Panic mode

Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 2:59 PM

Last month in a blog post called a “Tale of Two Kenyans” I wrote about how the Kenyan police woke up an entire slum when two suspected cop killers decided to hide amongst the residents. A couple of readers expressed doubts to put it politely. One of the emails I received even accused me of making the whole episode up claiming the Kenyan authorities did not have enough manpower to mount such an operation.

Kenyan police round up suspected Mungiki members in Nairobi’s Mathare slum. Click on the image to see the full size image.

Well, well, well. I get back from TEDGlobal in Arusha to find the world has gone mad back at home. Yesterday a combined force of 500 made up of regular police, administration police and the elite General Service Unit raided Mathare in a crackdown on the gangsters of the Mungiki Sect that is responsible for the deaths of at least 20 people included at least 12 who were beheaded in the last three months. So far the police operation, code named Operation Kosovo, has resulted in around 30 deaths and 300 arrests. Of course the police claim that they have good reasons to suspect that all those they have arrested and killed are members of Mungiki. Mathare is under siege. After months of harassment by Mungiki now they have another threat to watch out for, trigger happy police.

A policeman with a police dog rounds up suspected Mungiki members in Nairobi’s Mathare slum. Click on the image to see the full size image.

Another Kenyan blogger, Majonzi, writing on this story uses a powerful headline

Wananchi vs Mungiki vs The Police

I would change it to

Mungiki vs Wananchi vs The Police

The wananchi, the ordinary Kenyan citizen, is now caught in the middle of a battle between Mungiki and the police for the control of parts of Nairobi and parts of Kenya. Month after month, year after year this sect has grown unchecked, harassing, beating, killing and beheading ordinary wananchi going about their lives. This sect was seemed untouchable by the police. Well the authorities have woken up and as one policeman was quoted saying,

“Lala chini ung’orote. Unajua kuna serikali?”
(Lie down and sleep. Do you know there is a government in Kenya?)

Kenyan police round up suspected Mungiki members in Nairobi’s Mathare slum forcing them to lie face down. Click on the image to see the full size image.

Where has this “government” been up to now?

This is a clear example that we have to take the optimism, positive energy and empowering ideas from TEDGlobal and start making change in our society at a fundamental level. James Shikwati in his talk urged Africans to start panicking, to enter “panic mode”. We have to open our eyes to our society is breaking and in many ways in broken and perhaps if we enter panic mode we will start to deal with issues with the urgency they require.

Thanks M4 for sending me the images.

TEDGlobal2007 | TEDGlobal

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