[allAfrica.com] [Africa_2004] Goons Besiege Villages The East African Standard (Nairobi) NEWS July 19, 2004 Posted to the web July 19, 2004 By Otsieno Namwaya Nairobi An unsettling sense of insecurity, fear and mistrust has gripped Suneka Division of Kisii District following the establishment last year of an amorphous vigilante group - Kisungu sungu - to combat rising insecurity. Now the residents accuse the militia, set up by the Provincial Administration, of visiting indiscriminate terror on them. The administration and police is also accused of abetting the heinous activities of the gang. Investigations have revealed that the gang has hacked to death an estimated 50 people since May last year, when it swung into action. More than 500 houses have been burnt down, 10 women raped, 2,000 people displaced from their homes and 300 children literally barred from going to school for merely belonging to parents suspected to be either cattle rustlers or petty criminals. Property worth millions of shillings and acres under crop have been destroyed - usually in the dead of night - in what is clearly a misguided adventure in an area gripped by food shortage. The group - and the ever rising tension in the area - came to the limelight following the events of the night of May 19 last year, when up to 31 people were rounded up and brutally murdered for allegedly engaging in crime. Houses and property worth millions of shillings were also destroyed in an operation that saw many people go into hiding. No one was arrested, and it would appear the highly publicised cold-blooded murder of two local chiefs a few weeks later was linked to the earlier killings. Two people are still being held in connection with the murder of the administrators, and the theory on the ground is that the chiefs were the founding commanders of the group and could have been murdered in revenge attacks by those who had lost their relatives in the hands of the gang. But District Commissioner Abdullahi Leloon denied the existence of the murderous gang, saying Kisungu sungu only existed in neighbouring Kuria District. He said only a nameless vigilante group existed in Kisii, adding that it had done a good job of tackling insecurity. He added that this group had been formed under the community policing programme, and exonerated it from the accusations of murder and destruction of property. He defended the group further, saying residents incensed by the killing of the chiefs were making the accusations. Asked why no suspects had been arrested in the numerous incidents of arson and murder, the DC said: "This was a mob; you cannot arrest all of them. But the situation is calm now. Only one person was killed a week ago on July 6, and we established it happened in a normal robbery." But residents insist that Mr Kennedy Kiberi was shot dead by a group of armed youth accompanied by police officers. Only a day after the killing, irate villagers attacked the DC when he tried to address a security meeting at Suneka town. They reportedly accused him of giving misleading information on the security situation in the area. But Leloon denied all this, saying locals were, in fact, happy with his efforts to improve security. "They even wave at us wherever we go," he said. But despite the denial, we established that the Kisungu sungu concept was borrowed from Kuria District last year. Although it had been thought of as the perfect panacea to rising insecurity, it has now come to be perceived as the biggest security problem. Young and middle-aged men are conscripted into the group without any personal considerations. Those who refuse to join or fail to participate in the group's deadly operations are thoroughly beaten and fined Sh300 for every operation. Working people, such as teachers, who for some reason get exempted from conscription, are charged Sh500 for every operation. The size of the group has grown tremendously in the recent past, and its population is now estimated at 2,000. With many of its members having no stable source of income, the group has now resorted to extortion and robbery. It has also become open to manipulation by unscrupulous individuals, who use it for selfish gains. In this category are influential businessmen and politicians, who use the vigilantes to silence their rivals. However, Leloon argued that the vigilantes had never misbehaved and the criminals they targeted were soiling their reputation. Asked why he was using a vigilante group even after the Government banned all militias in the country in 2002, the DC said he was not aware of any such ban. He said he could not disband the group because, firstly, it had improved the security situation in the area and, secondly, he had not helped to found it. "If I get orders to ban it from the person who started it, then I will follow them," he said, adding that, while he did not know the exact number of the group's members, "I'm aware they are only a handful". Because it enjoys the backing of the administration, police officers seem to have left the group to operate with impunity. As a result, a sense of helplessness and resignation has descended on the people of Suneka, where the militias monitor the activities of members of every household. Families can at any time be required to explain who their visitors are and their mission; or else action would be taken against them. Kisii police chief Francis Lemangi said the vigilantes were only helping in maintaining security and they were not in any way terrorising residents. This sounded more like the views held by the DC, who argued that, while the administration cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that some members of the group could be misbehaving, chiefs tightly controlled its operations.   =============================================================================  Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================