those who have denounced Mungiki have also taken their families to the lodgings where the special crack Cobra Squad formed by Nairobi provincial commissioner Francis Sigei is protecting them. But despite police protection, Mungiki members have managed to pick up some of their former colleagues and whisked them away without trace. Left with no other option, the defectors are now seeking help to leave a country they believe has failed to offer them protection from the murderous sect members who seem to be operating with impunity. They say their lives can only be guaranteed if they quit Kenya. Police were yesterday desperately searching for the torso of a former Mungiki (local illegal cult) adherent whose head was discovered dumped within the city centre yesterday morning. The slain man is said to have been among the 84 people released last Friday after charges related to Mungiki activities preferred against them were dismissed by the High Court. Ojijo Mungiki people are alleged to have been avenging the killing of two of their colleagues by a vigilante group in the area christened 'Taliban.' 108 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The Mungiki exert revenge on informers. In May, Mungiki followers are said to have brutally murdered six people in the country's central region, in what is said to be a revenge attack on people who had leaked information about their activities to the police. The Mungiki! It is suspected that he was beheaded by Mungiki adherents after disowning the sect contrary to the oath of allegiance he took upon initiation into the outlawed sect. The murder comes in the wake of a recent revelation that fanatical Mungiki adherents have in the recent past been attacking and killing any sect member who dares to reconvert to another religion or disassociates himself with the outlawed outfit. "We all reformed and joined churches and Islam in the everyone," said Mr. Kimani Njoroge Kamunya and Mr. Karuri in a statement. the mainstream best interest of Ruo, Mr. Peter Isaac Kamondo "The problem is that when a member is killed, the body will never be found as it would be cut into pieces, packed in a bag and thrown into a nearby river," Mr. Mwai said. They said they believed the kidnapped pastor had either being killed or was being held at a hideout in Muranga. They claimed the sect members had a list of seven pastors they wanted killed for allegedly being the ringleaders of defectors. Ojijo However, he said he was constantly in touch with the investigating officer who had assured him he would provide them. 109 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! They claimed the perpetrators were members of murder groups formed by politicians and former policemen to create fear to discredit the Government. The Mungiki! Generations have passed, tribes have intermarried, but the issue has never been properly addressed. But while security forces are having the time of their lives in the hunt for Mungiki, the defectors are living their worst nightmares. This past week, they were seeking audience with National Security minister Chris Murungaru to address their security having previously held discussions with the Nairobi PC Francis Sigei and his deputy. This past week also, yet another Mungiki defector went missing. Ng'ang'a wa Muthoni, a street preacher along Racecourse Road in Nairobi was Ojijo Mungiki diehards fear that former members, who have been visiting the police, the provincial administration and even the National Security Intelligence offices providing the security agencies with information on the group, are the prime enemy. 110 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The information the defectors provided has since led to the raiding of the sect's headquarters in Mukuru kwa Reuben by police. The information also led to the arrest of Mr. Maina Njenga, widely believed to be the spiritual leader of the sect. He was arrested, for the second time, in the company of three women and three men also believed to be sect members. The first time he was arrested was in 2004, and he escaped from custody and went into hiding with Ndura Waruinge, his then lieutenant. He was sentenced to five years in prison for possession of a firearm, and 5 kgs of marijuana on 21st June 2007, and released in 2012. The Mungiki! last seen on Thursday evening. It is believed that he was lured by a woman to a trap laid by Mungiki diehards at Eastleigh. Three former members who left the group last year after Dr Murungaru declared an amnesty for members who quit the gang, have already been eliminated by a revenge squad set up soon after the much-publicised defections. Several others have been kidnapped over the past three months as dissent spreads within the movement. A couple that had openly renounced membership of the group was shot dead by gunmen at their Kiamaiko slum home as their three children watched. Yet another defector, Mr. Jacob Nderitu Karanja, was hijacked on January 30 at around 8 am on his way to visit a friend at Kariobangi, Nairobi. He had travelled to Kariobangi from his Githurai home. Mr. Karanja had been attacked at home a week earlier by Mungiki adherents, who stole the sound equipment he used in preaching. He Ojijo Pastor Njenga was an active member of the sect, but quit a few months ago to become a Christian preacher. The attack occurred in the same week that another defector, Mr. David Waweru Kabia, went missing. His wife has visited all police stations in the city to no avail. 111 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Two gunmen burst into the home of Pastor James Irungu Njenga alias Wakaguku and pumped several bullets into him, then turned the guns on his wife Florence Muthoni as she screamed for help. The Mungiki! was killed for reporting his colleagues to police instead of reporting to Mungiki leadership. The evidence that he had reported to the police was in his pockets - a police warrant of arrest for his attackers. The defectors have become harshly critical of regular police for the revenge murders because the three former sect members murdered by Mungiki had reported their fears to Kamukunji police and Central police stations in Nairobi. However, they said, police failed to act on the Ojijo Many defectors have left Nairobi and gone to their rural homes or other hideouts. Following the killings, the PC met 10 representatives of the defectors while in the company of a section of the provincial security team. Among those who attended the three-and-a-half hour meeting at the PC's boardroom were Mr. Sigei, his deputy Mr. Ali Bwalali, Nairobi provincial police boss Mr. Jonathan Kosgey, the provincial CID Boss and the provincial intelligence chief. The team decided to form a special crack squad of officers from paramilitary General Service Unit and Administration police specifically to fight the sect; the Kanga Squad. 