Warden Message: Carjacking of USAID Employee
This Warden Message is being issued to alert American citizens to the ongoing danger of carjackings in Nairobi. On May 3, an American citizen was carjacked on Ridgeways Road, off of Kiambu Road, by three male teenagers, two of whom were armed with pistols. The victim was not injured in the incident.
Extreme caution is advised once you turn off of Kiambu Road, going towards the Windsor Hotel, as there are many blind turns and the ability to maneuver around potential threats is limited. Be aware of your surroundings when driving this or other similar routes, and be especially conscious of any person(s) acting in a suspicious manner, who might be acting as a lookout for potential hijackers ahead. Do not expect pedestrians or passers-by to lend assistance as witnesses are usually unwilling to get personally involved in this type of situation.
If criminals demand to go to your house, dissuade them by telling them you live in a large housing compound guarded by security guards and police.
It is advised that you carry credit cards or ATM cards only when you have a specific need for them. Be willing to give up your valuables immediately; they are not worth your life. It is imperative that you remain calm and let the carjackers know you will comply with their demands and give them all of your valuables. Keep talking to them, listen to their instructions, and comply immediately and fully.
As temporary residents, taking lots of precautions such as only taking taxis and not driving a fancy car along with being able to limit where we lived, worked, and shopped, I thought our chances were good that we wouldn’t have this type of experience. But there were no assurances. I felt bad for the local residents who must know in the back of their mind that eventually their luck will run out, and they will be robbed or worse. However, the locals seemed to adapt. They were very attentive to potential danger, while at the same time seemed to take it in stride, as illustrated by an e-mail we got from Henry, another TechnoServe colleague:
On Wednesday, on my way to [a local town] on one of the dirt roads, a saloon vehicle overtook me at very high speed and made me suspicious. I slowed down to observe their movements, and after moving for less than 2 kms the vehicle slowed down and parked near some thickets. The guys did not look good to me, so I turned at high speed and drove like mad to the highway. There, I found another suspicious car, so I drove to the direction of Nairobi and used a different route from the main Nyeri Highway.
I cannot for sure say that these guys were carjackers, but my intuition told me so, and I acted. Better to be safe than sorry.
Let’s be very alert particularly with [our TechnoServe Toyota Land Cruiser] Prados on off-road destinations, especially during this electioneering period when their demand has gone to an all-time high.
CHEERS,
Henry
Wendy’s increased discomfort with personal safety was obvious as she resisted walking even a block or two in our neighborhood at night to the nearby mall and supermarket. On the other hand, I had pretty much rationalized that we were pretty safe and had put the messages from our colleagues and the U.S. embassy out of my mind. So I talked her into walking to the Phoenician Restaurant near our apartment.
Nairobi had many good, very diverse restaurants, a number of which were located very near to our apartment. What a difference from Swaziland. We had been to several wonderful Indian places, a Japanese sushi bar, an Italian restaurant, a multicultural café that served enchiladas and a Tex-Mex outlet at the food court, as well as the Phoenician, which is Lebanese.
For safety’s sake, the general rule in Nairobi is to never walk anywhere at night—always take a taxi. We generally followed the rule. We also lived in a nice area where it was very safe to walk around during the day as the streets were busy with people. Even at night, the area was generally well-lit and occasionally people could be seen walking.
Since the Phoenician was less than four hundred meters from our apartment gate, it seemed ridiculous to take a taxi. We had previously walked at night to the Japanese restaurant that was only one hundred meters from our gate, but it was almost visible from our apartment, and we were always within yelling/running distance from the security guard at one location or the other. Of course, if attacked, you should neither run nor yell, but it still felt very safe. The Phoenician was just enough farther away, around a curve on a tree-lined street that Wendy was very uncomfortable, but I decided we should walk anyway.
We prepared to walk by emptying our pockets of everything except enough cash to pay for dinner and one cell phone between us. Then we set out. During the day, the walk would have been delightful. The street at this point is well constructed with new, paved sidewalks, bordered by trees and other attractive vegetation. It was even brightly lit. The weather was pleasant. It was a beautiful night for a stroll, but it was still Nairobi. As we turned from the street with our apartment to the street with the restaurant, it was nearly deserted. We saw one woman walking toward us. She was walking very purposely and passed us by with no one uttering a sound. Then we heard a man, coming up from behind us. He was walking more quickly than we were. We didn’t change our pace, but Wendy squeezed my hand tightly as the man approached. As he passed us and walked on, the only sound we heard was the crinkling of his plastic grocery bag from the local supermarket. Though she continued to look over her shoulder and twitched at the slightest sound, Wendy and I arrived at the restaurant compound safely. We felt very relieved as the security guards let us pass through the steel gate into the restaurant compound.
