Chris McGreal in Nairobi
PAUL MUITE has been accused of a few things in his time. There was the conspiracy to recolonise Kenya and the plot to overthrow the government. But the opposition leader and other members of Kenya’s elite are braced for a new charge: consorting with the devil. And the government has an official commission to prove it.
Kenya is falling apart. Crime and corruption are booming. Most Kenyans see little hope for the future and blame the government. Yet President Daniel arap Moi would have Kenyans believe the real threats are imaginary guerrilla groups, manipulated tribal violence and devil worshippers.
Two years ago, amid a flourish of press reports of children kidnapped for ritual sacrifice, Arap Moi appointed Kenya’s archbishop to head an official commission into devil worship. The report was completed last month. Arap Moi has refused to release it, but the government has issued a warning that Lucifer’s followers abound.
The commission says devil worshippers have brought a plague of human sacrifice, cannibalism, “incantations in unintelligible language” and rape of children – and gives hints on how to spot Lucifer’s agents at work. Citizens should look out for the “magic horns of witchcraft”, the numbers 666, images of witches on broomsticks, nudity and snakes. Other giveaways are an “obsession with sex, especially lesbianism or homosexuality”.
Bonifes Adoyo, a member of the commission and senior pastor of the Nairobi Pentecostal Church, says it found devil worship at every level of society but mostly among the elite.
`The elites entice people into it with money,” Adoyo said. “Materialism and affluence do not answer spiritual longings … they want mystical powers to control people.” He said those who have “joined the bandwagon of economic and political freedoms” played into the hands of devil worshippers.
Muite thinks he knows exactly who the commission is talking about – Arap Moi’s political opponents. “Moi won’t release the report, but it won’t be long before he says it names his enemies as devil worshippers. I know from statements of those around the president that I am one of the people he would like to use the report to destroy,” Muite said.
The president has often resorted to scaremongering to distract from the shortcomings of his rule. Before the 1992 presidential elections, the first free vote in decades, the government whipped up ethnic killings, which it blamed on the coming of democracy.
In a new campaign before next year’s elections, the government has accused neighbouring Uganda of training a rebel army for invasion. Last month Arap Moi produced three alleged rebels he said were part of a plot to kill him. The three were promised a pardon if they confessed. Two did so, though the family of one said he had been bought off. A third agreed to confess but changed his mind; soon after, he was killed in a police car when it was rammed by a goods train; he was the only fatality.