112 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The shooting to death of a 21-year-old man in Soweto slums, Nairobi, is also cast by Mungiki defectors as a revenge killing by seven armed men who they say mistook him for a former sect member. Yet another defector was murdered in mid-February and his mutilated body thrown into Nairobi River behind Riverside Hotel. Maina alias Mabro's body had been skinned and some body parts mutilated. The Mungiki! report made making it possible for the murders to take place. By mid-2004, about 75 % of former Mungiki followers had abandoned the movement due to a government amnesty, a clampdown on Mungiki and Mungiki s weakening control of resources in the informal sector. Thus, once the corrupted police officers realise their connections with the Mungiki might be exposed, they choose to eliminate the defectors. In general, IMLU claims that most of the attacks on protected Mungiki members were actually perpetrated by the police, even though Mungikis Ojijo According to the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU), an NGO working to promote the rights of victims of torture, Mungiki members who leave the organisation run a serious risk to be killed, or at best, seriously harassed. Some defectors who left Mungiki in 2000-2001 accepted to reveal Mungiki secrets to the authorities in 2003 in exchange for protection, as they worried for their safety. The government failed to protect them, and many of them were killed. IMLU claims that employees in the police are heavily corrupted and involved in Mungiki s businesses. 113 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Mungiki reactions and retaliations directed at defecting members intensified as a result of these defections. Several former Mungiki profiles were shot or disappeared without trace. By July 2004, 18 people had reportedly been killed by Mungiki squads, most of them former Mungiki members who had denounced the sect publicly. The Mungiki! themselves participate in revenge acts. Some of the surviving defectors have since contacted IMLU for protection and assistance, after which IMLU have provided shelter at secret locations. According to IMLU, Mungiki has also threatened former members that have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. People who used to have a high profile within the movement are especially targeted, due to the harm that they can cause to the organisation in case they talk. [i]t is likely that thousands of adherents wish to leave the sect, but memories of beheadings of defectors in serve as a deterrent Defected Mungiki members will be left alone if they refrain from threatening the movement s interests. Ojijo Ndura Waruinge, Mungiki s first leader, who converted to Islam in 2000 for pragmatic reasons, defected and converted to Christianity sometime prior to the election in 2007. Few sources question his defection in relation to his safety. He appears to participate in formal politics without threats of retaliation. According to some, this indicates that Waruinge has not left Mungiki, but uses formal politics and Christianity as a means to accumulate more power. 114 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Both the existence of MDC and examples of Mungiki reactions to deserters, suggest that defectors are at credible risk of retaliation by Mungiki. The Mungiki! COLLATERAL DAMAGE: INNOCENT BYSTANDERS The war on Mungiki was affected all sectors of the country, especially the innocent by-standers. When the police raid the slums where they mostly are, people are killed, and dogs are turned against teenage boys and, residents say, dozens of innocent people are beaten or shot. In the slums where Mungiki operate, they act like another government. Innocent citizens pay taxes to the government for police, and also pay taxes to the Mungiki. Ojijo Young male residents of Mathare, Dnaroda, Mlango Kibwa, and other slums affected the dual ills of police raids, and Mungiki menace, say they are not certain who is more terrifying -- the Mungiki, who beat them and take their money, or the police, who beat them, accuse them of being gang members and demand money from their families. 115 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The government, for a very long time, did not seem to have a clue how to stop the Mungiki because they are dealing with an amorphous group with few known leaders. So the security agencies for a long while went after young men with boxer shorts hanging over their pants, and hip hop caps, and who are found idling, or selling cheap wares on common areas. This led to the death of various members of the public who were innocent. The Mungiki! Ojijo 116 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Further, whenever the sect is cornered, or when the police overpower them, or when their members are arrested, they turn to murder innocent. They turn their anger on the residents, slashing everyone who crosses their path. And when residents are injured, they never reported it to the police because they fear retribution of the Mungiki gangs. The Mungiki! part 2: the victims Ojijo 117 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The extra-judicial killings against the Mungiki by the state. The Mungiki! BANNING & AMNESTY! Other groups banned by the then police commissioner Philemon Abong'o, were Jeshi la Embakasi, Jeshi la Mzee (which was used by KANU politicians, and the mzee refers to Moi), Bagdad Boys (which were and still are used by, and are under indirect influence of Raila Odinga, Ojijo Mungiki was banned in 2002 after members armed with knives and clubs killed more than 20 people in a Nairobi slum. The sect had been proscribed because its activities went against the country's security interests. Eighteen sects, groups and private armies linked to prominent politicians were outlawed, together with the Mungiki, on the basis of posing threats to security. Top of the list were the Mungiki sect and the Taliban vigilantes who were at the centre of Sunday's massacre at Kariobangi, Nairobi, when 21 people were hacked to death. 