0:01

Transitioning to decarbonise economy sounds like

0:03

just one change. In fact, this

0:05

shift require several transitions across sectors,

0:08

geography, and timelines. In Talking Transitions,

0:10

a new podcast brought to you

0:12

by the you Why organization and

0:14

foresight, climate and Energy We look

0:16

at how the transition is affecting

0:19

three key areas: Energy, financial services,

0:21

and Government. The Talking Transitions Podcast

0:23

is out now Donald Day from

0:25

wherever you go your podcasts or

0:28

visit Talking transitions.com to find out

0:30

more. The

0:38

Economist. It.

0:42

Almost has the makings of a

0:44

fairytale. A

0:48

charismatic. Pizza needs his followers into

0:50

the forest. And.

0:53

There they are forever changed.

1:02

That. This story from Kenya is no

1:04

fairytale and update now under the

1:06

stabbing story Out of Kenya that

1:09

we've been following very closely. More

1:11

than three hundred bodies have been

1:13

found in shallow graves and a

1:15

forest and authorities say scores of

1:17

mass graves I yet to be

1:19

uncovered. Most of the victims were

1:21

followers of a controversial pasta is

1:23

now in. A.

1:28

Year ago these gruesome event

1:30

script base Kenya and the

1:32

rest of the world. Hundreds

1:34

of bodies men, women, children

1:37

were found in a forest

1:39

starved to death. At

1:42

the core of the story is a question of faith.

1:46

Many of the people who follow that path

1:48

to into the forest did so willingly. They.

1:51

Did say because they believe that he knew how

1:53

to get them into heaven. Instead.

1:57

He. created a hell on earth

2:04

I'm Orey Ogunbi and this

2:07

is The Weekend Intelligence. It's

2:10

been an entire year since the world became

2:12

aware of the bizarre deaths in the forest.

2:16

That controversial pastor, Paul Mackenzie,

2:18

is now on trial. Kenyan

2:22

journalist Kerry Baraka, supported

2:24

by the Pulitzer Center, has spent the

2:26

past year reporting the story for our 1843 magazine.

2:31

He tells The Weekend Intelligence how

2:34

and why it has happened. Hi

2:50

Kerry. Hi

2:52

Orey, how are you? Good, thank you so

2:54

much for coming on The Weekend Intelligence. Thank

2:57

you for having me. So Kerry, where are you

2:59

at the moment? Is that cicadas I

3:01

can hear in the background? Yes, exactly.

3:04

I live in Nairobi but

3:07

around 20 kilometers from the city center, which

3:09

means where I live there's a little greenery,

3:11

a lot of animals. So even right now

3:13

the fact that I can hear the cicadas

3:15

means that it's probably going to

3:17

be dry for the next few years because

3:19

they surely come out when it's dry and

3:21

hide when it's raining. Now

3:24

Kerry, this story broke just over a year ago.

3:27

Tell me about your reporting

3:29

process since then. Yeah, I

3:31

remember when the story first broke I was

3:33

paying sort of distance attention to

3:35

age but then I became very actively

3:38

involved around July. The

3:40

thing that still astounds me is how many people I talked

3:43

to for the story. Around

3:45

Shakahollah Malind itself I talked to easily 40

3:48

people or 50 people,

3:50

you know, just going around the town talking

3:53

to NGO case workers, talking to

3:55

former members of the church, talking

3:58

to my friends, family members. talking

4:00

to police officers, people who used to work

4:02

with the children who were raised from the

4:05

church, relatives of those who had been in

4:07

the church. But even beyond

4:09

that I think I attended

4:12

all the attending like all

4:14

these evangelical church services

4:17

in Nairobi and also in Mombasa

4:20

near where Mackenzie's church was. I

4:22

was trying to understand the sort of philosophical

4:27

print these churches come

4:30

from. So between like all those services

4:32

and all the people I was talking to, it took

4:36

me months just

4:38

to understand the background of what was happening.

4:41

And what's the hardest thing in reporting a story like

4:43

this? I think the

4:45

difficult thing this story is mostly the

4:48

psychological element. It's a lot of people

4:50

dying right? When I first signed the

4:52

Commission with the Economist I

4:54

used to joke with my

4:56

editor that the Economist needs to pay for therapy

5:00

for me because it's a lot

5:02

of horrific things are happening in this story. But

5:05

I think fundamentally there's very little

5:07

a person can do to prepare

5:10

themselves psychologically.

