As is the norm with the Ameru, almost every man comes armed with a panga anytime sirens are raised and be sure they will not leave without finding something to cut.
The recent killing of a chief and a senior police officer has shocked many across the country with more than three people already in custody.
Igembe North, Igembe South, Igembe Central and all major miraa-growing areas, are hard hit by incidents of violence involving machetes, with men maiming or even killing each other.
It has become commonplace to come across residents sporting panga cut scars. It has also become very common to meet men walking in markets and by the roadside, with pangas in their hands.
It is a fact the Ameru, especially the menfolk, have a short fuse and once sparks begin to fly, bloodshed is inevitable.
Kimathi Mungania, a health researcher at Meru Level Five Hospital, has seen so much of the violence that he has almost become used to it. At the hospital, 400 cases of machete assaults were reported in one month alone. Nearly seven cases of panga assaults, he says, are reported every day at the hospital.
A junior police officer at Igembe, speaking on condition of anonymity, says some of the disagreements that lead to the violence are so minor that, were it not for the bloodletting, they would be laughable. What worries him, however, is not just the violence, but the simple, almost run-of-the-mill way in which most locals here view it.
“Some of the perpetrators do not even seem to have any remorse about their actions. I remember one man who walked into a police station and coolly said: ‘Nkuraga nkamba (I have killed the idiot),’” says the officer.
“Cut that man for me!” is also another common order here, especially where miraa twigs are in the mix. Some panga attacks are also the gory culmination of domestic feuds, especially concerning land disputes and love affairs.
A junior police officer at Igembe, speaking on condition of anonymity, says some of the disagreements that lead to the violence are so minor that, were it not for the bloodletting, they would be laughable. What worries him, however, is not just the violence, but the simple, almost run-of-the-mill way in which most locals here view it.
“Some of the perpetrators do not even seem to have any remorse about their actions. I remember one man who walked into a police station and coolly said: ‘Nkuraga nkamba (I have killed the idiot),’” says the officer.
“Cut that man for me!” is also another common order here, especially where miraa twigs are in the mix. Some panga attacks are also the gory culminations of domestic feuds, especially concerning land disputes and love affairs.
In April 2013, a 25-year-old man hacked another to death for allegedly having an affair with his mother in Igembe North.
In June 2014, in the same county, it was reported that a man killed his assailant with a panga, and was left with serious injuries after they were involved in a fight over a woman.
Following the rising cases of panga violence, Igembe North OCPD Cornelius Sing’oei has issued a directive that anyone found with a panga will be arrested and charged with being in possession of a dangerous weapon. He says this is to stem the growing number of panga related incidents.
He says they will not allow people to walk with pangas, because the Ameru have shot tempers and do not hesitate to use them. “Their tempers are at a very high level. Some of them have to cut someone ‘to release the steam’. They cannot cool down unless they slash someone,” said Mr Singo’oei.
He says even small quarrels degenerate into panga fights. “They fight over the miraa crop, but some fights are alcohol-induced.” Sing’oei says Ameru men hold grudges for long.
DN2 spent a few days in the region, interviewing locals and touring hospitals for evidence of this bloody form of justice.
Residents say they prefer to cut the limbs of criminals because they had lost faith in Kenya’s judicial system, all the way from the police to the Judiciary. To them, reporting a suspect caught in the act is, in the words of Joseph Mutathi, a resident of Meru town, “a waste of time”.
“Why would I take someone whom I have personally found stealing my miraa or defiling a minor to the police or the courts knowing all too well that it will take ages to investigate the case and prosecute it?” asked Mr Mutathi.
His reasoning has the backing of the highest and most respected council of elders in the region; the Njuri Ncheke. The council’s secretart-general, Josphat Murangiri, told DN2 that his peoples’ brand of panga justice was even sanctioned by the Bible.
To prove it, he quoted the Book of Matthew 5:30, which says: “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to hell.”
The aim of chopping off offenders’ limbs is not to make them bleed to death, but to become “living testimonies” that their acts are unacceptable among the Ameru, said Murangiri.
And evidence of that Ameru belief is all over Igembe North, Igembe South and Igembe Central — all major miraa-growing areas.