118 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Several militant gangs and so-called vigilante movements operate throughout Kenya, particularly in urban environments and in Nairobi s large slum areas. They operate outside the law in poor, crime-infested neighbourhoods where the police has little authority, influence and, basically, little interest. Different gangs have been and are at war with each other over control of businesses, services and people in disputed areas, amongst them the Taliban, the Kosovo boys, the Baghdad boys, Chinkororo, the Kalenjin Warriors and Mungiki. Of all these, the Mungiki movement is the largest and best known of these organised, armed groups in Kenya. The Mungiki! and Luo ODM politicians), Sungu Sungu, Amachuma, Chinkororo (these three being Kisii youths, who fight for land clashes with Luos, as well as being at the beck and call of Kisii politicians), Dallas Muslim Youth, Runyenjes Football Club, Jeshi la Kayole, Kaya Bombo Youth, Sakina Youth, Charo Shutu, Kukacha Boys, Kosovo Boys, Banyamulenge and KamJesh. Announcing the ban, the then police commissioner Mr. Abong'o said they had established the 18 groups were "the perpetrators of lawlessness and insecurity in the country." He added: However, despite the bans, all the above groups still operate with varied visibility, the most vibrant ones being Mungiki and Baghdad Boys, who recently pelted the convoy of a Luo presidential aspirant who is going against the wishes of Raila) and the Mungiki are also still operating widely, despite the ban. According to the police, and other security agents, out-lawing the sect was not considered enough as the movement continued recruiting more members underground and issuing threats undeterred. Ojijo Police said the law also categorised rungus (clubs), simis (Somali swords) and spears, traditionally carried by Maasai morans (warriors), as offensive weapons. 119 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! "I have also noted that some people have made a habit of walking in public places carrying offensive weapons such as machettes and axes. This is against the law and anyone found going armed in public will be prosecuted." The Mungiki! In November 2010, it was reported in Kenyan media that ―Mungiki is back in business, this time with renewed vigour and tenacity, despite continuing government crackdowns on criminal gangs. amnesty The minister claimed that the government had in the past successfully cracked down on the sect and would not allow it to come back. He said police have orders to hunt down the sect and remove it from society. Ojijo "The Government has given those who have surrendered a new lease of life by linking them with social welfare organisations, and NGOs to assist in their rehabilitation and subsequent reintegration into the community. This has worked very well and I must admit that Mungiki activities have been largely suppressed by now following the move." 120 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! At the initial stage of dealing with the sect, the new NARC government in early 2003 offered an amnesty to all members of the sect who confessed and changed their ways. More than 700 Mungiki followers surrendered following a state amnesty. The then Internal Security Minister Dr. Chris Murungaru said that those who gave themselves up to the police had been bonded to keep the peace, and released back to the community. Dr Murungaru said: The Mungiki! Ojijo 121 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The defectors said the leadership of the sect was studying how serious the Government is about wiping it out. The defectors said that the sect had also given them an amnesty until January 2004 to return to the group. Indeed, it was after the amnesty passed that the spate of murders began. The Mungiki! THE KILLING FIELDS Mungiki became a formidable political and quasimilitia force that eventually drew the wrath of State security machinery. The Kenya Police force faces little condemnation for its actions. The ethnic affiliation of Mungiki has spawned fear of Kikuyu nationalism in the rest of Kenya s tribes, especially after political and ethnic clashes earlier this year. Consequently, there has been no criticism of police tactics against Mungiki. Kenya s government declared war against the group in mid 2007. However, rather than eliminating Mungiki, this policy has lead Mungiki members to extremes of retaliatory ferocity and caused violent vigilante-type retaliation The police claim to know all the Mungiki members, sympathisers and financiers in the country. In fact, they claim that no goat can be slaughtered for without their immediate knowledge. The Kenyan police has 'killed thousands' of Mungiki sect adherents. According to Oscar Foundation, Ojijo [t]he police crackdown matched or even exceeded that of the Mungiki itself 122 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Extra-judicial executions and other brutal acts of extreme cruelty have been perpetrated by the Police against so-called Mungiki adherents and that these acts may have been committed pursuant to official policy sanctioned by the political leadership, the Police Commissioner and top police commanders. The Mungiki! The allegations were very damning, and On 5 March 2009, Oscar Foundation Director Oscar Kamau Kingara and Programme Coordinator John Paul Oulo were shot and killed while en route to a meeting at the offices of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in Nairobi. Earlier that day, a government spokesman, Dr. Alfred Mutua, had publicly accused their organisation Ojijo In November 2007, a human-rights group called the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic-Kenya reported that in the five years up to August 2007, Kenyan police had killed over 8,040 people by execution or torture during a crackdown on a banned sect. as a result of the crackdowns, a further 4,070 people had gone missing as security forces tried to wipe out the Mungiki sect. These allegations were based on interviews, autopsies, and police reports, and were widely circulated both in Kenya and through an appeal to the International Criminal Court. 