Dilemmas of Crime, Human Rights and The Politics of Mungiki Violence in Kenya

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Dilemmas of Crime, Human Rights and the Politics of Mungiki Violence in

Kenya
Article in SSRN Electronic Journal · August 2009

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.1462685
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Dilemmas of Crime, Human
Rights and the Politics of
Mungiki Violence in Kenya
By Mutuma Ruteere
2008
Kenya Human Rights Institute
PO Box 41079 00100
Nairobi, KENYA
Email: admin@khrc.or.ke
ISBN 9966-941-50-9
About the Author

Mutuma Ruteere holds a PhD in political science from the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln, USA, with a specialisation in human rights. He has published journal articles,
book chapters, policy reports and commentaries on human rights. He is the founding
Dean, Kenya Human Rights Institute and teaches courses on international politics
and human rights.
Acknowledgements
I have accumulated numerous debts in the course of my research for this paper. Some
individuals who spoke to me requested anonymity and will remain so. Nevertheless, I
thank them for their insights. I am also indebted to panelists at the Annual Mid-West
Political Science Association Conference, in Chicago (USA), April 7—10, 2005, where
a first version of this paper was presented. Thanks to panelists and participants at a
September 18, 2008 forum in Nairobi who offered a critique of a draft of the paper. In
particular, thanks to the panelists, Grace Wamue, Muthoni Wanyeki, Godwin Murunga,
Musambayi Katumanga and Margaret Gecaga who offered incisive comments and
suggestions. I am also grateful to the following for their written comments and
suggestions: Willy Mutunga, Wambui Kimathi, Michael Chege, Prisca Kamungi, Marie
Pommerolle, Wangeci Chege, Renaud Detaulle and Njuguna Mutahi. Thanks also to
Ken Ouko, Karuti Kanyinga, Mutahi Ngunyi, Nahashon Gacheke, Herve Maupeu, Patrick
Mutahi, Munga Gathogo, Lumumba Odenda and Kamanda Mucheke for many insights.
Mikewa Ogada read and made comments on several drafts of the paper. Thanks to
Urgent Action Fund-Africa and its Executive Director Kaari Murungi for supporting the
convening of the September 2008 forum to discuss the paper. Anthony Otiende, an
intern at the Kenya Human Rights Institute offered invaluable research assistance as
did Edward Mghanga of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. Thanks to amanya for
invaluable suggestions and design.
Contents
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ iii
1.0: Introduction................................................................................................................... 1
2.0: Unveiling the Portraits of the Mungiki.........................................................................6
3.0: Mungiki Politics in the NARC Years............................................................................. 17
4.0: Mungiki and the Post-Elections Violence................................................................... 22
5.0: Criminal Violence and the Challenge for Human Rights............................................26
6.0: Towards a Human Rights Politics of Crime and Violence.......................................... 31
References..........................................................................................................................36
“I felt that Bigger, an American product, a native son of this land, carried within him the
potentialities of either Communism or Fascism. I don’t mean to say that the Negro boy
I depicted in Native Son is either a Communist or a Fascist. He is not either. But he is a
product of a dislocated society; he is a dispossessed and disinherited man; he is all of this,
and he lives amid the greatest possible plenty on earth and he is looking and feeling for a
way out. Whether he’ll follow some gaudy, hysterical leader who’ll promise rashly to fill
the void in him, or whether he’ll come to an understanding with the millions of his kindred
fellow workers under trade-union or revolutionary guidance depends upon the future drift
of events in America. But granting the emotional state, the tensity, the fear, the hate, the
impatience, the sense of exclusion, the ache for violent action, the emotional and cultural
hunger, Bigger Thomas, conditioned as his organism is, will not become an ardent, or even
a lukewarm supporter of the status quo.
Richard Wright, “Introduction,” Native Son.
1.0: Introduction
The outbreak of violence following the disputed December 2007 General Elections
in Kenya, thrust the Mungiki movement into the centre-stage of the discourses on
violence. The first wave of violence swept over the Western, Nyanza, Rift Valley,
Coast and Nairobi provinces, principally targeting communities viewed as having
voted for President Mwai Kibaki and his Party of National Unity (PNU). The second
wave of violence in parts of Rift Valley and Central provinces was retaliatory and
saw attacks and displacement of communities viewed as supporters of the Orange
Democratic Movement (ODM) and its leader Raila Odinga. In this second wave
of violence, there were widespread allegations that Mungiki members had been
mobilized by PNU leaders and deployed in Nakuru and Naivasha towns of Rift Valley
province to attack members of the ODM.1
These allegations, some by human rights groups added to the complexity of
the interpretations of the politics and nature of the Mungiki movement. Human
rights groups that had staunchly denounced the police crackdown on Mungiki
1 On such allegations, also see United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report
from OHCHR Fact-Finding Mission to Kenya 6—28 February 2008 (Geneva: 2008), p.14; Human Rights
Watch (HRW), Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya’s Crisis of Governance (New York:
2008), pp. 43—51; International Crisis Group, Kenya in Crisis Africa Report No. 137 (February 2008), pp.
17—23; See also, “Activists: Kenyan violence orchestrated” Associated Press, January 12, 2008.
1
2 Dilemmas of Crime, Human Rights and the Politics of Mungiki Violence in Kenya
members in most of 2007 were now denouncing the group for alleged involvement
in post-election violence.
Mungiki Violence and the Human Rights Agenda

Long before the 2007—2008 post-elections violence, Mungiki was already in the
centre-stage of public discourses on crime and human rights. In March 2007, the
Mungiki movement which had long history of confrontations with the Kenyan
police exploded back into the news with attacks on public service vehicle (Matatu)
drivers and touts. The attacks were reportedly sparked off by the Matatu operators’
objection to the increased daily “protection fee” they had been paying to Mungiki
members. The attacks and counterattacks intensified with Mungiki adding a new
signature to their attacks in the form of macabre beheadings of Matatu drivers and
touts in the capital Nairobi and parts of Central Province of Kenya. The violence
associated with the movement, provoked widespread public panic and generated
pressure on the police to contain the killings. In response, the police force adopted
strong policing tactics with the Minister for Internal Security declaring that the
police would use lethal force against suspected Mungiki members.
Alarmed by the police response, human rights groups denounced what they saw
as arbitrary use of force and extrajudicial executions in the name of crime control.
However, human rights groups found themselves at odds with public sentiments
that saw the police action as necessary to contain the Mungiki activities. To the
public, the Mungiki were the villains and the police the heroes in the morality tale of
criminal violence. Consequently, human rights groups and human rights advocates
became the subject of denunciatory commentary in the media by a crime-weary
public. In other words the human rights discourse on crime as espoused by human
rights groups and the public discourse on crime found themselves in conflict.
Discordance between public sentiments and the principled positions of human
rights advocates is not particularly new. In many places in the world, human rights
gains have been made in the face of stiff popular opposition. For the Kenyan
human rights groups however, popular opposition to their positions is a largely
new territory having historically linked their work to popular democratic struggles.2
This discordance calls for careful analysis and explanation.
2 Throughout the 1990s, human rights groups played a vanguard role in the popular struggle for
democratization in Kenya. In this, much of their discourse on rights was in tandem with the popular
Dilemmas of Crime, Human Rights and the Politics of Mungiki Violence in Kenya 3
Secondly, Mungiki’s violent tactics contrasted sharply with the expansion of

democratic freedoms and the marked improvement in the human rights situation
in the country.3 For human rights groups that invested most of the 1990s working
for political democracy, the emergence of armed groups whose activities appear
to undermine the entire reform project is a puzzle that needs unraveling. If indeed
the human rights situation has improved as various reports suggest, why have
these groups chosen to follow the path of confrontation with the law rather than
take advantage of the new institutional avenues to redress their grievances? In
particular, why hasn’t the Mungiki movement, previously explained as a voice of
marginalized youths, taken advantage of the opening up of the political and legal
environment to advance their interests but instead chosen to use violence? Third,
how do we reconcile Mungiki’s twin identities as victims and perpetrators of human Human rights
rights violations? groups found
This study is therefore concerned with three principal questions: First, the themselves at
divergence between the public discourse on crime in Kenya and the human rights odds with public
groups’ discourse on rights? Second, why have groups like Mungiki proliferated in sentiments that
spite of the legal and institutional reforms and expansion in democratic freedoms saw police action
and human rights? Third, how should human rights groups respond to criminal as necessary to
violence while remaining true to their human rights ideals? contain Mungiki
Angelina Godoy has posed these same questions in her research on crime and activities.
human rights in Guatemala4. In her groundbreaking research, Godoy has argued
that the rule-of-law approach to crime common to most international justice reform
initiatives in Latin America, and one might add in other developing countries,
“depoliticizes crime, taking it largely at face value as a naturally occurring fact.”5
In this view, crime is “exogenous” to the political system and can be fixed through
institutional reforms, professionalization of law and order institutions and the
criminal justice system. Far from it however, in Godoy’s view, crime is not merely “a
discourses on political reforms. See, Willy Mutunga, Constitution Making from the Middle: Civil Society
and Transition politics in Kenya 1992—1997 (Nairobi: SAREAT/MWENGO, 1999).
3 While Kenya had its worst experience of political violence in 2007—2008, the previous years had
witnessed a steady improvement of the human rights situation.
4 Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Popular Injustice: Violence, Community, and Law in Latin America (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2006). I am intellectually indebted to Angelina Snodgrass Godoy for many
of the insights on the connections between crime and human rights. As references to her published
works in this paper attest, her pioneering work has greatly influenced my study of Mungiki and the
intersection of crime and human rights.
5 Ibid, 13.
technical question of the maladministration of justice” but an integral part of the