I had prawns for a main course, and Wendy had some type of Middle Eastern chicken, but we started with several varieties of hummus and pita bread. The décor was simple but charming, and we felt very cozy sitting outside by a fire. However, the most unusual part of the evening was the music. On Friday nights, the restaurant had live music performed by a local duo, one on guitar and the other on keyboard. At first, they were playing instrumentals, some of which were recognizable American tunes. Then it got more interesting. This African duo, in the Lebanese restaurant, started singing, and the first few songs they sang were Kenny Rogers’s hits. They went into more country tunes and other popular U.S. hits. Then it really got international. The African duo, in the Lebanese restaurant, in Nairobi, Kenya, began singing a familiar Mexican song, in Spanish, with a Swahili accent. It was delightfully bizarre and definitely a time and place for all nationalities. We had a great evening.
After dinner, Wendy was a little nervous about walking back. I wasn’t, perhaps because of the wine I’d had with dinner. In any case, the walk back was uneventful. There was no one else out walking at that time of night. As we walked back to the guardhouse in front of our apartment and through the large security gate, we wondered what the guards must be thinking about the crazy Wazungu (Swahili word for white people, sometimes used to mean crazy white people, so crazy Wazungu could be considered redundant) who went out walking in Nairobi at night. Eventually Wendy forgave me for coercing her, but we did not walk to the Phoenician at night again.
For a while, I was feeling quite comfortable with the issue of personal safety, but then the concerns came back. I heard rumors going around the office about a robbery and a shootout at a bank only a half-mile from our office. The robbers were supposedly linked to some other criminal activity that had taken place only shortly before in another part of Nairobi. The details were unclear and confusing. The next morning’s paper clarified some details but raised more questions than it answered.
Excerpts from an article in the Kenya Times, May 18:
Bloodbath in the city
4 cops, 6 thugs killed in shoot-out
By MAXWELL MASAVA
GUNMEN took over control of parts of Nairobi yesterday killing four police officers in what was feared could have been a well-orchestrated killing mission. Three other officers were injured and rushed to hospital in critical condition.
A stab in the country’s security shield, the death drama saw gun-wielding criminals eliminate a CID officer, an administrative policeman and a uniformed policeman in three separate incidents within a span of two hours.
But the officers immediately hit back with ferocity that saw six gangsters killed and a cache of firearms recovered, in the orgy that reminisced scenes of Wild West movies…
At Greenfields estate off Jogogo road, a lone police officer who was on undercover mission to investigate the movement of a stolen car ran into a gang of three men who sprayed him with bullets before escaping with his pistol…
But as the killing was being carried out in Greenfields, more drama was unfolding in Nairobi’s River Road area where a police mission to smash a criminal gang turned tragic with one of the officers being shot dead on the scene…
In a quick retaliation, the other group of officers gunned down all the three gangsters and recovered one AK 47 rifle, four pistols and several rounds of ammunition. The officer died while he was being rushed to hospital for treatment…
At Westlands, another group of gunmen were plotting a robbery at Barclays Bank next to Landmark Hotel where [an] unknown amount of money was stolen. An administration policeman who was part of the cash-on-transit escorting team was shot and killed. His two colleagues sustained serious bullet wounds after an exchange with the robbers.
Sources say another officer died while being rushed to hospital by his colleagues. A passerby caught in the middle of the shoot-out was also killed. A body of a gangster believed to have been shot during the bank raid was found dumped along Peponi road in Westlands a few hours later. Two more suspects were killed near City Park after they were trailed by police for more than two hours.
Police Spokesman Erick Kiraithe said police were aware of those planning to commit criminal activities across the country and warned that “criminals’ days were numbered and that they should expect a full force of the law.” He would not, however, rule out any possible link between yesterday’s killings to the current circulation of leaflets inciting members of the public against the government.
The killings in Nairobi came as police in Central province confirmed that they had arrested a suspect in connection with the circulation of leaflets in the province.
According to reports, the suspect was said to have confessed to having received money from unnamed people in Nairobi to circulate the leaflets which called on members of the public to arise and fight the current government.
The arrest comes in the wake of police investigations on the circulation of leaflets calling on people believed to be adherents of the outlawed Mungiki sect to arise and protect themselves from alleged government harassment and intimidation.
This was our up close and personal (The Barclay’s bank that was robbed was a quarter mile from our apartment, and we had used their ATM several times.) introduction to the clandestine and dreaded Mungiki. We had previously heard about killings in Central Kenya (including several beheadings) but hadn’t paid close attention. With events happening in our neighborhood, we became very attentive. We wanted to know who these Mungiki were and why they were doing these terrible things. To satisfy our curiosity, we began asking questions, but the answers we got weren’t always straightforward.