123 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! police committed "crimes against humanity" against the country's most notorious gang. These were done by the infamous KweKwe squad. Coincidentally, a former commander "KweKwe" died in his sleep last Monday. Expolice Chief Inspector John Kariuki who commanded field officers belonging to the Special Crime Prevention Unit died at his Nairobi home in unclear circumstances. Indeed, the deaths of former members of Kwe Kwe squad has been circumspect, with police saying most squadron members left the force or died through "natural attrition." The Mungiki! of being a fundraising front for Mungiki. Mungiki chairman Maina Njenga was acquitted on October 27, 2009 as murder charges on him were withdrawn for lack of evidence. About a week later Mungiki spokesman David Gitau Njuguna was shot dead in Nairobi by unknown assailants. Of course, I dare not say Dr. Mutua, and Mr. Kiraithe were behind the assasiantions of Oulu GPO (and I may not need to say it), and behind the other assassinations of alleged Mungiki, buoyed by the sweeping statements of H.E. President Kibaki, and the then Minister for Security, John Michuki, but as the Bachiga of Uganda say, may he Mutua live in interesting times. Ojijo A Kenyan blogger, Mr. Robert Alai Onyango, 34, in august 2012 was arrested for posting messages and linking the Government Spokesman to murder of Oulu G.P.O AND Oscar Kamau King ara on his twitter account. Three years ago, gunmen shot dead Mr. Oulu and Mr. King ara in unclear circumstances as they drove on a highway near the halls of residence. The blogger was released on a Sh100,000 bail. Mr.Mutua has said in that Mungiki were being funded by Oscar Foundation, and there would be action taken. He is currently running for seat of Governor of Machakos County, having resigned his post as government spokesman. As the Chinese curse their beloved enemies, 124 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! ) am not blaming the hyena for eating my sheep, but every time I lose one of my sheep, the hyena defecates sheep s wool. The Mungiki! Indeed, Oulu GPO posted a few minutes before his brutal execution thus: Kiraithe termed the report a, "baseless fabrication devoid of an iota of fact." Ojijo Former UN rapporteur on extra-judicial killings Prof. Philip Alston accused the Kwe Kwe squad, which he called a police death squad, of arbitrarily killing hundreds of people. Alston claimed to have documented 24 occasions on which the Kwe Kwe squad undertook 58 executions of suspects. The accusations of police involvement in the extra-judicial killings landed Kenya at the UN Human Rights Council, where authorities were asked to defend the allegations in the past. Former UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston accused the Kwe Kwe squad, which he called a police death squad, of arbitrarily killing hundreds of people. Alston claimed to have documented 24 occasions on which the Kwe Kwe squad undertook 58 executions of suspects. Of course, the Kenyan government delegation to new York was divided, and the report was never accepted due to political reasons. The U.N. committee voiced concern "at the slow pace of investigations and prosecutions into allegations of torture, extrajudicial killings by the police and by vigilante groups". And the police of course rejected the report, while not rejecting the dead bodies. 125 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! some police somewhere should not take advantage of crime to kill and maim, to rob and extort, to intimidate and torture; The Mungiki! Kiraithe said the report was, full of generalities and wild allegations. The police heavily invested in Media Strategy whereby they can afford public support as they advance in impunity. This is why the anti Prof. Alston demonstrations across the country were not licensed yet they went on undisrupted. Because the government wanted to buy citizens support; and indeed it got it. Oulu GPO wrote on his wall, Ojijo In 2009 the UN Special Rapporteur investigating extra-judicial killings by the state security organs, Professor Philip Alston, observed that ―[t]he Government has a clear obligation to protect citizens from Mungiki and other criminal violence, while respecting human rights, including the right to life. Suspects should be arrested, charged, tried and punished accordingly…(owever… the evidence is compelling that the police respond – frequently – with unlawful force: murdering, rather than arresting suspects. Further, investigations by police are so deficient and compromised that claims by the police that all killings are lawful are inherently unreliable and unsustainable… death squads… exist within the police force in Kenya, and that these squads were set-up to eliminate the Mungiki and other high-profile suspected criminals, upon the orders of senior police officials. 126 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! be informed and transform your thoughts and approach to issues. The Mungiki! Kibaki let Ali utilize extrajudicial killings to control Mungiki, a branch of ethnic Kikuyu movement, which threatens Kikuyu politics . Ali never took calls from ODM ministers. The president wanted to take control of the police force in general through controlling Ali, until the 2012 election. Indeed, in Central Kenya, Provincial Police Officer (PPO) issued a stunning directive to his Station Commanders telling Ojijo Kenyan police force set up death squads, of which the notorious KweKwe Squad is one, originally to 'crackdown on the organized crime gang Mungiki'. Regardless of the original goal, however, a huge amount of witness testimony in the report suggest that the police arrested arbitrarily without any attempt to prove whether the suspect was Mungiki or an innocent victim. Police threatened the 'suspect' to bring ransom money to avoid being shot. In all cases, the police were extremely reluctant to record the arrested person on the OB(Occurrence Book), which is the sole evidence that the person was ever arrested. This allowed the killings to be safely 'extrajudicial' - killings without any public record. 