interaction between law and politics in contexts of “extreme polarization.”6
Godoy’s study of the phenomenon of communal lynchings (mano dura)
in Guatemala seeks to resolve the puzzle as to why otherwise, law and rights-
respecting individuals would willingly participate in the spectacle. The replacement
of state violence by the violence of non-state actors appeared to contradict the
expectations of the advocates of democratization in Latin America. Godoy’s
research critically interrogates the common-sense conclusions that lynchings were
the result of the weaknesses in law enforcement by the state or a resurgence of
Discussion on primordialism. Instead, Godoy suggests that we should re-examine the tensions
the Mungiki between political liberalization and economic exclusion in impoverished and
movement and radically unequal societies. In such contexts, crime may actually be a commentary
other similar on the character and quality of the life and society.7
groups in Godoy’s research offers an apt theoretical preface to the study of Mungiki
Kenya, remains activities in Kenya where the rule-of-law approach in response to the group’s
stuck on the activities has been favored by both the state and human rights groups. Beyond,
weaknesses and a few scholarly papers and the occasional newspaper commentary, discussion on
failures of the the Mungiki movement and the activities of other similar groups in Kenya, remains
law enforcement stuck on the weaknesses and failures of the law enforcement response. If the
response. reports of Mungiki’s involvement in the 2008 post-election violence are credible,
however, then it is evident that this approach has failed to effectively cripple the
activities of the group.
This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on criminal violence and human
rights in Kenya through a study of the Mungiki movement. It builds on the theoretical
insights generated by Angelina Godoy’s work on crime and violence in Guatemala
and the research data gathered through interviews, scholarly writings on Mungiki,
perspectives from peer critique forums and the public discussion in Kenya on crime
and violence. Like Godoy, I am interested in the interaction between law and crime
in my attempt to explain the construction of the subaltern and the rebel in Kenya.
This interaction should be of interest to the theorists working in the field of human
rights, the human rights advocate seeking to stop and prevent violations as well as
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid, 35, 36.
the state security officials frustrated by the persistence of crime and the activities
of armed groups such as Mungiki.
This paper is in divided into six parts. Part one provides a general introduction
and also sets out the questions that the paper seeks to answer. Parts two, three
and four are a critical analysis of the interpretations and changing identities
of Mungiki and a re-interpretation of the meanings of its activities. I revisit the
dilemmas posed by the discourses of rights and crime in part five while in part six
I link these dilemmas to the study of Mungiki violence. In this last part, I also offer
some modest suggestions on a research agenda on criminal violence and
human rights in Kenya.
2.0: Unveiling the Portraits of the Mungiki
The Mungiki movement crept into public attention in Kenya in 1992 through press
reports of arrests and prosecution of youths for illegal oath taking against the
government of then President Daniel arap Moi. Within a short time, reports emerged
of gruesome torture of Mungiki members by the police prompting criticism of the
government by domestic and international human rights groups.8 By the end of
the 1990s, the Mungiki movement had gained public prominence with its members
involved in regular confrontations with the Kenyan police. Moreover, Mungiki had
also acquired a more sinister reputation for brutal murders in the slums of Nairobi
city and its outlying districts.9
By the time of the 2002 general elections, the movement had gained sufficient
strength to stake a strong claim in the national politics with its leadership oscillating
between political accommodation with the government and support for the
opposition. With the retirement of President Daniel arap Moi and the defeat of his
ruling party Kenya African National Union (KANU) by a coalition of parties led by
Mwai Kibaki in the December 2002 elections, the Mungiki movement appeared to
have temporarily ran out of steam.10 The lull in the group’s activities however proved
to be merely temporary. The Mungiki was yet again in the news towards the end
of 2006 and in most of 2007 with reports of its regular and violent confrontations
with police and Matatu owners, drivers and touts. There were also credible media
reports that the movement had steadily extended its control over the slum areas
of Nairobi where its presence continued to be publicly felt mostly through violent
attacks attributed to its members.11
8 The harassment and torture of Mungiki members attracted the attention of groups such as the
Kenya Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International who initiated campaigns on behalf of
the victims.
9 Mungiki’s penchant for violent confrontation with the police and its apparently gratuitous violence
on residents of Nairobi’s slum areas has attracted wide coverage and condemnation in Kenyan and
international press.
10 Officials of the new government were quoted in the Kenyan press as having worked out an agreement
with Mungiki to keep peace in return for government’s non-interference in their peaceful activities.
Mike Mwaniki, “700 Mungiki Surrender,” Daily Nation, March 12, 2003.
11 Michael Mugwanga, “Thousands Flee Their Homes as Slum Death Toll Goes Up,” Daily Nation,
November 9, 2006; Stephen Muiruri, “Mungiki Bounces Back With a Bang,” Daily Nation, November
11, 2006; Dominic Wabala, “Mungiki Members Raid Police Post,” The Standard Tom Odula and Dominic
Wabala, “Mungiki Men Slash Six People in Nairobi Streets,” East African Standard, January 20, 2003;
“The Mungiki Government,” Sunday Nation, February 4, 2007; Dominic Wabala, “States Within a
State: How Organised Gangs Rule the City Estates With Impunity,” Sunday Nation, November 12,
6
In the second half of 2007, media accounts continued to point to a growing

influence of the movement in the control of the management of basic services such
as water and security in slum settlements in Nairobi.12 The group’s involvement in
the December 20007 electoral process appears insignificant. It will be remembered
that by the end of 2007, the group’s leadership was on the run following a fierce
crackdown by the police. However, allegations of the group’s involvement in the
post-elections violence surfaced in the early part of 2008 and soon after, the police
resumed their crackdown on the group. A number of the group’s leaders were By the time of
executed in 2008 and the controversy persists as to who was responsible for these the 2002 general
executions. elections, the
movement had
The Portraits of a Movement gained sufficient
The term Mungiki is derived from the Gikuyu word Muingi which translates strength to
into masses or people.13 There is a consensus among scholars that the Mungiki stake a claim
movement started sometime in 1987.14 According to founding leaders, Mungiki in the national
traces its birth to dreams experienced by two schoolboys, Maina wa Njenga and politics with
Ndura Waruinge in the Rift Valley province of Kenya some time in 1987.15 In these its leadership
dreams, they claim to have heard God’s voice telling them to “go and liberate my oscillating
people.”16 As a result they decided to form Mungiki following consultations with between political
accommodation
2006; “Despite State Efforts to Reign Them In, Mungiki Still Rules Some City Estates,” Sunday Nation,
with the
February 19, 2006. government and
12 Ibid.
13 Grace Nyatuga Wamue, “Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines Through Mungiki,” African Affairs 100 support for the
(2001), 453—467: p. 454. opposition.
14 Wamue, “Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines,” (2001); Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya
or Facing Mecca? The Mungiki, Ethnic Violence and the Politics of the Moi Succession in Kenya, 1987—
2002,” African Affairs 102 (2003), 25—49; David M. Anderson, “Vigilantes, Violence and the Politics of
Public Order in Kenya,” African Affairs 101 (2002), 531—555; Terisa E. Turner and Leigh S. Brownhill,
“African Jubilee: Mau Mau Resurgence and the Fight for Fertility in Kenya, 1986—2002”, Canadian
Journal of Development Studies 22 (2001), pp. 1037—88.
15 Author’s interviews with Mungiki leaders Maina wa Njenga, 1999 and Ndura Waruinge, 2002. The
fortunes and politics of both leaders have since dramatically changed. Maina Njenga is currently at the
Naivasha Maximum Prison serving a five-year jail term. In 2006 while awaiting trial, he “converted”
to Christianity but declined to denounce Mungiki. Dominic Wabala, “Saul to Paul? Leader of Brutal
Cult Sees the Light,” Sunday Nation, December 3, 2006. Ndura Waruinge converted to Christianity in
November 2003 and now goes under the name Ezekiel Waruinge. He denies having abandoned the
objectives of the movement even after his conversion. In December 2006, Waruinge was arrested on
charges of inciting people to violence. His case is still pending in the Kenyans courts. See, “Waruinge
Held as Raila Protests Over Deaths,” Daily Nation, December 12, 2006.
16 Author’s interviews with Mungiki leaders Maina wa Njenga, 1999 and Ndura Waruinge, 2002.
elders, including former leaders of the Mau Mau movement from one of which one
of the founders, Ndura Waruinge is descended.17
From 1991 to 1994 when state-sponsored ethnic violence swept through the
Rift Valley province targeting Kikuyu, Luo, Luhyia, Kisii and other opposition-leaning
communities, the Mungiki found itself with a large pool of displaced people from
which it recruited. Although Mungiki’s presence was initially strongest among the
displaced Kikuyu of the Rift Valley Province, it quickly spread its wings to the low
income areas of Nairobi particularly the slums of Korogocho, Githurai, Kangemi,
Kariobangi, Mathare, Kibera and Dandora. In the industrial Thika town adjacent to
From 1991 to Nairobi, Mungiki established a stronghold in the sprawling Kiandutu slums.
1994 when state- There are four main interpretations of the Mungiki movement in the academic
sponsored ethnic literature.18 The first is that of Mungiki as a religio-cultural movement. The pioneering
violence swept characterization of Mungiki in these terms is by the Kenyan scholar of religion, Grace
through the Rift Wamue.19 This important account of Mungiki is also the first academic treatment
Valley province, of the movement and has become the departure point for Mungiki’s scholarly
the Mungiki analysis.
found itself with Wamue’s insightful account sets out the spiritual and cultural philosophy
a large pool of around which Mungiki’s activities are centered. Mungiki calls for a return to African
displaced people traditions and spiritualism as the means to the resolution of social problems.20 It
from which it rejects Christianity as corrupting to African values.21 Mungiki’s main objective,
recruited. Wamue argues, is “to mobilize Kenyan masses to fight against the yoke of mental
slavery.”22 The Mungiki see the Bible as a tool of confusion, referring to it in Gikuyu
as gikunjo (meaning binding or imprisoning). The movement has adopted traditional
Gikuyu religious rituals and cultural symbols including the use of use tobacco snuff.
Members of the movement refer to themselves as “warriors” in keeping with
ancient Gikuyu social structure. There are credible reports of their advocacy for
17 Wamue “Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines,” (2001), p. 456.
18 This paper does not make reference to French language academic sources. Some substantial work
on Mungiki has been done by the French scholar, Herve Maupeu. See for instance, Herve Maupeu,
“Les Elections Comme Moment Prophetique: Narrations Kikuyu Des Elections Generales De 2002
(Kenya)” Le Dossier Politique Africaine 90, (2008), 56—77; Herve Maupeu, “Mungiki Et Les Elections:
Les Mutations Politiques D’un Prophetisme Kikuyu (Kenya)” Politique Africaine, 87, (2002), 117—137;
Herve Maupeu, “Physiologie D’un Massacre: La Tuerrie du mars 2002, Kariobangi North (Nariobi,
Kenya), L’Afrique Orientale. Annuare 2002 (2003), 345—373;
19 Wamue “Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines,” (2001).
20 Ibid. p.462.
21 Ibid. 462.
22 Ibid. p. 459.
female circumcision, although the followers and leaders interviewed in various

