From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2012
John Njoroge Michuki is dead, but no one has ever asked why he was removed by President Mwai Kibaki from Internal Security to Minister for Roads and Public Works shortly he had issued a ‘Shoot-to- Kill Order’ against the out-lawed Mungiki sect in 2008. He directed the police while he served as the Minister for Internal Security.
Inset- from left to right- late Michuki-Mungiki leader Maina Njenga- School children caught in the centre of 2008 post election violence/ File
Although it could be argued that he was moved to another ministry after Human Rights groups condemned the order citing that it contravened both the Police Act and general Human Rights guaranteed by the constitution, report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, or arbitrary executions by Mr. Philip Alston can tell a lot.
Faces of sorrow and sympathy as these people including the child on your right look at the dead during the post election violence/ File
The Special Rapporteur visited Kenya from 16-25 February 2009 in order: to ascertain the types and causes of unlawful killings; to investigate whether those responsible for such killings are held to account; and to propose constructive measures to reduce the incidence of killings and impunity.
Although the main focus was on killings by the police, violence in the Mt Elgon District, and killings in the post-election period, there were many such criminal groups, but the Mungiki became particularly prominent. It suggests that Mungiki were used to play a special role in post election violence.
It would mean that the Michuki shoot to kill order was going to interfere with that special role. That is why, even though in many slums in and around Nairobi, there have historically been high levels of insecurity caused by Mungiki they were not comprehended.
Police using excessive force on innocent people during the post election violence/ File
Probably because in the early 1990s when the Mungiki, initially a cultural-religious movement, began providing security and basic services in slums, today, the Mungiki are responsible for a large number of crimes, including murder.
According to the report, even though the Government has a clear obligation to protect citizens from Mungiki and other criminal violence, during Philip’s mission, he received compelling evidence that death squads – including one called Kwekwe – 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.
Detailed evidence was provided by civil society investigations, 13 witnesses to the squad’s activities, survivors of attempted killings, family members of deceased or disappeared victims, and victim autopsy reports indicating shots at close range and back entry wounds.
A further key component of this evidence is the now public testimony of a police whistleblower, who recorded his statement in July 2008, before he was murdered while in hiding in October 2008.
His account according to the report provides, in precise and often excruciating, detail the composition and operations of the death squad in which he was a part, and the circumstances of the murder of 67 persons between February 2007 and July 2008.
Together, this evidence implicates the Commissioner of Police, and senior police officials from the Criminal Investigation Division, Special homes of suspected Mungiki members. Two matatu drivers were subsequently murdered.
The police carrying out the operations (those driving the vehicles and committing the murders) are generally ordered by senior police to pick up a specified individual at a particular location (often his home, workplace, or a road on which he is believed to be traveling).
Interviews were conducted with Government officials, representatives of civil society, and victims and witnesses, in five of the eight administrative provinces or areas in Kenya, as well as with officials of United Nations agencies and members of the diplomatic community. Over 100 lengthy witness interviews were conducted.
The Special Rapporteur concluded that police in Kenya frequently execute individuals and that a climate of impunity prevails. Most troubling is the existence of police death squads operating on the orders of senior police officials and charged with eliminating suspected leaders and members of criminal organizations.
Since then mysterious killings took place. On March 9, 2009 lawyer Oscar King’ara, the founder and director of an NGO known as Oscar Foundation, and Programme Coordinator John Paul Oulo were shot dead by unknown assailants.
Although they were killed only hours after Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua had told a news conference that the Foundation was Mungiki’s fundraising wing, an alleged Mungiki spokesman David Gitau Njuguna said he wanted to reveal the activities of the organisation to the media.
On 13 April 2008, Mungiki leader Maina Njenga’s wife and a driver were killed mysteriously. This was after Michuki had been removed from Internal Security ministry. Mungiki has been presented as a militia that enjoyed State goodwill to commit murder and other bloody crimes in January 2008.
When Mr Njuguna Gitau Njuguna of Mungiki’s political wing was killed after he was confronted by three unknown assailants in Nairobi’s Luthuli Avenue, their leader, Maina Njenga, was by then serving a jail term of five years at Naivasha Maximum Security Prison for being in possession of an illegal firearm.
Mr. Njuguna Gitau Njuguna was the brain behind the idea of turning Mungiki into a political party and he had a nice name for it (KENYA) which stands for Kenya Youth Alliance. He was a university graduate and a close friend of Paul Muite and Maina Kiai and other anti status-quo fellows.
Njuguga had previously organized a conference at the Limuru Conference Center that was well attended. The theme of the conference was to examine ways to effect a generational change in leadership arguing that the same old guard had been in charge of Kenya since independence.
Maina Njenga recently complained that Mungiki was bitter because they had from time to time been used and dumped by Central province leaders. Njenga had complained to police about suspicious cars that have been trailing him on the road and to his Nairobi and Kitengela residences, with some of the occupants leaving messages they wanted to talk to him.
Meanwhile, Michuki’s fear for Raila to become the president was not because he hated him, but because Odinga would feel compelled to avenge the murders of slain Luos Tom Mboya, an independence-era leader believed to have been killed by a Kikuyu, and Robert Ouko, a Moi-era foreign minister believed to have been murdered by Kalenjin.
According to Michuki Odinga would be pressured to avenge these deaths not only against the individual perpetrators, but against entire communities. So his fear was to protect his community from being avenged.
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