127 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Alston s comments came a day after the government-appointed KNCHR released a one year old videotaped testimony by a police officer who in chilling detail described how he witnessed the killing of 58 people while working as a driver for the KweKwe for twelve months. The whistleblower, Bernard Kiriinya, was himself murdered four months after he went into hiding in Nairobi following his testimony The Mungiki! them that during any future political protests in the region, deadly force is immediately authorized. He further assured the officers that any query as to the nature of the death or injury resulting from this order should be directed to him personally and that he would support the "victimized" officers. There is ample documentation that the kwekwe unit has functioned as a death squad that carried out mass executions of Mungiki members and suspected adherents. Dead bodies were found in desolate farms scattered all over the country, and the victims were killed with one or two bullets in the back from close range. Many dead bodies were dismembered. Oscar King ara had described the status quo aptly: The Kenya we have: One where millions are wallowing in poverty and staring hunger, diseases and ignorance in the face. One where Justice is a privilege of the few haves and mighty. One where the haves are vampires thriving on the blood of the poor and Ojijo One where Justice is our shield and Defender. One where we dwell in Unity, Peace and Liberty. One where Plenty is found within our Borders. One which was envisioned and that guided the dreams of our founding fathers. One that respects the rule of law. 128 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The Kenya we want: The Mungiki! vulnerable One where the elected leaders have ganged up into a fellowship of thugs stealing from the poor, the weak and the dying. Kenyan police have shot dead thousands of members of the banned Mungiki sect in the capital, Nairobi, and its environs. Police opened fire as youths stoned cars, torched a garage and a minibus taxi, bringing the total deaths to 14 since the riots began on Monday. Sect members accuse the police of extra-judicial killings and want a special unit set up to counter their activities to be disbanded. The Mungiki accuse the police of killing its members. Last year, more than 100 suspected sect members were killed in a police crackdown after a series of grisly Ojijo The KweKwe squad was crafted by the government to crackdown on the outlawed Mungiki sect. It was later disbanded by Internal Security minister George Saitoti following public outcry. Even former Member of Parliament, Paul Muite, stated that he received specific information from credible sources that Members of the Kwekwe squad responsible for carrying out extra judicial executions have been given instructions to get rid of him. 129 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The Cobra Squad was formed to eliminate Mungiki in Nairobi, but does not operate in other areas. There are is a special squad of over 100 officers from five security units formed to try to wipe out the group. Members of the squad are drawn from the regular police, GSU, Administration police, CID, Flying Squad and special anti-crime unit. The Mungiki! beheadings blamed on the Mungiki. The most sensational was discovery of the beheaded body of the wife of the sect's leader. The police say they are investigating the murder. The Mungiki spokesman Njuguna Gitau Njuguna said they were angered by police brutality. He said the banned group wanted a special police unit, set up to counter the sect, to be disbanded. The Kenyan police dismissed the report as "fictitious", and refered to the organsiation thus: "Even if you hide, we will find you and kill you," President Mwai Kibaki had said in a warning to members of the quasi-religious sect which was outlawed in 2002. There were signs of cars being driven to secret locations, gun shots, then dead bodies and food for the hyenas KNHRC's Hassan Omar. Mr. Omar said some of the latest victims may have been innocent of any crime. Over 500 members of Mungiki sect have been arrested in Central province in a major Ojijo Assistant Internal Security Minister Peter Munya told parliament the government was determined to wipe out the gang. Kenyan police have denied carrying out extra-judicial killings of alleged members of the outlawed Mungiki sect. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe dismissed the allegation of police executions of suspects as "outrageous". The Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) had made the claim after investigating incidences of dead bodies being dumped around the capital. 130 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! "The people disseminating it have a questionable character and motive". The Mungiki! crackdown conducted by the newly-formed special police squad (Anti-Mungiki) in the last one-week. The sect members have been arrested at Kiambu, Thika, Murang a and Maragua district. The report said Kenya's General Service Unit carried out the killings during operations in slum areas. The document was based on interviews with relatives, autopsy reports, and police and other records. There has been bloodbath as police strike back at Mungiki. President Mwai Kibaki reacted angrily to a spate of recent grisly murders and beheadings in the central region blamed on the Mungiki. Police Commissioner, Maj-Gen Hussein Ali, held talks with the Chief Justice Evan Gicheru, in what was believed to be a meeting of minds in a battle that has thrown the Judiciary and the Executive on an embarrassing collision course. A blame game ensued between the CJ and Security minister, Mr. John Michuki, over exactly who was responsible for the failure to rein in the proscribed sect, with Michuki accusing the courts of letting off suspects who are better off in jail. Ojijo A bizarre twist was added to it all when the firearm of an officer attached to the Flying Squad at Tigoni Police Station in Kikuyu earlier reported missing was found on the body of a suspect shot dead in the Mathare Monday night raids. 131 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! There is no-one who has the right to take a life and if you choose to do that and try to hide we will get you President Mwai Kibaki. The Mungiki! In 2007, Mungiki was rumoured to have fractured into two groups. In spite of the peace gestures of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the dramatic murders of the top Mungiki leaders continued, and police also denied involvement in the assassinations. The Chairman and Treasurer of the Kenya National Youth Alliance (Maina Njenga faction) were gunned down at Uplands after a car chase on the Nairobi – Naivasha highway. The Kenya National Youth Alliance KNYA served as Mungiki s political wing. Police say that the recent mysterious deaths of Mungiki leaders are a result of infighting between various Mungiki factions over control of funds and differing political positions. The Ojijo At least 500 bodies of suspected Mungiki members have since been discovered in thickets outside Nairobi in the past year. Police say that the recent mysterious deaths of Mungiki leaders were a result of infighting between various Mungiki factions over control of funds and differing political positions. The Mungiki leadership, however, denied the split within their ranks. 