studies deny this.23
Although Mungiki professes pan-ethnic ambitions, its base remains essentially
Gikuyu. Wamue amasses a wealth of data that demonstrates the religious and
Gikuyu-centeredness of this movement. Although Wamue points to the politicization
of Mungiki’s objectives, her account of the movement remains essentially religio-
cultural.
All researchers on Mungiki accept the centrality of culture and religion to
the Mungiki movement. Mungiki’s cultural and religious politics however make
little sense when viewed outside of the movement’s secular and national political
agenda. The conversion of its leaders into Islam and Christianity for instance looks
perplexing from a narrowly religious standpoint.24 The willingness to accept the
legitimacy of non-ethnic Gikuyu values by the movement also points to a pragmatic
acceptance of the multi-ethnic nature of Kenya.25 In sum, Mungiki appears to have
embraced an instrumentalist view of religion and culture. It is part of their tool
for political survival and mobilization as well as a protest at what they see as the
failure of Christianity to be a solution to the country’s problems. If as Grace Wamue
points out Mungiki adherents are passionate about national politics, it is because
their cultural and religious politics spring from their critique of secular national
politics.26 Peter Mwangi Kagwanja in his important analysis of the Mungiki has
rightly criticized the overemphasis on Mungiki’s religious character to the exclusion
of its political character.27
Second, Mungiki has been characterized as the local manifestation of the anti-
globalization forces. This is the argument of Terisa Turner and Leigh Brownhill who
writing from a universalist-materialist standpoint suggest that Mungiki is part of an
international movement “for globalization from below to rebuild civil commons
23 Ibid. p. 461.
24 One of the founders, Ndura Waruinge “converted” to Islam becoming Ibrahim Waruinge, then to
Christianity and is now known as Pastor Ezekiel Waruinge. The other founder, and leader, Maina
Njenga also “converted” to Christianity while in prison in 2006.
25 The Mungiki talk of first uniting the Gikuyu people and then other ethnic groups through an alliance
of ethnic kingdoms. Although Wamue characterizes these kingdoms as religious rather than political
she shares in the skepticism that they could be created by any means other than political. Wamue
“Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines,” (2001), p. 460.
26 Wamue notes that “A discussion with any Mungiki member barely carries on for five minutes without
spontaneously deviating into the politics of contemporary Kenya.” Ibid. p. 465
27 Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya,” (2003), p. 29.
alternative to corporate rule.”28 In their view, Mungiki as the claimants to the Mau
Mau heritage are part of a grassroots movement of those at the margins of the
society. David Anderson, who has also carefully studied the Mungiki movement
is skeptical of such an interpretation and argues that Mungiki is too implicated in
the politics of violence and vigilantism to be deemed a religio-cultural movement
in Wamue’s terms any more, or a political voice for the Kenyan underclass as
Turner and Brownhill suggests.29 Anderson’s skepticism of Mungiki’s universalist
credentials is shared by Peter Kagwanja.30
In their analysis, Anderson and Kagwanja provide the third view of Mungiki
as a criminal gang and vigilante. This interpretation conforms to the dominant
public image of the movement among the newspaper reading Kenyans. The press
accounts of Mungiki’s killings of their rivals in slum areas of Nairobi, attacks on
the police and the killing of individuals opposed to their activities have earned
the movement overwhelming popular hatred and opposition. Anderson is most
scathing in his analysis terming Mungiki a “marauding gang” that employs “strident
violent, criminal and increasingly intimidatory tactics.”31
Anderson argues that Mungiki should be seen as a movement that has
metamorphosed from its cultural-spiritual roots to a criminal vigilante and a tool
for the politics of ethnic exclusion.32 Anderson’s interpretation has in turn been
criticized by Terisa Turner and Leigh Brownhill who have rejected it as monolithic
and a totalizing interpretation of a complex movement and one that ignores its
“struggle for land and freedom”.33
Anderson however finds support in Peter Kagwanja’s study which links the
Mungiki violence to the politics of reforms in Kenya in the 1990s and to the multiparty
electoral contests of 1997 and 2002. Far from Mungiki being a Gikuyu religio-cultural
organization as Wamue argues, a paragon of “moral ethnicity” linking the Kenyan
underclass to globalized resistance to corporate order in Turner and Brownhill’s
28 Turner and Brownhill, “African Jubilee” (2001), p. 1037.

29 Anderson, “Vigilantes,” (2002), p. 542.
30 Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya,” (2003), p.28.
31 Anderson “Vigilantes,” (2002), p. 534.
32 Ibid. pp.535; .542.
33 Terisa E. Turner and Leigh S. Brownhill, “Feminism in the Mau Mau Resurgence” Journal of Asian and
African Studies 39, 1—2 (2004), 95—117: p. 110 footnote 6.
terms, Kagwanja writes that Mungiki is linked to the “culture of violence that has
characterized political life in multiparty Kenya.”34
Kagwanja’s analysis is different from Anderson’s in the historical breadth and
depth that it provides, as well as in the attention it pays to the political activities of
the movement. His study brings a penetrating analysis to the record of Mungiki’s
movement from what he has termed “moral” ethnicity” to politicized and exclusivist
ethnicity and violence.35
In his consciously political analysis, Kagwanja provides us with the fourth
interpretation of Mungiki as a political organization. His otherwise excellent
analysis is however limited by the narrow and episodic context of multiparty Accounts of
electoral politics within which he places Mungiki’s politics. While it is true that Mungiki’s
the state sponsored ethnic violence of the 1990s was an important incubator killings in slum
and catalyst for the emergence of the Mungiki, the movement’s conception and areas of Nairobi
political agenda speaks to a longer and broader crisis of the nature and character of and attacks
the Kenyan political state that harks back to its colonial formation and its transition on the police
and development as an independent state. have earned
The claim to the inheritance of Mau Mau aspirations by Mungiki noted by the movement
all academic analysts remains largely unproblematized as a political demand for overwhelming
change. Often it has been used in reference to Mungiki as evidence of its criminal hatred and
character or cultural anti-modernism.36 This conclusion largely stems from the opposition.
historical treatment of Mau Mau in some of the decolonization literature and
independent Kenya’s official hostility to its political agenda.37
More than anything else however, it is Mungiki’s dalliance with violence
that has gripped the attention of most commentators and analysts. For human

35 Ibid. p.49.
36 Anderson links the fear that non-Gikuyu Kenyans have of Mungiki to its similarity to Mau Mau.
Anderson, “Vigilantes,” (2002), p. 536. There is no evidence for this. Mungiki seems to equally evoke
fear among the Gikuyu as Anderson also notes. The reason for the fear has more likely to do with its
tactics than its ethnic identity.
37 In most European literature Mau Mau was characterized as a savage, anti-Christian and anti-modern
cult. By tag of fanaticism on Mau Mau adherents obscured the nationalist and political nature of the
movement and its agenda for return of alienated land. Independent Kenya’s successive governments
maintained a policy of hostility to an alternative memory of Mau Mau and pursued a policy of
forgetting. Recently, however, the debate over the Mau Mau has been re-ignited by the publication
of two books, Carol Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt
and Co., 2005) and David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of
the Empire (W.W Norton and Company 2005).
rights scholars and practitioners, Mungiki’s transformation from victims of state

detention and torture by the police has presented a particularly challenging task.
Yet what to make of the Mungiki movement from a human rights point of view
is an important question that has implications on how human rights groups and
researchers interpret and respond to other organized groups using violence.
Discourses of Law and Order and the Kenyan State

