In Nairobi, robbers even steal your teeth

Press, 2 July 1985, Page 21

In Nairobi, robbers even steal your teeth

By

RICHARD HALL,

London “Observer”

Africa correspondent

Nairobi is without doubt the most glamorous city in black Afica — a quality enhanced lately by the presence of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, making a film about the love affair of two white Kenyan pioneers. The place has style, a cosmopolitan feeling quite absent in most other African capitals.

It also has violence. This darker side of Nairobi was epitomised by a bloody incident last month, when an armed gang attacked the home of a British architect, Kevin CraigMcFeely. They shot he, his wife Carla and a black watchman dead. Such killings are part of an ominous trend, marring the almost paradisial life of the 40,000 whites living in and around Nairobi. Armed robbery has turned the city’s surburbs into a cluster of small fortresses, each family protected by barbed wire, burglar alarms, fierce dogs, watchmen, and steel window bars.

The murder of the Craig-McFee-lys has caused considerable shock waves in Nairobi. Aged 56, he was the former chief city planner, and had many friends among the longer-term residents — that stratum of upper-class Britons who used to rule this prosperous East African country before independence.

In response to their alarm, President arap Moi’s Government has stepped up police patrols. It has drafted units of the paramilitary General Service Unit into Karen, the elegant residential area where the latest killings happened — and where the heavily-armed gangs have been most active. Fighting crime in Nairobi is far

from easy. In the 20 years of independence, the capital has mushroomed, with a total population today of well over a million. Most of the new arrivals from the rural villages move into the squalid shantytowns, which festoon the edges of the suburbs occupied by the wealthy black elite and the white expatriates. The contrast between the impoverished majority and the affluent minority is an obvious breedingground for violence. Adding to the

troubles of the lowly-paid police is the polyglot nature of the city. It is a magnet, with its tower blocks, luxury hotels, and endless flood of tourists, for crooks from all the countries around.

Some of the robbery squads have names which boast of the diverse backgrounds, such as “The FiveNation Gang.” They used the methods — and the weapons — of such places as Uganda, where law and order have been little more than fond memories since the days

of Idi Amin. The bitter envy lying just beneath the glossy facade of Nairobi was revealed during the abortive coup of August, 1982. During the hours when the air force mutineers controlled the city, the shantytown dwellers poured into the wide central avenues and looted every shop and office whose doors could be smashed open. Since then, security has been stepped up by companies and private residents. Security firms supply watchmen and install alarm systems. When the Craig-McFeelys were attacked, a black housemaid pressed the alarm button. The security firm arrived in four minutes, but by then the murderers

had vanished — almost emptyhanded.

Householders in Nairobi display by their front gates the nameplates of all protection systems they have bought. The bigger the array, the better the hope of deterring robbers.

Sometimes the victims shoot back. One white householder killed three members of a gang in a midnight gun battle. One of the dead robbers turned out to be an off-duty police inspector.

The violence of the attacks sometimes gives a hint of racial or political malice. Earlier this year, on the slopes of Mount Kenya, two men posing as air force personnel

bludgeoned to death 73-year-old John McCready. He was a former magistrate. In the days of Mau Mau he was known as “Bwana (Boss) Maximum,” because of his reputation for handing out harsh sentences. The armed gangs of Nairobi are not much worse than those you can find in other African cities — Dar es Salaam, Lagos, and Kampala are all at least as dangerous. In the same way, the drift to the cities, the despair of the shantytowns, serve to spawn in them the African version of American gang warfare. Indeed, there is no doubt that the African robbers have learned a lot of sophisticated tricks by watching crime movies. In particular, they

were inspired by seeing “The Godfather.”

The real problem for President Moi is that his particular crime wave is much more visible, with so many foreigners jetting in and out ..of Kenya for business and pleasure. Tourism is the country’s secondbiggest money earner of hard currency.

In the big hotels, and on their conducted safari trips, the tourists are safe enough. But there is one new kind of villain to watch out for — the tooth burglar.

This novel kind of thief knocks down his victim, yanks open his jaw, and wrenches out .his gold teeth with pincers. An Ethiopian art student, in his hotel room, recently managed to fend off two tooth robbers who tried to wrench out his gold crowns as he lay sleeping.