132 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! According to relatives, Wagacha and Irungu were driving to Naivasha Prison, where Mungiki leader Maina Njenga is serving a jail term, to consult him over possible talks with the government, proposed by Prime Minister Odinga. The relatives said that elements in the government are using the police to ensure negotiations fail, hence the killings. However, police spokesman Eric Kiraithe denied the claims. The Mungiki! Ojijo 133 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Mungiki leadership, however, denied reports of a split within their ranks. According to relatives, Wagacha and Irungu were driving to Naivasha Prison to consult with Maina Njenga over possible talks with the government, proposed by Prime Minister Odinga. The relatives said that elements in the government are using the police to ensure negotiations fail, hence the killings. At least 500 bodies of suspected Mungiki members have since discovered in thickets outside Nairobi in the past year. The Mungiki! EXECUTION STYLE DEATHS That report did not explicitly blame the police for the deaths, but said "circumstantial evidence" linked the police to the killings and said the force seemed to be blocking efforts to find the Ojijo Meanwhile, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights linked the police to the execution style deaths of over 1.500 youth between 2006 and 2008. In 2009 Philip Alston, a UN investigator, published a report documenting around 500 death-squad executions in the months leading up the elections. The police described these reports as fictitious. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said that political leaders and senior police officers directed the police to extort, beat and kill nearly 500 members of the Mungiki gang over the past year. the KNCHR released a preliminary report indicating that the Kenya Police could have been complicit in extra-judicial executions of close to 500 people between June and October 2007 and the bodies deposited in various mortuaries in the country, some left in the wild and others dumped in various locations such as forests, desolate farms, rivers and dams. Subsequently, the Kenya Police issued its official rejoinder to the KNCHR report. The Police rejoinder does not deny the fact of the deaths but merely states that inquest files have been opened. 134 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Kenyan police units, including GSU, have been noted to kill tens of young people in Mungiki raids. The Mungiki! And the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights also said in a seperate report that 'top political leaders working with police commanders were aware of the death squads (killing the Mungiki)'. According to the report, in 2007, cabinet minister John Michuki 'predicted' that there would be many funerals of Mungiki members. The report Ojijo Whereas initially the police mainly used firearms to execute the suspects, they subsequently changed their modus operandi and have since been using such methods as strangulation, drowning, mutilation and bludgeoning. The change of strategy was to make members of the public believe that rival Mungiki gangs are responsible for the killings. As such, the cause of death for majority of the latest victims has been blunt trauma, strangulation, drowning or mutilation using sharp objects as illustrated by post-mortem reports attached hereinafter. Several witnesses told the KNCHR that the killer squads carry machetes, iron bars, ropes and other crude weapons in their vehicles. Consequently, the police spokesperson Mr. Eric Kiraithe has on several occasions attributed the wave of killings to rival Mungiki gangs. He claims that there is a schism within the Mungiki movement pitting Maina Njenga and Ndura Waruinge. This may be a ploy to divert public attention and conceal the grotesque illegal conduct of the police. 135 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! killers. Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe is disputing the report. He says an internal investigation has debunked the claims. The Mungiki! further accuses police officers of kidnapping, torture and extortion on the pretext of antiMungiki operations. The commission has documented cases where individuals were hunted down and killed after paying ransom. (We will pulverize and finish them off. Even those arrested over the recent killings, I cannot tell you where they are today. What you will certainly hear is that so and so s burial is tomorrow . In consequence, the Kenya Police appears responsible for the abduction and killing of Kimani Ruo who was arrested outside Nairobi Law Courts in June 2007 moments after he was acquitted by the court for charges of being a member of Mungiki. Ojijo Tutawanyorosha na tutawamaliza. (ata wenye wameshikwa kwa kuhusiana na mauaji ya hivi majuzi, siwezi nikakwambia wako wapi leo. Nyinyi tu mtakuwa mkisikia mazishi ya fulani ni ya kesho. 136 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The disappearances and extra-judicial killings heightened following public statements made by top government officials suggesting an official policy to ruthlessly deal with suspected Mungiki members and other criminals. During Madaraka day celebrations on June 1, 2007, President Mwai Kibaki warned that Mungiki sect members should expect no mercy. Two days later, on June 3, 2007, about three hundred suspected Mungiki members were arrested and at least twenty killed when they were reportedly caught administering oaths to recruits. After this incident, Michuki publicly remarked that The Mungiki! Indeed, on 20/9/07, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon Raphael Tuju,during the Loius Otieno Live program on Citizen TV, said that For the past few months, up to people were killed because they were Mungiki . The KNC(R is in possession of the TV clip of Minister Tuju making the admission, which was transmitted live. Clearly, these acts these acts were ordered, directed or coordinated by the