It is important to stress that the discourses of law and order that have shaped
The discourses most of the discussions of Mungiki are not removed from the political and economic
of law and order history and contestation over the Kenyan state. Law was particularly key to the
that have shaped colonial dispossession of the Africans of their ancestral lands and the construction
most of the of their subordinate status in accessing rights. Under colonialism, law was enjoined
discussions of in the service of a privileged elite that controlled most of the economy and also
Mungiki are not captured the state. The colonial state used the law to keep Africans out of the
removed from production of cash crops so that they did not compete with the settlers. Criminal law
the political and was also inserted into contractual relations through a slew of legislative pieces.38
economic history While law under colonialism was in the service of power that was differentiated
and contestation in racial terms, law under the Kenyatta presidency entered the service of an elite
over the Kenyan whose nucleus was what was called the Kiambu Mafia.39 laws that penalized poverty
state. remained in the statute books. Until 1997 when the Vagrancy Act was repealed,
poverty and homelessness were criminal offences in Kenya.40 The Vagrancy Act
was designed to keep Africans out of urban areas in the fashion of the notorious
apartheid laws and was used in independent Kenya to restrict the movement of the
poor and homeless. In the post-colony, the law speaking in the name of rights froze
in place the injustices of the colony. Laws inherited from colonialism as well as their
implementing institutions became the scaffolding that propped up the corrosive
38 For instance, with the Master and Servants Ordinance and the Employment of Natives Ordinance
of 1910 as well as the Resident Native (Squatters) Ordinance and the Resident Native Ordinance
imposing criminal sanctions for breach of contract by Africans.
39 The “Kiambu Mafia” was a group of Kikuyu politicians, mostly from Kenyatta’s home district of
Kiambu who wielded immense political power and accumulated vast wealth during the Kenyatta
presidency.
40 The Statute Law (Repeals and Miscellaneous Amendments) Act, 1997 No. 10 of 1997 repealed the
Vagrancy Act in its entirety.
system of clientelism. No land redistribution was undertaken, but instead, land

reform was marketized. The landless would have to buy land like everyone else.41
Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi lived up to his promise to “follow the
footsteps,” of Kenyatta (fuata nyayo), by perfecting the repressive system he had
inherited.42 The Moi presidency was particularly remarkable in the manner in which
it carefully cloaked every act of oppression with the veneer of the law.43 For the
ordinary Kenyans in the Moi years, the legal despotism inherited from colonial
times and the Kenyatta presidency manifested itself in the corruption of the
administration of justice.44 Justice became an item for sale leaving it inaccessible to Mungiki is
a majority of the poor Kenyans. Once consequence of the many years of corruption descended from
was the increasing resort by many Kenyans to what has been popularly called a pedigree of
“mob justice”- that is lynchings of criminal suspects. This is the context in which groups that have
the Mungiki movement was conceived and born. often combined
a religio-cultural
Mungiki as the Revolt of the “Subjects” identity with a
The disillusionment of the youth with the formal political and economic political agenda
institutions of social organization in Kenya is the context that frames the Mungiki in Kenyan
violence. Mungiki is descended from a pedigree of groups that have often combined history.
a religio-cultural identity with a political agenda in Kenyan history. Kenyan scholar,
Margaret Gecaga has traced the emergence of three such groups, the Mumbo cult,
Dini ya Musambwa and the Karing’a movement.45 The Mumbo cult which emerged
41 William R. Ochieng, “Structural and Political Changes,” in B, A, Ogot and W.R. Ochieng (eds)
Decolonization and Independence in Kenya: 1940—93 (Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers,
1995), 83—147: p. 98.
42 President Moi labeled his official policy Nyayo, literally meaning “footsteps”. It was another way of
stating that he would retain the status quo. See Jennifer A. Widner, The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya:
From “Harambee” to “Nyayo,” (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1992).
43 John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff have an apt term that defines this phenomenon: lawfare:
Lawfare-the resort to legal instruments, to the violence inherent in the law, to commit acts of political
coercion, even erasure-is equally marked in postcolonies….As a species of political displacement, it
becomes more readily visible when those who act in the name of the state conjure with legalities to act
against some or all of its citizens.
John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, “Law and Disorder in the Postcolony: An Introduction,” in John L.
Comaroff and Jean Comaroff (eds), Law and Disorder in the Postcolony (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2006), 1—56:p.30.
44 On problems in the administration of justice in the Moi years, see generally, Makau wa Mutua, “Justice
under Siege: The Rule of Law and Judicial Subservience in Kenya” Human Rights Quarterly 23, 1 (2001),
96—118:p.104.
45 Margaret Gathoni Gecaga, “ Religious Movements and Democratisation in Kenya: Between the
Sacred and the Profane,” in Godwin R. Murunga and Shadrack W. Nasong’o, Kenya: The Struggle for
Democracy (Dakar: CODESRIA, 2007), 58—89.
among the Luo in 1913 gained its following and leadership from the Abagusii as a
voice of protest against colonialism and economic injustice. Like Mungiki, the Mumbo
cult, drew the bulk of its following from the youths who regarded themselves as
marginalized and powerless. Mumboism drew from Abagusii warrior traditions and
prophetism.
Dini ya Musambwa also emerged during the colonial period among the Bukusu
of Western Kenya. It was founded by Elijah Masinde in 1947 and went on to become
a powerful vehicle of protest against colonial policies. Dini ya Musambwa called
for a return to traditional values and the departure of the white colonialists. The
movement organized protests demanding better pay and better working conditions
In the lawless for Africans. Following the Malakisi riots of 1948 in which eleven followers of the
abyss that movement were killed, Dini ya Musambwa was proscribed and Elijah Masinde
is Nairobi’s detained for thirteen years. Even after independence, the Kenyan state continued
shantytowns, to view Dini ya Musambwa as a threat and in 1972 Dini was yet again banned and
Mungiki has Masinde detained.
established a The Karing’a movement emerged among the Kikuyu in the 1920s and 1930s.
security service Kikuyu Karing’a (authentic Kikuyus) was rallying call for the Kikuyu to reject the
that provides colonial destruction of the community’s religio-cultural, economic and political
residents the way of life. The movement exploited Kikuyu traditional cultural symbols and rituals
protection that to bind its followers to the cause of re-asserting the dignity of the Kikuyus under
the police have assault from the colonial authorities. It rejected the ban on female circumcision
failed to offer. and after the children of the followers were expelled from missionary schools, the
Kikuyu Karing’a Education Association (KKEA) and the Kikuyu Independent Schools
Association established their own independent schools. Independent churches
were also established to meet the spiritual needs of the Kikuyus who had broken
ranks with the missionary churches.
Whenever groups have developed a consciousness of marginalization they
have sought to anchor their protest within a religio-cultural foundation that
provides hope for a better material existence than what the mainstream religion
offers. In a sense, these movements are not just a protest against the political and
economic system but also mainstream religions which they perceive as irredeemably
mortgaged to the interests of the powerful.
Mungiki is descended from this similar pedigree. Mungiki’s politics reflect
a keen sense of frustration with the political system in which their constituents,
voices are marginal. Mungiki members claim to represent the unfulfilled aspirations
of the Mau Mau of an alternative political dispensation.46 Like the Mau Mau, the
land question is central to their politics. The movement is built on the dissatisfaction
with the material deprivations of its constituency. This explains why the movement
has been successful in recruiting members from among the squatters and slum
dwellers.47
In its initial stages, in the 1990s, the movement campaigned against drunkenness,
rent hikes, drug use, prostitution, HIV-AIDS as well as its rehabilitation of street
children and the elimination of criminal activities in slum areas of Nairobi; a self-
help effort to plug the gap left by decades of state neglect and failure.48 Mungiki
also established itself as a local vigilante in slum areas providing security to the
residents at a fee and attempted to control the management of garbage collection
and public transport in Nairobi. This inevitably led to violent confrontations with
rival groups.49 While these confrontations have been well documented, they have
not been seen within the context of the lawless reality that defines the everyday
life of slum dwellers. The crime control measures that the Nairobi city authorities
have undertaken over the years have always by-passed the slum areas.50 The police
do not even bother to keep crime statistics for the slum areas nor do the residents
bother to report incidents to the police. In this lawless abyss of Nairobi’s 143
shantytowns, Mungiki has established a security service that provides to residents
the protection that the police have failed to offer.51
According to its leaders, Mungiki was also involved in poverty alleviation
projects in the several areas of the country where it has membership. In Laikipia
in the Rift Valley Province, the movement acquired farms where its members,
including former street children were relocated.52 By 2005, having established
over 600 businesses, Mungiki leaders were confident that they were on the
46 Jean-Christophe Servant, “Kenya’s Righteous Youth Militia;” “Landless in the Rift Valley,” Le Monde
diplomatique, January 2005.
47 Ibid.
48 Kagwanja “Facing Mount Kenya,” (2003), p. 37; Servant, “Kenya’s Righteous Youth Militia” (2005).
49 These confrontations have been the subject of extensive coverage in the Kenyan and international
media.
50 See, Mutuma Ruteere and Marie-Emmanuelle Pommerolle, “Democratizing Security or Decentralizing
Repression? The Ambiguities of Community Policing in Kenya,” African Affairs, 102 (2003), 587—604.
51 Servant, “Kenya’s Righteous Youth Militia,” Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005.
road to achieving economic autonomy and attract political recognition from the
government and other political actors.53
In addition, the movement was keen to establish a large membership base. The
exact membership figures of the movement however remain as controversial as its
operations. At different times the figures suggested by its leaders have ranged from
1.5 million, 2 million, 4 million and more recently 7 million.54 In reality the movement
might be made up of no more than a few thousands given the demographic
patterns of Kenya.55 This game of numbers is also an important pointer to the
movement’s politics. Far from being concerned with “conversion” of individuals to
a “moral” lifestyle that their cultural politics have often been associated with, the
use of numbers by the movement is akin to the use of opinion polls by mainstream
politicians. The leadership of the movement recognizes that numbers do not just
bring with them more revenue but also a measure of political influence.
53 Servant, “Landless in the Rift Valley,” Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005.