5:18

So Kerry this story all started in

5:20

Shakahola. Take me there. Tell me a

5:22

little bit about Shakahola. It's

5:30

a really small town that is

5:32

located 50 kilometers

5:34

from Malindi which is one of the big

5:36

tourist centers in Kenya. I mean

5:38

like this place is like Sandy Beecher, this

5:40

is the Indian Ocean, like fun all year

5:43

round. It's so popular that like it's called

5:45

Little Italy because a lot of like Italian

5:47

people who like live there like go

5:49

to have holidays there. It's

5:55

a very remote place and there's the town of

5:57

Shakahola but then right next to the

5:59

town the forest and no

6:02

one lives in this forest or

6:05

at least nobody lived there until

6:08

a pastor called Paul McKenzie showed up and he followed

6:10

us. How

6:15

did people first find out about what Paul

6:17

McKenzie was doing in the forest? So

6:20

when the residents of Shakalah town realized that there

6:22

were people living in the forest it was very

6:25

weird for them and because the forest

6:27

like every forest in Kenya not only

6:30

does it not have the amenities of

6:32

modern living with electricity or like running

6:34

water or good telecommunication lines

6:36

it also has a lot of really

6:38

dangerous animals and here

6:41

with talking about lions and layopers

6:43

and cheetahs and buffaloes and hyenas

6:45

and hippos and snakes. All

6:49

other things you find on Kenyan safaris like in

6:51

this forest and so because of this people

6:53

don't live in this forest right while the

6:56

people in Shakalah town thought it was strange that people

6:58

were living in the forest. To

7:00

them things became even stranger towards the

7:02

end of January 2023 and start of

7:05

February because initially you'd

7:07

have groups of women coming

7:09

to the town, accompanying with their children to buy

7:11

whatever things they needed from the local shops but

7:14

then around end of January the

7:17

children seem to disappear and it's just the

7:19

women coming and they wonder where have the children

7:21

gone. But

7:24

then as the week seep into February first

7:26

of all the amount of women coming to the

7:28

town itself starts to reduce but also

7:30

the women who come to the town

7:32

suddenly appear freighter, they appear weaker and the

7:35

residents of the town don't know what is happening.

7:40

That's really eerie

7:42

so people had started arriving into the

7:44

town quite mysteriously a year or

7:47

two before and now just

7:49

as mysteriously they started disappearing. How

7:52

did the local people discover what was going on?

7:55

They put in the town, try and go

7:57

to the forest to engineer a

7:59

rescue. of people who are starving. And

8:02

a group of them, led by one of

8:04

the village elders in the town, walks into

8:06

the forest. And when they go into

8:08

the forest, they see a group of women who

8:11

are lying down on the forest floor. And

8:14

this is really very weird for them, because

8:16

if you lie down on the forest floor

8:18

in Kenya, basically that is you saying

8:21

that you want to be attacked by hyenas, because

8:23

hyenas will attack anything they think is dead. And

8:26

so these women are lying down on the floor of

8:28

the forest. And the women seem to be weak.

8:31

And the group of people from

8:33

the town walk closer to them, because

8:35

they want to rescue them. But

8:38

then before they can get there, a

8:40

group of men armed with machetes emerges from

8:42

the forest. And the group of men tells

8:44

them to mind their own business,

8:47

to get out of the forest, because the river is happening there,

8:49

has nothing to do with them. And

8:52

so the townspeople are forced to

8:54

retreat, and they go back to the town. At

9:04

some point in February, a group of children were

9:06

found wandering the forest by some of the hadas

9:08

who were going to the forest. These

9:10

group of children told the hadas that

9:14

they were running away from the camp where Mackenzie and

9:16

his followers had been living. And the

9:19

hadas take the boys back to the

9:21

town. And the boys told the residents

9:23

of the town a really shocking story.

9:26

A controversial Malindi televangelist was

9:29

on Thursday charged with alleged

9:31

starving children to death in

9:33

the Shakahola area. In what

9:36

they termed as cultic practices,

9:38

the Directorate of Criminal Investigation.