top leadership of the Kenya Police acting jointly with a common purpose. comes shortly after the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights linked police to the execution-style deaths of nearly 500 Mungiki in a crackdown on the sect carried out over the last five months. The police on their side claimed that rival camps of the criminals are responsible. So far, no one has been arrested and charged with these executions neither has any investigation been launched by the government to establish who, how, where and why these Kenyans were executed. Ojijo It 137 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The KNCHR had compiled at least three hundred names of persons who have either been killed or disappeared. Additionally, there are at least two hundred other persons whose identity the KNCHR was unable to establish since they were merely booked in mortuaries as unknown. Many of these bodies were subsequently disposed by the respective mortuary authorities after they remained unclaimed by their relatives for long. The Mungiki! 138 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Ojijo The Mungiki! MUNGIKI IN EXILE Many former Mungiki members are believed to have fled the country seeking asylum, as the sect does not allow defection; all initiates have to swear a standard oath ending with the words "May I die if I desert or reveal our secrets." There were also many cases of forced initiation which went up significantly after the 2007 presidential elections Ojijo 139 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Most of them ran to Uganda, which has an almost open border policy with Kenya, and which country s inhabitants are very friendly to foreigners. Further, given that the Mungiki were mainly youths, they easily went across the border on the excuse of going to seek education, after all, Uganda is known to have the highest number of east African youths seeking education from other east African countries. The Mungiki! part 3: the saints Ojijo 140 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Their ethnic religious movement that abhors prostitution, immorality, adultery and social injustice. The Mungiki! A DIVINE CALL One of its leaders, Maina Njenga, claims he had a vision from God (Ngai) commanding him to unite the Kikuyu and fight foreign ideologies. And before that, his father also stated that Mungili was a call by their traditional God, Ngai, to lead the Kikuyu back to their traditional practices, and to God. Initially, the Mungiki used to wear dreadlocks, reminiscent of the style of the Mau Mau, but when the police cracked down on them, it was an easy sell-away, and so they changed. The movement, which apparently originated in the late 1980s, is secretive and bares some similarity to mystery religions. What is clear is that they favor a return to indigenous African traditions. They reject Westernisation and all things that they believe to be trappings of colonialism, including Christianity. Ojijo Most prayers were held in natural settings, near sacred forests and rivers, dams, and gorges; though there has also been large ceremonies held in urban centres, including in markets. One such market was Ngara Market, and Wakulima market. 141 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! It despises Christianity as a colonial religion and often targets Christian missionaries for attacks and murders. They worship their own god, Ngai, and pray facing Moutn Kenya, which they call Mount. Kirinyaga, and where they believe their God dwells. A key practice of the Mungiki is the use of snuff, which has been likened in significance to the Christian Holy Communion. The Mungiki! religious rituals Their holy communion is tobacco-sniffing, their hairstyle that of the Mau Mau dreadlocks and the origin of the sect is still shrouded in mystery. mungiki oath All initiates have to swear a standard oath ending with the words "May I die if I desert or reveal our secrets." Every member who joins slits his right thumb with a knife and drained blood into a cup, where it mingled with the blood of other fellow recruits. They each took a swallow. They bathe in blood and urine, sniff bhang, smear themselves with oil , and pray to Mount Kenya the home of their God, Ngai and see themselves as the defenders of the poor and the liberators of the nation. prayer The Mungiki became the morality police, and the Kikuyu culture vanguards. The mungiki have always beaten Kenyan women for 'unAfrican' behaviour. They arrogate themselves the role of moral, dress, and cultural policemen. Dictating what other people should or should not wear. When the British colonisers came to Africa, there were those amongst them who claimed to be on a mission to "civilise" the Ojijo morality police 142 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! They pray as they face Mount Kenya, which they believe to be the home of their God, known as Ngai. The Mungiki! natives. If we are to take this part of the colonial mission at face value, then it is clear the colonialists failed in this mission too. Mungiki members promote traditional Kikuyu practices, including female genital mutilation. Followers of the Mungiki sect have been shown on national television stripping naked and whipping women in a Nairobi slums for "unAfrican" behaviour. And the women members of the sect accompany their fellow Mungiki males, and triumphantly wave the offending clothing in the air. Women in Kenya held demonstrations in various towns, requesting the government to take strong action to protect them after a group of young men started assaulting women wearing trousers, stripping them naked. Ojijo The members of the sect take an oath not to take alcohol, or drugs. They only sniff tobacco, and smear on themselves oil. 143 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! the no drug no alcohol philosophy The Mungiki! RELIGIOUS REBIRTH From the start, Mungiki emphasised traditional Kikuyu religious beliefs, according to which there is one god, Ngai. However, following Mungiki s expansion, increased influence and the intensified targeting of Mungiki members by the authorities, the organisation became more flexible with regards to religious traditions. new born agains! After his release Mr. Njenga, the former sect chairman, denounced the sect and declared that he was now a born-again Christian. "I had a very good time [in jail] to study the Bible that is why now I will come to you like a professor