54 Ibid. However, all researchers on the movement point out to the unreliability of these figures.
55 The Kikuyu constitute 22 per cent of Kenya’s 31 million people. For Mungiki to reach a figure of 7
million more than the entire Kikuyu population would have to be members.
3.0: Mungiki Politics in the NARC Years
It will be remembered that by the run-up to 2002 General Elections, Mungiki had
already began flexing its political muscles. In spite of the persistent perceptions
of the group as a mere criminal vigilante and in some cases a traditionalist cult,
Mungiki’s political agenda and ambitions became even more explicit with its
leaders’ decision to enter competitive politics. In 2002, the national coordinator,
Ndura Waruinge, and the movement’s spiritual leader John Maina Kamunya alias
Dr Maina Njenga joined the FORD-Asili political party and unsuccessfully vied for
the Secretary-General and Vice Chairman’s positions respectively.56 As the political The then
temperatures rose in anticipation to the general elections, Mungiki assumed an president, Daniel
even more prominent political role. arap Moi had a
The then president, Daniel arap Moi had a long-established interaction with long-established
the movement on occasions receiving at his Nakuru residence, groups of youths interaction with
who had “defected” from Mungiki. As the battle for his succession heated up with the movement,
the opposition for the first time united against the ruling party, Moi saw in Mungiki on occasions
a useful toehold among the ordinary Kikuyu. On March 3, 2002 the movement’s receiving, at
leadership declared that they would support the ruling party’s candidates including his Nakuru
Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta who was the residence,
party’s presidential candidate.57 The following day, the movement’s members in groups of
a revenge mission against the killing of a number of their own descended on the youths who had
Kariobangi slum outside Nairobi, killing 23 people. Their target was members of “defected” from
non-Kikuyu communities and specifically the local vigilante group dominated Mungiki.
by members of the Luo ethnic group.58 Under intense public criticism, the ruling
party’s candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta, was forced to denounce Mungiki declaring
himself a catholic with no truck with the movement’s objectives.59 The movement’s
links with the government however became further evident when its two visible
leaders attempted to run for elections on the ruling party’s ticket. However, at the
last minute the ruling party succumbed to the popular resentment of Mungiki and
barred the Mungiki leaders from the ticket.
56 Sunday Nation April 28, 2002

57 The East African Standard, March 4, 2002.
58 BBC, March 4, 2002.
59 Daily Nation (Kenya), August. 23, 2002.
17
The important point here is that from obscurity, the Mungiki leadership had
succeeded in securing a voice for themselves, if not the movement, in national
politics. Ordinary boys from impoverished backgrounds had managed to construct
a movement that commanded the attention of the president and the political elite.
It would later emerge that the Mungiki leaders had been supplied by the state with
military-issue vehicles to support the ruling party campaigns.60 Having been thus
exposed as a collaborator with the state, Mungiki’s National Coordinator Ndura
Waruinge announced that he had left the movement and staged yet another
conversion, this time into Christianity becoming Ezekiel Waruinge.61 Maina Njenga
on the other hand found himself on the wrong footing with the new government
and was arrested on murder charges in 2004 but later acquitted. He was however
re-arrested in February 2006 and held in prison on charges of administering an
illegal oath and possession of weapons. While in custody at Kamiti Maximum
Prison in Nairobi, awaiting trial, Njenga announced in February 2006 that he had
converted to Christianity and was baptized in publicized ceremony at the prison.62
In June 2007, Maina Njenga was jailed for five years for being in possession of a gun
and marijuana.
The 2007 Mungiki-Police Confrontation

The National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) government led by Mwai Kibaki
won power in 2002, on a slate of promises, including dealing with past injustices,
revamping the system of justice and addressing the widespread poverty in the
country. The introduction of free primary education in 2003 was important in
addressing the needs of many poor children forced out school by the introduction
of fees in the 1980s. In the same year, the new government created a commission
to investigate irregular allocation of land.63 A task force was also named to inquire
on the possibility of establishing a justice and reconciliation commission.
The NARC government also took a bold action purging the judiciary of 23
judges accused of corruption in October 2003. However, in February 2006 details
60 BBC, “Kenya Police Probes Army” 31 January 2003.

61 Servant “Kenya’s Righteous Youth Militia” Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005
62 Dominic Wabala, “Saul to Paul? Leader of Brutal Cult Sees the Light,” Sunday Nation, December 3,
2006.
63 Republic of Kenya, Report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Illegal and/or Irregular
Allocation of Public Land.(2004).
emerged of corrupt business deals running into billions of shillings in which senior
government ministers had played a facilitating role.64 This seriously dented the
credibility of the government of President Mwai Kibaki and cast doubts on its
commitment to addressing corruption. Moreover, by 2003, cracks had began to
emerge in the NARC coalition with one of the partners, the Liberal Democratic
Party led by Raila Odinga claiming that Kibaki and his allies had shortchanged and
sidelined the party. By 2005, when a government-backed draft constitution was put
to a referendum, the NARC coalition had effectively collapsed, with the group allied
to Raila Odinga opposing the draft. With the defeat of the draft in the referendum, Even though
any attempts at constitutional and institutional reforms were effectively over. there were
To its credit, however, between 2002 and 2007, the Kibaki government oversaw individuals
a significant expansion of civil liberties and political freedoms. There were serious sympathetic to
setbacks such as attacks on the independent media. Moreover, the economy that the politics of
had virtually ground to a standstill in the Moi years registered a steady growth the Mungiki
reaching a healthy 6 percent in 2007. leadership
From the very beginning, Mungiki’s relationship with the NARC government in the Kibaki
remained largely troubled. Even though there were individuals sympathetic to the government,
politics of the Mungiki leadership in the Kibaki government, it was quite evident it was evident
that Kibaki’s own politics and economics had no place for such groups.65 However, that Kibaki’s
in the first year of the NARC government, it appeared as if the new government own politics and
would enter into a lasting truce with the Mungiki. Officials of the new government economics had
were quoted in the Kenyan press as having worked out an agreement with Mungiki no place for such
to keep peace in return for government’s non-interference in their peaceful groups.
activities. In March 2003, then Security Minister Chris Murungaru announced
that the government had bonded Mungiki members who had surrendered to the
government to keep peace and released them back into the community.66 The
truce did not however last and by the following year, the government’s war on the
group had resumed.
In May 2007, the NARC government embarked on a major crackdown on the
Mungiki movement following a spate of attacks on public service vehicle (matatu)
64 The corruption scandal is popularly known as the Anglo-Leasing Scandal. It led to the departure of
four senior ministers from the government following public pressure.
65 Mungiki leaders point out that Kibaki never had time for them even during his days in the
opposition.
66 Mike Mwaniki, “700 Mungiki Surrender,” Daily Nation, March 12, 2003.
operators by suspected Mungiki members. Targeted killings of matatu vehicle

owners, drivers and touts had started in March but became widespread in May 2007
in the capital of Nairobi and the predominantly Kikuyu populated Central Province.
It is believed that the killings were sparked off by the decision by Mungiki to hike
the daily “fee” they had been collecting from matatu operators. In response, the
matatu owners protested the new “fee” and appealed to the government for
It should be protection against the group. In what was clearly an escalation of their war with the
pointed out that government, suspected Mungiki members also killed two government-appointed
while most of chiefs in Central Province. This set in motion a crackdown by the government on
the beheadings sect. In most of May and June 2007, there were numerous reports of gruesome
of Matatu crews beheadings attributed to Mungiki members spreading fear and panic among the
were most likely public.
the work of the The violence was also linked to what the Mungiki perceived as betrayal by
Mungiki, there senior politicians both in the Kibaki government and in the opposition who had
are credible failed to honour the promises they had made to the youth. As the violence raged,
reports that the it emerged in newspaper reports that a significant number of Kikuyu politicians
police were had been working with the Mungiki, from way back in the 1990s.67 When the
themselves government of President Mwai Kibaki intervened in the conflict between the
involved in Mungiki and Matatu operators, the Mungiki interpreted this as a betrayal by these
beheadings to senior politicians. The beheadings and the violence was therefore meant to be a
camouflage warning to the politicians, particularly those serving in the government, that they
their killings of had to deliver on their Faustian bargain with Mungiki or pay the consequences.68
Mungiki leaders. It should also be pointed out that while most of the beheadings of Matatu crews
were most likely the work of the Mungiki, there are credible reports that the police
were themselves involved in beheadings to camouflage their killings of Mungiki
leaders.69 Human rights groups condemned the police crackdowns denouncing
what they termed as indiscriminate executions and arrests of suspected Mungiki
67 Way back in 2003, David Manyara, a former Member of Parliament for Nakuru Town had been
charged with sponsoring the activities of Mungiki but was acquitted by the court. In June a Member
of Parliament claimed that the Mungiki had oathed ten MPs from Central Province. “How Mungiki
Forced Oath on 10 MPs,” Daily Nation, June 9, 2007.
68 At the height of the violence, leaflets purportedly authored by Mungiki detailing the betrayal by
senior politicians serving in the government of President Mwai Kibaki, were sent to a number of
media houses.
69 Author’s confidential interviews with police officers of the special “Anti-Mungiki police unit” – the
Kwekwe Squad.
leaders. The state human rights body, the Kenya National Commission on Human
Rights was particularly outspoken. In November 2007, The KNCHR released a
report suggesting that the police may have executed about 500 suspected Mungiki
members between June and October 2007.70 The Kenyan public, largely fearful of
the Mungiki, met the human rights groups’ criticism of the police with widespread
hostility.
70 Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, Preliminary Report on Alleged Executions and
Disappearances of Persons Between June and October 2007 (Nairobi: 2007).
4.0: Mungiki and the Post-Elections Violence
Kenya was engulfed by violence and disorder following the announcement of