As with most aspects of the Mungiki story, their origins are shrouded in mystery. From most accounts we heard, the Mungiki began in the 1980s as either a self-defense force or political action group (depending on your sympathies) promoting the rights and protection of the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe. Supposedly, they modeled themselves on the Mau Maus who led the rebellion against British colonialism in the 1950s. After some years of political action (perhaps peaceful or perhaps violent), the Mungiki morphed from their original form into more of a religious cult whose members wore dreadlocks and promoted traditional rituals such as female circumcision. During this period, the Mungiki seemed responsible for more fear than criminal action. However, in their next incarnation, the Mungiki abandoned any pretense of adhering to principle and became a dangerous, mafia-type gang. Migrating from central Kenya to Nairobi, the Mungiki established criminal enterprises, the most well-known of which were the protection racket and extortion of the matatu (public minibus) trade.
The Mungiki seemed to still have ties to politics and employed ethnic-based violence to influence elections. They seemed to be available to serve whatever politician would hire them. Rumors also swirled that the Mungiki had ties to the highest levels of government and bribed the police to minimize interference in Mungiki affairs. As with the original protection schemes of the Italian mafia, some people initially welcomed the intervention of the Mungiki. At least with one dominant gang, some people felt they weren’t in danger from multitudes of independent petty criminals or wars among lesser gangs. They knew who the boss was and felt safe as long as the appropriate tribute was paid.
The matatu drivers felt differently. They received no benefit from being forced to make daily extortion payments to Mungiki members. In most cases, they felt powerless to resist, but during our time in Nairobi, the matatu drivers staged a strike hoping to get the government to take action against the extortionists. The matatu drivers’ strike crippled Nairobi transportation for a day and kicked off one of the numerous battles in the Mungiki wars of 2007. Several outspoken matatu drivers and local Mungiki leaders were killed in a series of back and forth reprisals. Some were killed in particularly horrific ways, such as being trapped inside as their houses were burned around them.
A few weeks later, two police officers were shot and killed in the Mathare slum in Nairobi. The next night, the police stormed Mathare looking for the culprits (presumably Mungiki) who had killed the officers, as well as Mungiki members who had been implicated in a string of beheadings. The police killed twenty-two and arrested over one hundred during extended gun battles. In the meantime, the beheadings continued and so did the police crackdown. After the incident in Mathare, it was rare to hear of anyone being arrested, but the killings on both sides continued. By the end of June, the combined death toll was over fifty. Speculation continued about the Mungiki’s aim to destabilize the country before the upcoming presidential elections.
For weeks, there seemed to be battles going back and forth between police and the Mungiki. The Mungiki would kill some low-level politicians or police officers, anyone representing the government, often in horrific ways. Then the police would stage a large raid on supposed Mungiki compounds and rarely took prisoners. Politicians would make pronouncements and citizens expressed increasing outrage. For a while, the police seemed to be initiating most of the battles, and then it all seemed to stop. It just wasn’t in the news anymore. There was a lot of speculation on what had happened, but apparently, nobody really knew or was willing to say. The predominant story was that the president had become enraged with the lawless killings and had forcefully ordered his security forces to fix the problem. The speculation was that at this point, any political allies of the Mungiki could no longer protect them and the police got free rein to go after them using whatever force and tactics they felt necessary. It wasn’t until many months later that any information surfaced, but when it did, the speculation was essentially confirmed.
Nov 8th, NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition
Who is to blame for a spate of execution-style killings?
SINCE the summer, 454 bodies have been dumped in mortuaries, mainly in or around Nairobi, the capital, most of them shot in the back of the head. They had all been killed by “state security agents”—at least, that was the extraordinary claim made this week in a report by Kenya’s official human-rights commission. The police, it added, had shown little interest in investigating the deaths and had obstructed the commission’s work.
The report seems to confirm rumours that the interior ministry organised an undercover squad to hunt down and kill members of the Mungiki sect, a Kikuyu gang that has terrorised central Kenya on and off for years, not least by decapitating its victims. Mungiki foot-soldiers have also been used by politicians to rough up opposition supporters, but a killing spree earlier this year was a step too far. In June the government ordered a crackdown. Many Mungiki leaders have since disappeared.
The head of the police, Hussein Ali, denies any wrongdoing. Where, he asks, is the evidence? The report, he says, showed the “level to which the human rights commission had degenerated”; the dead were killed in car crashes or in gang violence.
Kenyan police, he insists, do not engage in crime. But some think one reason war was declared on the Mungiki was because they were muscling in on police earnings from bus touts and others in poorer bits of Nairobi. A grave allegation in the report is that some of those killed paid hefty bribes to the police to be let out of prison after a round-up of suspected Mungiki, only to vanish later.
There are calls for an independent inquiry. Many feel sorry for the police, who have lost 15 officers to the Mungiki this year alone. But Mr. Ali’s denials fail to answer the main charges: why the lack of a proper investigation, why the execution-style of the killing, and why so many dead?
Another question is what part, if any, the killings will play in next month’s general and presidential elections. A crackdown on the Mungiki, whose origins lie in Kikuyu folklore, may placate some of those who complain that the Kikuyus, Kenya’s largest ethnic group, have been hogging economic and political power. But the sheer scale of the killings makes everyone feel queasy.