9:41

At this point, the first reports

9:44

emerged in the Canadian media that

9:47

this pastor in Malindi about

9:50

him, it is rumored that some of his followers might

9:53

have starved to death in the forest. This

9:55

is the Directorate of Criminal

9:57

Investigations. Officers say the televangelist.

10:00

Paul Mackenzie of Good News

10:02

International Ministries has been preaching

10:04

to his followers to drink

10:06

water only to a vat-aluming

10:08

disaster. Okay,

10:14

so let's park the story there for a

10:16

moment. Tell me about Mackenzie.

10:19

Who is this guy? Where does he come from? What's

10:22

the story? Paul Mackenzie is

10:25

this really fiery evangelical preacher.

10:36

So to understand who Mackenzie is and

10:38

how he became who he is, you have to understand

10:40

where he comes from. Mackenzie

10:43

was born in a small town called Lunga

10:45

Lunga, which is somewhere

10:47

very close to Kenya's border with Tanzania. And

10:49

it was one in a big family. There

10:51

were 10 kids. Their

10:54

household was a very religious household. They

10:56

would pray every day. And

10:58

the Nintia family belonged to this

11:00

church called the African Brotherhood Church,

11:02

which was an evangelical church that

11:04

was started in Kenya in the 1940s. It

11:06

was a sort of way to support

11:09

African Christians in this country

11:12

where colonization itself is happening. And

11:18

even when he was really young, Mackenzie was very involved

11:20

in the church. I spoke to

11:22

Mackenzie's brother Robert, and he told me that his

11:25

brother used to be not only

11:27

a Sunday school teacher when he

11:29

was very young, but also he became a choir master

11:31

when he was barely out of his teens. Then

11:35

in 1995, he moved to Malindi to live

11:37

with an older sister of his who lived

11:39

in the town. His sister bought

11:41

him a cab to run a taxi service. So

11:44

he's living in Malindi, figuring things out. But

11:46

then around the town of the millennium, a

11:48

couple of pivotal things happen in his life.

11:51

First of all, he joins a Baptist church. And

11:54

then very shortly after, he gets married. And

11:58

at the same time, in this Baptist church, he

12:00

quickly establishes himself as one of the preachers in

12:02

the church because he has a very captivating tone.

12:12

So this is from a relative Alice someone

12:15

when when the church is still in Malindi

12:18

and in essence is saying that the

12:20

true believer should not be terrified of death. If

12:23

death is what brings you salvation then

12:25

you should be willing to just die. Wow.

12:28

And it's made Elida

12:30

in the church and he becomes friends with

12:33

some of the most interesting people in the church. He's

12:35

still doing the taxi business, but like more and

12:37

more spending more time as a preacher in the

12:39

church. He has

12:41

very powerful summons which

12:44

mostly revolve around the idea of

12:46

like the end of times. And

12:52

this gives someone to bring in new worshipers

12:55

to the church but

12:58

he makes a very controversial summon and in

13:00

the sermon he says that God

13:03

is coming back to earth soon, but

13:05

there's one thing that has to happen before he can come back.