flawed presidential election results in the December 2007 General Elections. The
violence continued for almost four weeks in some parts of the Rift Valley, Western,
Nyanza, Coast and Nairobi provinces resulting in an estimated 1,5000 deaths and the
displacement of about 600,000 Kenyans. Communal riots, killings, forced evictions,
rape and other forms of sexual assault, looting, arson and the destruction of
property took places in many parts of the country. The violence generally pitted the
rival supporters of the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) against those of the Party
of National Unity (PNU). In most places, the violence took an ethnic dimension.
At the height of the violence, the ODM leaders alleged that the government
was mobilizing the Mungiki to undertake revenge attacks of its members in Nairobi
and in the Rift Valley. These allegations were strengthened by reports that gangs of
Kikuyu youths identifying themselves as Mungiki had mobilized to attack members
of ethnic groups perceived to be ODM supporters in Nakuru and Naivasha.71 In
the slum areas of Kibera and Mathare in Nairobi allegations also surfaced that the
Mungiki had been mobilized by individuals in the government. A document released
by a group calling itself “Thagicu Renaissance Movement” in February threatening
Kikuyu individuals who had been critical of the government and the conduct of the
disputed elections was also attributed to the Mungiki by some commentators.72
At the height of the violence, Ndura Waruinge, a former National Coordinator of
Mungiki led a group that attempted to stage a pro-Kibaki protest in the streets of
Nairobi before they were dispersed by the police.73
The argument of Mungiki’s involvement in the post-election violence however
remains largely a matter of speculation. By December 2007 elections, Mungiki was
already the target of a vicious crackdown by the Kibaki government. Its leader,
Maina Njenga was serving a five year jail term and the rest of its leadership was
on the run. Consequently, suggestions that the Mungiki was mobilized to attack
71 The strongest allegations of Mungiki involvement in the post-election violence have been linked to
the January violence in Naivasha and Nakuru. See generally, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Ballots to
Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya’s Crisis of Governance (New York: 2008).
72 The so-called Thagicu “Epistle” named 25 prominent Kikuyus and 1 Meru whom it termed as “traitors”
to the Kikuyu community.
73 According to its current leaders, Waruinge is considered to have left the group.
22
ODM supporters at the height of the post-elections violence need to be treated

with much more skepticism. Moreover, in interviews, Mungiki leaders and many
of its members often expressed support for the opposition rather than the Kibaki
government which they consider as elitist and hostile to the interests of the poor.
However, there are credible reports that just before the December 2007
General Elections some Mungiki leaders had been taken to State House by senior
security officials. With President Kibaki’s campaign team in panic over the trend
of the opinion polls, these officials allegedly reached out to Mungiki with peace
overtures to secure their support.74 Mungiki leaders claim that they met President
Kibaki himself who assured them that the government would keep off their affairs.
This explains why the group was able to hold a series of meetings in Nairobi and According to
other towns just before the elections without police interference. It is important its leaders,
however to note that there are also credible reports that the opposition ODM had Mungiki
also held a meeting with the Mungiki leaders to secure their support just before decided to
the elections. In fact, it is after this ODM-Mungiki meeting that the Kibaki campaign watch the
is said to have scrambled to secure the support of Mungiki in the November violence from
meeting. the sideline
The BBC reported that the Mungiki leaders were drafted by the government and “pick up
to help defend the Kikuyu at the height of the post-election violence.75 However, the pieces.
according to its leaders, Mungiki decided to watch the violence from the sideline
and “pick up the pieces.” On the balance of available evidence, this could well be
the accurate account of Mungiki’s position regarding the violence. That is not to
say, however, that individual members of Mungiki did not participate in the revenge
attacks by the Kikuyu on the Kalenjins, Luos and Luhyia in the Rift Valley and Nairobi.
What is not backed by any evidence are the allegations that these were sanctioned
by Mungiki – the “organization” – or its leadership. The Human Rights Watch report
on the post-election violence in Kenya notes that Mungiki leaders made reference
to a renegade wing of group that was working with senior politicians of Kibaki’s
Party of National Unity.76
Adding to the confusion on Mungiki’s role in the post-election violence is the
extent to which Mungiki has become a more than an organization. For Mungiki is
74 Author interviews, Nairobi, 2008.

75 “State ‘Sanctioned’ Kenyan Clashes”, BBC News. March 5, 2008.
76 Human Rights Watch , Ballots to Bullets (New York: 2008), p. 45.
also a discourse, invoked by various groups to achieve particular ends. It is invoked

by the police to justify crackdowns and executions of suspects. Once an executed
suspect is labeled “Mungiki” there is less likelihood of public scrutiny on the
circumstances of their killing. The term “Mungiki” is also invoked by some criminal
groups to scare their rivals or victims. For groups seeking to frighten members of the
ODM in the Rift Valley and Nairobi, “Mungiki” was a most convenient scarecrow. It
is also important to remember that any predominantly Kikuyu vigilante or criminal
group is likely to be labeled as “Mungiki” by the public and even the police. It is
therefore easy to see how groups of Kikuyu youths mobilized for revenge activities
at the height of the violence could be termed as “Mungiki”.
The Mungiki leadership also issued a rejoinder to the “Thagicu” document that
At the height of had issued threats to prominent members of the Kikuyu community dismissing it
the post-election as a stunt by individuals in the Kibaki government.77 In the heat of the post-election
violence, popular violence the document had been interpreted by some commentators as the
feeling among work of Mungiki. On critical analysis however, it made little sense for the Mungiki
the Kikuyu was to threaten individuals such as the Chair of the Kenyan National Commission on
that the Mungiki Human Rights, Maina Kiai, who had consistently challenged the police attacks on
would have done the group throughout 2007.
a better job of As the post-election violence was dying out in March 2008, hundreds of
confronting the Mungiki members descended on the capital Nairobi in a surprise demonstration
other ethnic demanding the releases of their jailed leader, Maina Njenga. They also demanded
militias. the registration of their political party, the National Youth Alliance.78 The police-
Mungiki confrontation intensified in April 2008 just when the ODM and the PNU
were unveiling a coalition government following the execution of the wife of the
jailed Mungiki leader, Maina Njenga along with her driver after being abducted
by unknown people in Nairobi. The Mungiki leaders accused the police of having
carried out the execution and staged protests that paralyzed operations in Nairobi,
several towns in Central Province, Rift Valley and in Mombasa in the Coast Province.
The new Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, a group of former members of parliament
from Central Province and some church leaders called for a dialogue with Mungiki,
which the police and the Minister for Internal Security rejected. Other leaders of
77 Mungiki statement on file with author.

78 The National Youth Alliance Party had been registered by the government only to be de-registered at
the beginning of 2007.
the group were gunned down in executions that the police attributed to rivalry
within the Mungiki but which most of the Mungiki watchers believe were carried
out by the police.
The post-election violence may however have succeeded in rehabilitating the
Mungiki in the eyes of the Kikuyu population. At the height of the violence, with the
government clearly unable to prevent the attacks and uprooting of the Kikuyu from
the Rift Valley and other regions, popular feeling among the Kikuyu was that the
Mungiki would have done a better job of confronting the other ethnic militias than
the government.79 This may explain the increased willingness of Kikuyu leaders,
including church leaders to encourage dialogue with the Mungiki.80 The change of
heart by church leaders is particularly striking given the long history of denunciation
of the movement by the Church.
79 This evidence is largely anecdotal and largely gleaned from interviews with analysts and intellectuals
from the Kikuyu community.
80 “Kenya: Sigh of Relief as Mungiki Prayer Rally Called Off,” Daily Nation, June 7, 2008.
5.0: Criminal Violence and the Challenge for Human Rights
Usually articulate in cases of violence by state agents, human rights groups often
run into difficulties when confronted by the criminal violence of non-state groups,
particularly outside the context of armed conflict. In their monitoring and advocacy
work human rights groups make a distinction between crime and human rights
violations.81 Crime is the province of police work and only becomes a human rights
concern under certain specific conditions.82 Human rights groups are concerned
with human rights violations and not garden variety crime. Except in some instances
such as domestic violence, criminal violence by private individuals against other
individuals rarely enter into the mainstream work of human rights groups. This
distinction speaks to the state-centricity of the human rights project.
Writing in the Human Rights Quarterly, Angelina Godoy has called for a rethink
of the distinctions made between human rights violations and criminal violence
arguing that the stubborn adherence to this distinction has led to “a dangerous
disconnect between the concerns that most citizens consider paramount and the
issues traditionally advocated by rights groups.”83 Whether an act is considered
common crime or a human rights violation has practical consequences for
victims. Human rights violations benefit from the campaigns mounted by human
rights groups with media visibility and are therefore more likely to receive official
attention.
In its evolution, the human rights movement has positioned itself in opposition
to excesses by the state. The dominant narrative, at the heart of the global human
rights movement traces the emergence of the movement from the excesses
of the nation-state in the West.84 From the corruption and decadence of the
81 Most monitoring manuals developed by human rights groups make this distinction.
82 Certainly most human rights violations will also be criminal acts under the law in most countries.
Ordinary criminal acts will often become human rights violations and of interest where state
authorities deliberately fail to take action.
83 Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, “La Muchacha Respondona : Reflections on the Razor’s Edge Between
Crime and Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 27, 2 (2005), 597—624: p. 600.
84 Obviously this Western centric intellectual history of the human rights idea is vigorously contested.
Mahmood Mamdani has correctly argued that:
Wherever oppression occurs – and no continent has had a monopoly over this phenomenon in history –
there must come into being a conception of rights. In other words, the notion cannot possibly have any
fixed and immutable content, whether that given by the American and the French Revolutions or that
formulated in a number of subsequent charters.
Mahmood Mamdani, “The Social Basis of Constitutionalism in Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies
28, 3 (1990), 359—374: p. 359.
26
French state prior to the revolution to the atrocities of Hitler’s regime in Nazi
Germany, the canonical argument is that it is the dominating power of the state
and its violence against individuals that led to the emergence and growth of the
human rights movement. Well known international human rights groups such as
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as their counterparts in
the developing world organize most of their monitoring and advocacy work to
challenge and influence the power of the state.
When faced with criminal violence such as that of the Mungiki, the state-
centric response of human rights groups is to stress the obligations that the
state bears towards its citizens. In her work on lynchings in Guatemala, Angelina Human rights
Godoy has noted that the dominant human rights paradigm that regards states groups found
as the primary or even the only violators of human rights makes it difficult for themselves
human rights groups to address violence by private citizen groups or individuals.85 calling on
In Guatemala, where human lychings (mano dura) were widespread in the 1990s, the police to
human rights groups found themselves in the awkward position of having to call crack down on
on the government to strengthen the security forces to fight crime, when they had Mungiki while
spent decades fighting the same security forces over their repressive tactics.86 Like at the same time
their Guatemalan counterparts, Kenyan human rights groups found themselves denouncing
calling on the police to crack down on Mungiki while at the same time denouncing the police for
the police for excessive use of force. excessive use of
The public that is the victim of the violence is left perplexed by this “a plague force.
on both your houses” stance by human rights groups. The nuanced verdict of the
human rights groups is interpreted as an exercise in vain pursuit for attention or
evidence of their class disconnect from the experiences of most victims of crime.
In the case of Mungiki in Kenya, callers on radio talk shows widely criticized human
rights groups for denouncing the police crackdown on Mungiki suspects. This has
serious implications for the work of human rights groups especially in a context like
Kenya where groups seek to mobilize support for their work.
Second, human rights groups are not only descended from a state-centric
conception of human rights but are also wedded to a view of law and institutions
as the solution to most human rights problems. While philosophy may tell us of the
foundations underpinning the human rights idea, in practice it is to law that human
85 Godoy, Popular Injustice (2006).p.65

