Locked in a war with Kenya's police

Kenyans live in silent fear of gang

By C. Bryson Hull

KAMACHARIA, Kenya (Reuters) - Locked in a war with Kenya's police, the Mungiki criminal gang has already spread enough fear and violence to have made its name the word that is not spoken aloud in Kenya's fertile highlands.
Since March, Mungiki has killed dozens of people in an escalating fight with President Mwai Kibaki's government, which has vowed to wipe it out. They have left behind severed heads and mutilated genitals as a warning to any who dare oppose them.

For many in the villages and towns stretching from the capital Nairobi to the foothills of Mount Kenya, it is a warning they have heeded during more than a decade of living with Mungiki's seemingly omnipresent menace.

"When you stopped the car, we wanted to run," one retired teacher told a Reuters reporter in Kamacharia, a small coffee-growing village about 120 km (75 miles) north of Nairobi in the heartland of the Kikuyu tribe, Kenya's largest.

Like all those interviewed for this story, the woman refused to give her name for fear of retaliation.

"We live in fear. Even now, we are fearing speaking to you. There is so much fear that people have imposed a curfew on themselves," she said in a hushed tone.

"That's why you see all these people rushing home," she said, keeping a wary eye on those walking by in the gathering dusk.

Police patrols have intensified and extra officers have been posted to Mungiki strongholds in central Kenya.

But that has not given much comfort.

In her best classroom voice, the local woman reprimanded a reporter for using the word Mungiki in a question.

Others gave another stark warning -- do not talk to anyone except police in Kiria-ini town up the road.
'YOUR HEAD WILL GO'
The powerful gang has been blamed for an intensifying wave of violence since March that has unsettled many Kenyans who fear the group plans to take an active and violent role in elections later this year.

Mungiki began as a quasi-religious movement pushing a return to traditional Kikuyu ways, and adopted trappings from the largely Kikuyu Mau Mau guerrillas who fought British colonizers in the lush highlands in the 1950s.
Police and security experts say it has since metamorphosed into Kenya's biggest organized crime group, running protection rackets and hiring muscle to unscrupulous politicians.
"The politicians are in the government and also the ones opposing them. They just want to destabilize this government of Kibaki's," the former teacher said.

Another woman in Kamacharia said: "Mungiki is not anything that is religious, it is just our poor young men who have been made mad by the money the politicians give them."

Experts have no consensus on the gang's membership but suspect is in the tens of thousands. The gang claims millions, but few believe that

Security officials say the gang has been especially good at organizing into cells, with clear hierarchies and training from retired police and military officers hired for that reason

In Kiria-ini, Mungiki members move silently among the many matatus -- minibuses -- running to and from Nairobi, from which they extort daily fees ranging from 100-400 Kenya shillings (about $1.51), matatu owners say.
Not paying is not an option.

"If you don't adhere, your head will go," one owner said.
With the daily money from matatus, the nation's lucrative transport lifeline, Mungiki has plenty of freedom to compromise police officers and politicians -- and to arm themselves.
Matatu owners and government officials, speaking privately, say it is common knowledge that the entire collection of fees around Nairobi on Sundays was taken to a senior police officer.
"Mungiki are just thugs. This is not politics," the Nairobi matatu owner said.

Whatever they are, the reputation of Mungiki is enough to scare even those who have not rubbed shoulders with them.

Women selling fruits and vegetables in Kamuru, a village close to the Mungiki stronghold of Muranga 90 km (55.92 miles) north of Nairobi, said they had so far avoided the threat.

"We are very strong believers and we know God will protect us from those murderers," one said.

"But we are still very, very afraid."