13:08

The leader of the church has

13:11

to die. That is the condition

13:13

that God has before he can come back to earth

13:15

and it has a chance that this is what he

13:17

was told by God. And

13:22

of course the leader of the church is very angry at

13:24

this and he is kicked out of the church. And

13:28

this is the point when he starts his own church. But

13:33

then his views get a bit more extreme,

13:35

right? Yeah, MacKenzie starts this new

13:37

church and it's called House of the Lord and

13:39

it starts it with the couple who are also

13:41

members of the Baptist Church. It

13:43

took him from a Lindy called David-Kahinde and

13:46

Dukkadzo. She told me that

13:48

when they said the church initially she

13:50

thought that they're all just trying to get

13:52

people to convert to Christianity. But

13:55

then at some point MacKenzie started making summons and

13:57

edicts through even more conservation that is in the

13:59

church. previous ones and one

14:01

of the big ones was about healthcare and

14:04

he said that healthcare was in a

14:07

sense a sin against God that

14:09

you know you shouldn't use earth memories and you shouldn't go

14:11

to earthly hospitals you should trust in God. So

14:15

he's forced out of one church because he

14:17

was saying that the church leader has to

14:19

die in order for God to return to earth

14:21

again and he's now

14:23

set up his own church with a couple Ruth

14:25

and David and he's going around telling

14:27

his congregants and his fellow church

14:29

leaders not to seek

14:32

medical help and let nature take

14:34

its course instead. At

14:36

the same time, Makane's own wife is

14:38

also not in agreement with the things he's saying about healthcare and

14:41

matters come to her head and he and his

14:44

wife argue a lot about this and

14:46

then she's expectant and

14:50

she doesn't go to hospitals until

14:53

the very last moment and

14:55

then she died during child reports.

14:58

Wow. So

15:10

after his wife dies, he gets married

15:12

again to someone

15:14

from his church a woman called Joyce Mokamba and

15:18

she actually becomes his biggest

15:20

supporter so much so that

15:22

when he starts becoming more open about the

15:24

things he's saying she's there beside him and

15:27

the main thing is that before this he used

15:29

to tell his members to trust that education is

15:31

the same but now he

15:33

adds another thing which is to tell them

15:36

that they should remove, actively remove their children

15:38

from school and so a bunch

15:40

of members of the church remove their children from

15:42

school but one

15:44

person who is upset that her grandchildren are being

15:46

returned from school ends up reporting

15:49

him to their police and this

15:51

is the first time he always

15:53

judge appears in

15:56

the national news. preacher

16:00

was arrested for misleading residence where some

16:02

parents have lost control over their children

16:04

who drop out of school to live

16:07

with the preacher in his church. 35

16:10

children under the age of 10 years. So, Kari,

16:12

what's going on here? So he

16:14

had opened his own school where most of the

16:16

people who had removed their children from school, some

16:18

of them were taking them to Mackenzie's

16:21

school. So one of the people I

16:23

spoke to in Malinde is a man

16:25

called Titus Katana who was one of

16:27

the deputy pastors of the church and

16:29

he used to help Mackenzie when he'd

16:31

go to Crusades to try and

16:33

convert people to the church. And

16:36

so when Mackenzie tells the members of the church

16:38

to remove their children from school,

16:40

Katana is one of the people who removes the children

16:42

from school. But then at some point

16:44

he changes his mind and returns the student to school

16:47

and then he himself resigns from the

16:49

church. Shortly

16:52

after Katana leaves the church, Mackenzie

16:55

tells his followers that they have to go

16:57

into the wilderness to pray. And this

17:00

is of something he gets from the Bible, from

17:02

the book of Revelation, it's about a

17:04

woman who goes to pray in the wilderness for 1260

17:06

days before she goes to heaven. And so he tells

17:08

them that they have to go to the wilderness to

17:10

pray. And around November, December

17:13

2019, a small group of believers

17:15

moved into the forest with Mackenzie and they're

17:17

very happy to be there. How

17:20

many people are we talking about here, Kari? We

17:23

don't have exact numbers but estimates put

17:25

it between a few dozen to an

17:28

upper limit of maybe 100 people. But

17:30

then one of the things Titus Karana

17:32

told me is that in March 2020

17:35

something happened which changed everything completely. This

17:39

is a Corona deal, problem

17:41

no more. A

17:44

function of what was the... Hello

17:47

Kenyans, I want to inform

17:50

you that the Ministry of Health

17:53

has confirmed the first

17:55

Corona virus case in Kenya.

18:00

In essence, in March, when the first

18:03

case of COVID-19 is announced at Kenya,

18:05

it seems like vindication for everything McKinsey

18:07

had been preaching about. The

18:09

cause? Because one of the first

18:11

things that happens is that the

18:14

government declares every school closed as

18:16

a measure to safeguard against the

18:18

spread of the virus. And

18:21

immediately this happens. McKinsey

18:23

goes with followers and tells them, didn't I

18:25

tell you that all the schools of the

18:27

world are evil and that they were going

18:29

to be closed? But

18:35

then after that, they have vaccine mandates, of course. This

18:39

is when the Kenyan government said that

18:41

Kenyans had to have the COVID vaccine

18:43

to access government services. Yes, exactly.