86 Ibid. pp. 66—67.
rights advocates reach to solve most of the concrete human rights problems. Most
of the reports by human rights groups often conclude with a recommendation to
the state to either enact new legislation or create some new institution to ensure
protection of human rights. It is law that gives the human rights ideal the bite the
bite standing, Like Aaron in the Bible stood between the living and the dead to
stay the plague, so does the law in practical human rights work stand between the
state and the citizens to stay the state’s appetite for repression. Yet theoretical
It is important perspectives on law are rarely the subject of critical interrogation in practical
to recognize human rights work.
that law is Law is a powerful discourse in constituting who is the subject of rights and
also an arena who is not.87 What sets law apart from other discourses is its authoritativeness
for struggles which gives it an edge over other discourses.88 Law also gains prominence since
over who is unlike some of the other discourses on rights, it relies on a decontexualization that
the subject of grants it a form of transcendence.89 In contexts of criminal violence, “law works
rights and how with a definition of violence which views the act in question outside the scope of
those rights any context in which it took place.” 90 This power of the law is what appeals to the
are accessed, human rights advocates. However, this same strength is what limits the range of
secured and responses to situations of crime and criminal violence available to human rights
enforced. activists. For there is a social reality that shapes the contours of the law’s claim of
transcendence.91 The legal discourse, Ratna Kapur reminds us, does not constitute
all legal citizens the same way.92 Like other discourses then, it is important to
87 Ratna Kapur, “Revisioning the Role of Law in Women’s Human Rights Struggles,” in Saladin Meckled-
Garcia and Basak Çali, The Legalization of Human Rights: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights
and Human Rights Law (London: Routledge, 2005),101—116:p. 104. Mahmood Mamdani has a similar
argument in Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late
Colonialism (Fountain Publishers, Kampala: 1996), various.
88 .Kapur “Revisioning the Role of Law in Women’s Human Rights Struggles,” (2005), p. 104.
89 Dennis M. Davis, “Violence and the Law: The Use of Censure in Political Trials in South Africa,” in N.
Chabani Manganyi and A. Du Toit (eds) Political Violence and the Struggle in South Africa (London:
Palgrave MacMillan, 1990), p.305. Quoted in Richard Ashby Wilson, “Is the Legalization of Human
Rights Really the Problem?: Genocide in the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission,” in
Meckled-Garcia and Çali, The Legalization of Human Rights ( 2005), 81—98:p.81.
90 Ibid.
91 Michael Freeman correctly notes that, “[b]eyond law lies social reality that shapes what the law
says, how it is implemented, and who, as a consequence, gets what, why, when and how.” Michael
Freeman, “Putting Law in its Place: An Interdisciplinary Evaluation of National Amnesty Laws,” in
Meckled-Garcia and Çali, The Legalization of Human Rights (2005), 49—64: p.54.
92 Kapur “Revisioning the Role of Law in Women’s Human Rights Struggles,” (2005), p. 104.
recognize that law is also an arena for struggles over who is the subject of rights
and how those rights are accessed, secured and enforced.
The distribution of different modes of power in the society does not merely
shape the content of the law but also the quality and nature of justice. In radically
unequal societies like Kenya, the penetration of the law into the disputations over
access to resources and means of livelihood acquires an even sharper edge and
on occasions assumes murderous dimensions. In societies with large number of
people in extreme poverty and without social welfare protections market relations
assume the urgency of life and death.
Law then is of necessity summoned and often deployed as a weapon rather
than arbiter in the gladiatorial clash between groups. In such scenarios the
distinction between civil law governing market relations between individuals and
criminal law are likely to be conflated. Consequently, for instance, petty trading
or hawking in urban centers like Nairobi, become a matter of life of death as they
assume a criminal dimension when outlawed by the city authorities. As Angelina
Godoy correctly argues, “[i]n deeply unequal societies governed by the political
economy of neoliberalism, criminal justice becomes increasingly prominent as
a mechanism for sanitizing socioeconomic exclusion and shoring up the status
quo.”93 Where human rights groups are not awake to this complex and sometimes
contradictory role played by the law, they can be trapped into a rote recital of
state obligations under international human rights law that pays little attention to
important contexts. For like domestic law, international human rights law is not
above the contradictions of power contests.94
The third challenge that groups such as Mungiki pose to human rights advocates
stems from the human rights movement’s position to violence in general. The
human rights movement flowered in the West in the second half of the 20th Century
in the shadow of World War II. To a significant extent, the atrocities of that war
framed the attitude of the emerging human rights groups towards violence. While
the human rights idea was not explicitly pacifist, it was invoked in the international
deliberations as the means of warding off another catastrophic conflict like World
93 Godoy, Popular Injustice (2006), p.11)

