By Barry Moody NAIROBI, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A Faustian bargain struck during Kenya's bloody election crisis has allowed the revival of its most feared crime gang, notorious for beheading and mutilation. The Mungiki sect, a Mafia-like organisation that grew from a traditionalist religious movement among Kenya's majority Kikuyu group, was almost wiped out last year in what human rights groups say was a brutal campaign by police death squads. The government's human rights commission said the killing of around 500 alleged Mungiki members, whose bodies were dumped in the countryside, "may constitute crimes against humanity." Police have repeatedly denied the allegations as baseless. Mungiki gangs are much less overt than before the crackdown, when they terrorised Kenyans with a spate of beheadings in 2007. But they have returned since the election to protection rackets, levying money from matatu minibuses and supplying electricity and water to Nairobi's sprawling slums, experts say. The revival of a gang that blights businesses and exploits a law and order vacuum in the slums threatens again to tarnish Kenya's image at the moment it is trying to recover from the traumatic shock of the election crisis. It also shines a spotlight on the police force, accused by human rights activists of brutal violence to support politicians and also accused of criminal activities. The Mungiki revival is directly attributable to events during the election crisis early this year when at least 1,300 people were killed in the worst bloodshed since independence from Britain. After the Mungiki attacked other tribes whose own gangs killed many Kikuyus, they were hailed as protectors by some members of Kenya's biggest ethnic group. "It gave them some breathing space. Some who were in hiding are operating a little more openly," said Hassan Omar, vice chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. Gang expert Mutuma Ruteere agreed. "They gained some legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Kikuyus," he said. Kikuyus who had previously turned a blind eye to extra-judicial executions of Mungiki members criticised the government for weakening the gang's ability to defend them during the troubles, said Ruteere, a human rights consultant. NEW KILLINGS At least 10 people have been killed in the last few weeks in apparent gang violence in central Kenya, though Mungiki say this is really part of a new police murder campaign. According to experts and Mungiki spokesmen, the crackdown against the gang last year ended when supporters of President Mwai Kibaki, himself a Kikuyu, panicked over adverse opinion poll ratings in the run-up to the Dec. 27 election. The Mungiki have been used since the 1990s as political muscle during elections and to mobilise the votes of their numerous poor young supporters. "So before the election the pressure eased on the Mungiki...the police were no longer cracking down on the Mungiki because they (the government) needed their votes," said Ruteere. An official inquiry into the election violence said Mungiki leaders were called to meetings with senior members of the government and other prominent Kikuyus in Kibaki's official residence before the election. The Waki commission report says this and other meetings planned murderous attacks against other groups that took place in the lakeside town of Naivasha at the height of the troubles. Mungiki gangs were also involved in bloody fighting in Nairobi's slums. As elsewhere, this included the forced and often fatal circumcision of Luos -- the biggest backers of opposition leader Raila Odinga. He is now prime minister in a power-sharing government. "The Mungiki was the only group who offered some level of organisation and had youngsters who were already battle-tested. The incentive for mobilising around the Mungiki was that the state did not want to take official responsibility," Omar said. Human rights groups say police death squads have now resumed a low-key campaign, repeating a historic pattern where the gang has been double crossed after helping Kikuyu politicians. Those killed included at least three witnesses in the earlier police murders, Hassan said. One was a former policeman, gunned down at a busy Nairobi shopping centre last month. "Politicians use us and dump us," said Njuguna Gitau, spokesman for the Mungiki political wing, the Kenyan National Youth Alliance. He told Reuters the real Mungiki had never been involved in crime and it was a social movement helping the poor. He denied they were involved in the election violence, saying the movement would not cooperate with politicians who had tried to exterminate them only months before. The Mungiki see themselves as the heirs of the Mau Mau rebellion against the British, sharing some of its rituals. "We are the sons and daughters of the Mau Mau freedom fighters. We feel our fathers were shortchanged....and yet the people who supported colonialism benefited," Gitau said. Some analysts agree that the core Mungiki group, whose leader is in jail, may not have joined the violence but that splinter groups or imitators were probably responsible. Like everything about the Mungiki, the truth is murky. But even evoking the gang's fearsome reputation can be enough to terrify the public. "The Mungiki has become almost a franchise...All you have to do if you want to scare matatu (minibus) operators is organise a gang of young men and call yourself Mungiki," Ruteere said. But the Mungiki may get revenge for their betrayal by the politicians in a new way, as Kenya prepares a special tribunal to try those behind the election violence. "Quite a lot of the evidence that implicated some of the key leaders in the post election financing and planning and organisation was largely from the Mungiki leaders," Hassan said.
RNPS IMAGES OF THE YEAR 2008 Two children stand together as heavy rain falls at a temporary shelter for around 19,000 displaced people during post-election violence in Eldoret February 7, 2008. ...