18:45

Yeah. These are people who generally believe

18:47

that putting a vaccine to

18:49

your body was a way of harming your body and

18:52

was against the commandments of God. And

18:55

all these people who have been watching his

18:57

summons on the YouTube channel, they get his number

18:59

from the YouTube channel and they call him and

19:01

text him to ask him if there's a safe

19:03

place they can be to hide from the COVID

19:05

mandates and it doesn't come to the students.

19:08

So people come into Shaka Hola from

19:11

Malindi town and then from Nairobi,

19:13

from Uganda, from Tanzania, from like

19:15

different countries in Africa. And

19:17

then they start living in the forest. By

19:25

the end of 2020, because of COVID,

19:28

there were a few thousand people living in the forest. And

19:33

so the forest is positioned into

19:35

this zone where people are given

19:37

lots of land for really, really

19:39

low prices. I think you will get one acre of

19:41

land for $10 or $15 or something equally crazy and

19:46

you get your plot of land and your signs. So

19:49

you're going to leave and then you build

19:51

your house. One

19:54

of the people I spoke to who moved into the forest really

19:56

early on, she told me that it

19:58

felt really idyllic to her. They're

20:03

living in nature and they're getting like

20:05

fresh air and it's not loud at

20:07

all and they can grow like crops

20:09

for themselves near their houses and

20:12

a lot of the people who were living there had been

20:14

living in poverty and so this is a change from like

20:16

having to struggle to get food all over the India. They're

20:19

growing like small amounts of food around them.

20:22

So she told me that it

20:25

honestly was really idyllic for them. Transitioning

20:36

to a decarbonised economy sounds like

20:39

just one change. In fact this

20:41

shift requires several transitions across sectors,

20:43

geographies and timelines. In

20:46

Talking Transitions, a new podcast brought to

20:48

you by the EY organisation and Foresight

20:50

Climate and Energy, we look at how

20:53

the transition is affecting three key areas.

20:55

Energy, Financial Services and Government. The

20:58

Talking Transitions podcast is out now. Download

21:00

today from wherever you get your

21:02

podcasts or visit talkingtransitions.com to find

21:05

out more. So

21:11

somehow this forest which is largely

21:13

uninhabitable begins to feel idyllic compared

21:16

to everything that's going on outside in the rest

21:18

of the world with Covid. But then

21:20

things began to go a bit wrong, right? At

21:23

the end of 2022 they are

21:25

told that they should start preparing to go to heaven and the

21:28

preparation for going to heaven is going to involve them

21:30

fasting. They are told that at some point

21:32

they're going to start eating less and less food. So

21:34

it's friends, right? So maybe like the food they

21:36

eat should reduce by like half at some point

21:38

and then another half and then ultimately

21:41

they will now start eating food

21:43

altogether. And that's

21:45

when it turned fatal. Yeah maybe

21:47

end of January sort of way, the fasting

21:49

started in months and that's at

21:52

the point when the people who didn't want

21:54

to fast began to make attempts

21:56

run away from the forest. police

22:00

occurred and come to the forest for the

22:02

first time, right? Yeah. So

22:04

this is when the police come to the forest for

22:06

the first time. One guy reported

22:08

that his grandchildren, he feared

22:11

that they had stopped dead in the forest because he had

22:13

stories about what was happening there. And

22:15

the police went to them to the forest and

22:19

they actually rescued another of his

22:21

grandchildren. And the

22:23

child says that his siblings

22:25

have been mired in some unmarked areas in the forest.

22:28

And so because of that, the police went

22:30

to Malindi town to maintain his house and

22:33

they arrested him in his house for the first time.

22:35

And I spoke to a journalist

22:38

in Malindi, Alex Kalama, and he told me

22:40

that after

22:42

they arrested him, they

22:44

made the biggest mistake in the case. He

22:46

was released at the bond of 10,000

22:48

in Chile. He second

22:50

to court, but then he's released on bail for

22:53

very, very ludicrously small amount. And

22:55

then after that, then the worst

22:58

thing comes from that day he

23:00

was released by a bond. He

23:04

goes back to the forest from Malindi. And

23:09

in that time, people start dying. People

23:12

were dying in the forest already, but I

23:14

spoke to one of the police officers in

23:17

Malindi who was involved in investigating

23:19

the case. And he told me that

23:22

when pathologists ended up going to the forest,

23:25

they found that a

23:27

lot of the bodies that they recovered

23:29

seem to have died in

23:31

the three week period between Mackenzie

23:33

being released on bond and

23:36

police officers finally showing up in the forest. So

23:42

a lot of these people didn't seem

23:45

to have died by starvation, but

23:47

they had marks on their bodies that seem to

23:49

suggest they had been strangled. Strangled?