94 For a critique of international human rights law along these lines, see generally, Makau wa Mutua,
Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
War II.95 The pacifist philosophies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King also
greatly inspired the human rights activists in the West as did the anti-Vietnam war
movement.
This antipathy for any form of violence partly explains the reason most of the
anti-colonial struggles are yet to find accommodation in the mainstream human
rights history. Contemporary human rights advocates are the philosophical heirs
of Gandhi and King rather than Frantz Fanon.96 Thus even as human rights groups
assiduously documented and denounced the sins of apartheid South Africa, they
would not embrace Nelson Mandela, the symbol of the anti-apartheid movement
given his support for armed struggle.97
Practical human rights work involves moral evaluations of behavior based on
international human rights law that human rights groups often and wrongly consider
The trouble to be above politics. As a result, human rights work becomes an enterprise above
for the human politics and even a form of anti-politics. This politically precarious moral anti-politics
rights project project is predicated upon intervention on behalf of the “good victim” of human
begins when it rights violations. The morally privileged position of the human rights defender
casts itself as thus precludes a descent into contexts of moral ambiguity lest their moral clarity is
a framework contaminated. Consequently, even where individuals could have qualified as victims
for social of human rights violations worthy of solidarity from human rights advocates, once
reconstruction. they embrace violence, they lose that status.
Owing to this troubled relationship with violence therefore, practical human
rights work avoids explanations and contends itself with the descriptive accounts
of violations and evaluations of the extent of the transgression of the canonical
documents of international human rights law. This is sufficient for a large number
of the situations of human right problems that human rights advocates confront on
a daily basis. The trouble for the human rights project however begins when it casts
itself as a framework for social reconstruction. Then the hard labour of explaining
complex and morally problematic social phenomena such as criminal violence
becomes inescapable.
95 The Preamble of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states, among others: “Whereas it is
essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny
and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”
96 Frantz Fanon was the theorist of the redemptive power of anti-colonial violence.
97 Consequently, Amnesty International never adopted Mandela as a prisoner of conscience.
6.0: Towards a Human Rights Politics of Crime and
Violence
In light of the theoretical handicap that hobbles the human rights idea, how then
do we explain a phenomenon like Mungiki? One of the two forms of explaining
the Mungiki movement has been to view them as an expression of a lingering
traditionalism at odds with the configuration of the modern Kenyan state. This
view explains the attention that researchers have paid to Mungiki’s cultural identity
and espoused fidelity to Kikuyu traditional values. To others like Kenyan Minister of
Internal Security, John Michuki, the Mungiki are “savage” and “cannibalistic”.98 In
this view, Mungiki is interpreted as a steeped in pre-modern ritualism and primitivism
that continues to darkly haunt Kenya’s modernization project.
Such culturalist arguments have a long history of blindness to the politico-
economic dynamics that shape human behavior. Paul Farmer in his work with the
poor in Haiti has criticized the “immodest claims of causality” that are predominant
in an epistemology where cultural exotica is fore-grounded while “other
considerations like poverty and inequality and the feckless, sometimes deadly
policies of the powerful” are absent.99
The seduction of the cultural has dominated a significant part of Mungiki
scholarship. In her pioneering work, Grace Wamue correctly noted the
instrumentalization of religion and Kikuyu traditional culture by Mungiki.100
Nevertheless, her work largely remains a religio-cultural critique of the movement.
Although Wamue hints at Mungiki’s political agenda, she sees the core of the
group as essentially cultural. Even the ethnic-based kingdoms that Mungiki
seeks to establish are “religious, not political.” 101 This religio-cultural critique of
Mungiki is taken up by Peter Kagwanja in his writings. Kagwanja’s initial analysis
of the movement, tellingly titled, “Facing Mount Kenya or Facing Mecca?” places
Mungiki within the context of “the ‘retribalization’ of politics and the erosion of
98 Boniface Gikandi, Cyrus Ombati and Elizabeth Mwai, “Security Minister Tells of Bizarre Mungiki Sect
Rituals,” The Standard, June 4, 2007.
99 Paul Farmer, Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (Berkeley, University of California Press,
1999), p. 23.
100 Wamue “Revisiting Our Indigenous Shrines,” (2001).
101 Ibid.460.
31
civic nationhood.”102 Kagwanja continues with the hunt for a cultural rabbit in a
later article in 2005 arguing that Mungiki’s activities in the run-up and after the 2002
general elections in Kenya represent an “effort to retraditionalize governance in an
essentially modern space.”103
Another response to the Mungiki violence is the call on the state to improve
its effectiveness in policing work. This view sees Mungiki as the result of the failure
by the Kenyan state to meet the Weberian challenge of monopolizing violence
within its borders. This is the position taken by most human rights groups. This
view, as Angelina Godoy notes assumes that more law as well as reform of justice
institutions is the key to resolving problems of crime.104 Yet as Godoy notes with
respect to lynchings in Guatemala a “more law” approach misses the point since:
…at its core, lynchings are a problem of the legitimacy, not the presence, of law. Indeed,
they are a commentary on that law and the social order it upholds; the exclusion of which
they speak is embedded within it, not lurking somewhere beyond its gaze.105
With respect to Mungiki violence, the “more law” approach calls for more police
presence, better systems of crime detection and a more efficient and professional
criminal justice system. There is no denying that crime detection, prevention and
law enforcement in general are important pillars of a rights respecting society.
Nevertheless, a “more law” argument divorced from a critical grasp of the extent
to which law and its instruments might be implicated in the structural violence that
defines radical social inequality itself risks exacerbating the problem it seeks to
solve.
There is a sense therefore that the modern day human rights activist, with
her fascination with reforms, is like the Explorer of Franz Kafka’s “In the Penal
Colony”. The human rights activist is understandably appalled by the inhumanity
of the system and would have it reformed. But the structural violence of the
system is such that she must do more than just denounce it. For Kafka’s Explorer,
merely destroying the machinery of torture and death does not reform a system
that is founded on violence and domination. To build a new humane order on the
102 Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya or Facing Mecca?” (2003), p.27.
103 Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, “‘Power to Uhuru’: Youth Identity and Generational Politics in Kenya’s 2002
Elections,” African Affairs 105, 418 (2006), 51—75: p. 23. This interpretation of Mungiki has been sharply
challenged by Godwin Murunga. See, Godwin Murunga, “Mungiki and the Re-traditionalisation of
Society Argument: A Quest for Recognition?” CODESRIA Bulletin, 3 & 4 (2006), 28—31.
104 Godoy, Popular Injustice (2006), p.16.
105 Ibid.21.
wreckage of the old ones proves ultimately impossible and the Explorer too has to
depend on the same kind of violence he denounced.
Moreover, the ideological construction of human rights as an ethical pursuit
removed from politics, indeed as a form of anti-politics,106 has largely excused
both human rights scholars and activists from venturing into the study of
social phenomenon that does not lend itself to unequivocal moral evaluations. Nevertheless,
Consequently, groups like Mungiki that employ violence have not received adequate a “more law”
research attention. Partly also, the reason for this neglect is the fear that by argument
attempting to explain the politics and activities of groups like Mungiki, the careful divorced from
human rights scholar and activist may be accused of justifying their violence. As a a critical grasp
result, most human rights attention has been in terms of formulaic denunciation of the extent to
of such movements as criminal enterprises or cultural fundamentalists divorced which law and
or subversive to the wider ‘benign’ rule-governed political order. In the process its instruments
violence is allowed to be its own meaning; yet “to be made thinkable, it needs to might be
be historicized.”107 implicated in
Perilous as it might sound to the human rights enterprise, there is need for the structural
more theoretical human rights work on the question of violence. To suggest that violence that
marginalization might drive individuals or groups to acts of violence is different defines radical
from morally defending that action. As John Comaroff writes, “[w]hen they begin social inequality
to find a voice, peoples who see themselves as disadvantaged often do so either by itself risks
speaking back in the language of the law or by disrupting its means and ends.”108 exacerbating the
The question that should be taken with seriousness by human rights scholars problem it seeks
and other researchers is whether Mungiki and other Mungiki-type groups are mere to solve.
criminal enterprises or historical agents in their own right. The standard human
rights approach does not lend itself well to framing such questions, given its focus
on individual violator/victim of human rights violations. The focus on the individual
event and the individual victims of human rights while important obscures the
106 David Chandler uses this term to describe the elite aversion to civic involvement and preference for
normative criticism and prescription that characterizes the human rights movement. David Chandler,
From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention (Pluto Press, London, 2004).
107 Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda
(Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001), p. 364.
108 John L. Comaroff, Foreword to Contested States: Law Hegemony and Resistance, edited by Mindie
Lazarous-Black and Susan F. Hirsch (New York: Routledge, 1994):p. xii quoted in Godoy, Popular
Injustice (2006), p.11.
connections between the violence by Mungiki and the violence in other parts of the
country in their historical milieu.
Using a moral economy perspective, James James Scott has explained how
the expectations of guaranteed subsistence in times of poor harvests were at
the centre of peasant rebellions in Burma and Indo-China in the colonial period.109
There is likely to be a moral economy explanation as to how those implicated in
the Mungiki beheadings and other forms of violence can live with themselves. Just
There is likely like the peasants of James Scott’s studies and the perpetrators of ethnic violence
to be a moral studied by Stanley Tambiah in South Asia, they must “feel at some level that their
economy cause is legitimate and justified.”110 This calls for further work by researchers from
explanation as various disciplines.
to how those This paper does not however suggest that the Mungiki should be understood
implicated in merely as a marginalized and oppressed group. The reality is much more complex.
the Mungiki A totalizing historiography of a group such as Mungiki, or any group for that matter,
beheadings and is entirely inaccurate. As C.A. Bayly notes, “…[d]own almost to the very bottom of
other forms of society every subaltern was an elite to someone lower than him…, the rhetorical
violence can live devices of “subaltern” and “peasant resistance” often impede [the subaltern
with themselves. historians] in this more subtle analysis.”111 As in any group there are questions
on the relationship between the Mungiki leadership and the ordinary members.
There are suggestions that the violence of 2007 was merely a fight between the
leadership and certain politicians over broken promises made to these individual
Mungiki leaders. There is nothing to suggest that the membership was involved
in the negotiations with politicians or even endorsed the activities of the leaders.
Moreover, the incongruence of the lifestyles of the group’s visible leaders and
the squalor of those in whose name they speak points to the replication of the
“subaltern/elite” fissures within Mungiki itself.
This paper is also conscious of the incompleteness of the research agenda
surrounding Mungiki and the discourses of violence and human rights. Much more
work remains to be done in areas such as the roles and place of women in the Mungiki
movement and the important questions of rights that the group’s activities have
109 James C. Scott The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).
110 Stanley J. Tambiah, Levelling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia
(Berkely, University of California Press, 1996), 311.
111 Quoted in Ibid. Tambiah p.316.
raised. Moreover, this paper is largely a snapshot of the complexities confronting

human rights actors in their practical work of rights promotion. Comprehensive
and comparative studies of the many organized groups dotting Kenya’s political
topography are also an important research agenda for researchers interested in
human rights in Kenya.
By raising these concerns and questions, this paper hopes to provoke debate
on the public policy question of how best to respond to criminal violence in a state
like Kenya while ensuring that human rights are well protected. To this debate, this
study suggests that while complexity makes the work of the human rights advocate
much more taxing, it is inescapable if we are to avoid formulaic and ineffective
prescriptions.
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2.0: Unveiling the Portraits of the Mungiki.........................................................................6

3.0: Mungiki Politics in the NARC Years............................................................................. 17

4.0: Mungiki and the Post-Elections Violence................................................................... 22

5.0: Criminal Violence and the Challenge for Human Rights............................................26

6.0: Towards a Human Rights Politics of Crime and Violence.......................................... 31

Mungiki Violence and the Human Rights Agenda

Secondly, Mungiki’s violent tactics contrasted sharply with the expansion of

technical question of the maladministration of justice” but an integral part of the

In the second half of 2007, media accounts continued to point to a growing

female circumcision, although the followers and leaders interviewed in various

28 Turner and Brownhill, “African Jubilee” (2001), p. 1037.

34 Kagwanja, “Facing Mount Kenya,” (2003), p. 28.

rights scholars and practitioners, Mungiki’s transformation from victims of state

Discourses of Law and Order and the Kenyan State

system of clientelism. No land redistribution was undertaken, but instead, land

53 Servant, “Landless in the Rift Valley,” Le Monde diplomatique, January 2005.

56 Sunday Nation April 28, 2002

The 2007 Mungiki-Police Confrontation

60 BBC, “Kenya Police Probes Army” 31 January 2003.

operators by suspected Mungiki members. Targeted killings of matatu vehicle

Kenya was engulfed by violence and disorder following the announcement of

ODM supporters at the height of the post-elections violence need to be treated

74 Author interviews, Nairobi, 2008.

also a discourse, invoked by various groups to achieve particular ends. It is invoked

77 Mungiki statement on file with author.

85 Godoy, Popular Injustice (2006).p.65

93 Godoy, Popular Injustice (2006), p.11)

raised. Moreover, this paper is largely a snapshot of the complexities confronting

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