of the Bible," he told a big church service. However, there has been a great deal of skepticism about Mr. Njenga's change of heart as other Mungiki leaders have publicly converted to Christianity in the past, but have remained involved in the gang. Further, during the burial of his wife, the sect members attended, in their dreadlocks, and suits with dark shades, a group of over 3000 young people. Ojijo "All other people that believe I am their chairman must also follow my example. They should now come to the church and start receiving salvation. "This is not time of bringing chaos," he said. 144 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Hundreds of Mungiki followers were in the church, easily identifiable by their characteristic dreadlocks. The Mungiki! The members have changed their attire and that most of them have shaved their dreadlocks. Some members are now wearing Akorino sect turbans. He noted that the Government had all it requires to round up the sect members, have them taken to court and resolve the matter once and for all. Members of the controversial Mungiki religious sect want to uphold the traditional values of the Ojijo hiding behind akorino sect 145 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Shortly after Njenga s release from gaol in October 2009, Mungiki spokesman Gitau was murdered in Nairobi whilst carrying a list of Mungiki victims of police shootings. It is argued that the killing could have served as a warning to Njenga that he may suffer a similar fate. Njenga subsequently renounced violence and became a born-again Christian. He was baptised in a public ceremony by Bishop Margaret Wanjiru, a member of parliament for Starehe and the leader of the Jesus is Alive Ministries. In early 2010, Njenga publicly declared that the Mungiki ―had made a new beginning by embracing Christianity, and that ―Mungiki has turned over a new leaf as preachers of peace and harmony. Njenga has also announced his ambitions to convert the Mungiki s millions of followers to join the church, admitting that ―he had misled them in the past. In late 2010, local news reports stated that Njenga had left the Jesus is Alive Ministries and joined the Amazing Grace International church. The Mungiki! Kikuyu ethnic group, and support female circumcision. islamising the sect In June, 2000, about 100 members of the sect were said to be taking Islamic lessons in Nakuru Town. A Muslim cleric said he had supplied them with 5,000 booklets on Islam. Ojijo 146 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! In September 2000, twelve leaders and up to 300 members of the sect were reported to have converted to Islam following an elaborate oneweek initiation ceremony at Eastleigh, Nairobi. A group of the sect's followers attacked a police station in Murang'a and stole a gun from an officer on duty. The officer later died from wounds suffered during the attack. Police recovered the gun later. The Mungiki! POLITICAL REBIRTH Further, Mungiki has communicated its increasing political ambitions regarding the general elections in 2012, and claims to address the poor s political dissatisfaction. Ojijo However, The Daily Nation reported in March 2010 that ―[c]ontrary to the popular belief that the sect is no more, the sect has transformed itself and is now operating as a cartel, which controls economic activities in [parts of the Central Province] In addition, various recent sources indicate that the Mungiki continue to recruit members and extort protection money from matatu operators and residents of Nairobi slums. The Standard reported in February 2010 that ―[a]lthough [Njenga] insists Mungiki as we knew it — the murderous, snuff taking, oathtaking gang — is no more, the organisation 147 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The Mungiki officially announced its disbanding, and transformation into a political movement, in October 2009. A spokesman for the Mungiki, Njuguna Gitau, stated that ―the Mungiki no longer exist and that former members had joined political party the Kenya National Youth Alliance (KNYA). Mungiki leader and chairman of the KNYA, Maina Njenga, similarly stated that ―ours is now a political party and we are ready to accommodate all the people. The Mungiki! remains intact and evidently fiercely loyal to Njenga. Former Mungiki sect leader Maina Njenga has strongly refuted claims linking him to be Prime Minister Raila Odindga Project in the forth coming General election where he has also express interest for the top job in the hill. The self proclaimed youth leader and a man of cloth has said a section of leaders from mount Kenya were going around spreading rumours that he Ojijo Prime Minister Raila Odinga joined former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga in campaigning for the Mkenya Solidarity candidate for the Kangema by-election. It was during the well-attended rally that Maina hinted he was ready to work with the PM. Raila had previously chastised Mungiki group accusing them of perpetrating grave and heinous crimes but it is now politically expedient for the Prime Minister to court Mungiki adherents later for his own selfish political mileage. Politicians are in the business of numbers and more often than not, the end always justifies their means! 148 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! Njenga is also reportedly establishing a new career as a mainstream politician. )n addition, Njenga s fundraising abilities and large number of followers have attracted support from leading politicians. Njenga s political aspirations have sparked allegations that his conversion to Christianity is merely for political gain. The Mungiki! Ojijo 149 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! was someones project refering to the Prime Minister because of their close relationship. Maina said his quest to become the next President of Kenya was to help the normal Mwanainchi, adding that only good leadership will enslave this country from the chains of corruption that have been there since time in memorial. Maina Njenga is vying for a presidential seat through Mkenya Solidarity Movement. He took over as the leader of the party from G.G Kariuki moments after Kariuki declared that Mkenya Solidarity Movement will back Uhuru Kenyatta s presidential bid. Ojijo 150 The Mungiki - Three Sides of the Same Coin! The Mungiki! the mungiki oppressors, victims, saints

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