Kenya: Vigilantes Unleashed
By Edoardo Totolo for ISN
Violence in Kenya has been on the rise for decades. As the state fails to provide protection to citizens, security and the instrument of violence fall into the hands of non-state actors - either organizations of armed vigilantes employed by communities, or mafia-style gangs that become 'states inside the state' in areas where government institutions are completely lacking, such as the slums of Nairobi.
Most security groups started as a natural reaction to lawlessness and growing insecurity among the people; but they quickly turned into a menace to Kenyan society. Vigilante groups have not refrained from killing and torturing suspects with crude weapons. Local newspapers have also reported murders of women accused of witchcraft, violent extortion practices and forceful recruitment of youths inside the groups.
The root causes for this informalization of security are very deep and involve many historical and socio-economic factors. But in particular, this phenomenon is related to the fact that rising criminality levels are affecting the everyday lives of the entire population, with no distinction between classes.
From the richest neighborhoods of Nairobi to the poorest rural towns, Kenyans have to cope with the lack of effective state presence and seek out alternative forms of protection. Rich citizens largely make use of external pageprivate security companies (PSC) to patrol their streets and protect their properties, while the poor come up with more inventive do-it-yourself solutions.
Rising vigilante violence
The problem of external pagevigilantism is well-known in Kenya; indeed, it has appeared in various forms and locations over the past two decades. It reached a peak during the post-election violence in January 2008, when informal gangs from all corners of the country fought against each other, resulting in over 1,000 deaths.
Names that have appeared in the news in the past years are the external pageKisungusungu and Chinkororo, which gained power and considerable popular support in Nyanza Province (Western Kenya); the Sabaot Land Defence Force in Mount Elgon; the Taliban and the Baghdad Boys in the slums of Nairobi; and the Kalenjin Warriors in Eldoret. Even though the groups vary wildly in terms of ethnic composition and relation to local communities, they can all be considered the product of the weakness of the Kenyan state to enforce the law and deal with the needs of the local population .
The violence reached a critical level again in April this year, when some 2,000 members of a vigilante group in Kirinyaga and Nyeri districts (central Kenya) launched a campaign against the rising level of criminality in the area. In particular, a group called 'The Hague' began to actively fight the expansion of the Mungiki: a large mafia-style network that was imposing 'taxes' on local residents and businesses.
Reciting the slogan “Mungiki Must Die” and armed with machetes and clubs, the angry vigilante mob combed several towns in the Kirinyaga district with the support of local communities; many ordinary citizens gave economic contributions to the raiders and many participated directly in the violence.
Moses Njagih, a journalist for Kenyan newspaper external pageThe Standard, told ISN Security Watch that 19 people have been killed since the violence started last month. He said also that local police were “initially in favor of the vigilante violence.”
The local police, in fact, followed the convoy of vigilantes while they were perpetrating the violence. A senior police officer external pagetold a local reporter that he supported the violence because “If we kill any of the Mungiki people, we are accused of extra-judiciary killings. So yes, it is working for us.”
These words clearly reveal that the police have accepted the hand-over of part of their law-enforcement responsibilities to a group of ordinary citizens seeking retaliation against criminals, because vigilantes can easily avoid the 'nuisance' of human rights organizations.
There have been no arrests and or serious investigation into the violence. However, after local media and human rights organizations reported the incident, the government quickly announced that vigilante groups must stop their raids and let the police resume their duties.
Protectors and parasites
The recent explosion of brutality in central Kenya between The Hague and the Mungiki shows that the distinction between a vigilante group and a criminal gang can be extremely blurry. But from the point of view of local communities, the distinction is much clearer: Whereas vigilantes aim to defend the interests of a community against delinquents, gangs are parasitic groups extracting money and resources from communities for their own benefit.
Nevertheless, numerous cases in Kenya have shown that vigilante groups tend to turn against their own communities when they become more established in the territory and gain economic and political power. The Mungiki are a suitable example.
Even though the group is now considered the most brutal criminal gang in the country, it seemed to pursue good causes when first established in the 1980s. The group claimed to be fighting lawlessness in the slums of Nairobi and providing security to people and property of the Kikuyu tribe due to the neglect of the 'corrupt state.' Initially, the Mungiki were welcome in the slums, as they provided some basic services such as access to water and electricity.
However, eventually the group turned into a mafia-style gang, enforcing the payment of 'protection fees' to all slum-dwellers and imposing taxes on micro-scale businesses. Similar evolutions happened with many of the vigilante groups mentioned above.
Crisis of justice
The recent escalation of violence confirms once again the necessity for radical reform of the country’s justice and security systems, which have been advocated by numerous human rights organizations, donors and the international community at large.
The call for reforms has been recently voiced also by high-ranking government officials. Kenyan Justice Minister Martha Karua resigned at the beginning of April, stating that the coalition government had no serious plans to design effective reforms to tackle the culture of impunity.
“If my hands are tied and the judiciary continues to be used as a place where people sacked from parastatals are recycled, the agenda is forestalled and all reforms are annihilated, then I better leave,” external pagesaidKarua.
Nonetheless, President Mwai Kibaki has maintained his optimism on the capacity of the state police to provide security throughout the country, external pagestating that “the government has continued to provide police officers with modern equipment, including vehicles and other operation tools to enable them to discharge their duties efficiently and effectively.”
If that is truly the case, it is not clear why vigilantism and the informalization of security are on the rise across the Kenya.