23:54

Yes, but there had been strangles

23:56

that somewhat like marks on their wrists

23:58

and legs that seem to show that they

24:00

had been dried up, some

24:02

seemed to have suffocated, to suggest

24:04

that when they were buried, they weren't yet

24:08

dead. How

24:14

did strangling come about? What

24:16

happened in these three weeks? So

24:19

the stories from people who survived, to people

24:21

who ran away from the forest, is

24:23

that at certain points, a huge

24:25

change of people changed their mind about fasting,

24:28

and these people wanted to leave the forest.

24:32

But then they weren't allowed to leave the forest, and there

24:34

was apparently a team in the forest

24:36

whose job it was to make sure that these people

24:39

continued fasting. And

24:41

so some of them were tied

24:44

up and locked in houses, some were tied

24:46

up to trees, but

24:48

then there were all these bodies

24:50

which were exhumed from the forest,

24:52

and these bodies had marks of

24:54

strangulation and marks of suffocation. And

24:57

what pathologists determined is that these people

24:59

seem to have died from being strangled,

25:02

rather than because they had been

25:04

starved. Do

25:07

we know how many people might

25:09

have died? So

25:17

we still don't know for certain how many people died in

25:19

the forest, but I spoke to

25:21

Jasintam Bayu, who is a human rights

25:24

worker, based in Malindi. She works for

25:26

an organization called Haki Africa, which was

25:28

very involved in trying to rescue

25:30

people in the forest, and she

25:33

went to the forest and the data pathologists

25:35

showed up. She was doing a human rights

25:37

event in the town, and we talked while

25:39

we were driving between the two events. We

25:41

actually have the numbers, we know of

25:44

the bodies that have been exhumed here,

25:46

but we also know from the reports that

25:48

we have at the center, there

25:51

are very many people that are in that

25:53

forest still. How many people are out there?

25:56

A number of them, quite a big number, because

25:58

if there were over 300 families. And

26:01

the bodies that were actually assumed over 400

26:03

bodies. And

26:05

yet for each family we are talking

26:07

about four people to, I don't

26:10

know, ten people per family.

26:13

That simply means that there are quite a

26:15

lot of people involved in this. They

26:17

will be linked to an adult on the key. That's

26:30

awful. Hundreds and hundreds of

26:32

bodies found in the forest and probably more stood out there.

26:35

What's happened to these followers now? Where

26:37

did the rest of them go when they were rescued? The

26:41

ones who were rescued were taken

26:43

to rescue centers in Malindi where

26:45

they could be looked after by

26:47

medical professionals. But

26:49

the problem the government had was that people

26:51

who were rescued did not want to be

26:53

rescued. Because they felt

26:55

that they were waiting to die so they can go to

26:57

heaven. And they felt

27:00

that all the people coming to rescue

27:02

them are the evil people of

27:04

the world who are preventing them

27:06

from going to heaven. And

27:08

so because of this, there's a tricky thing that

27:10

happened when they were taken to rescue centers where

27:13

almost all of them refused to eat. That

27:16

puts rescuers like Jacinta in quite a

27:18

tough position. She's trying to save

27:20

them but they feel that they're

27:22

being saved by not eating. Yeah,

27:25

that's part of the prodigy of this case.

27:27

That no one actually knows what to do

27:29

with these people because their belief

27:31

in the message of fasting as a way to get

27:33

to heaven is still strong. What

27:44

happens to Mackenzie now? So

27:47

Mackenzie is currently undergoing trial.

27:50

Paul Mackenzie was seen as a pastor by

27:52

some. But he'll

27:54

stand before Kenyan judges accused of

27:57

encouraging followers of his Good News

27:59

International Church. The starve themselves.

28:01

In order to reach have in. A

28:04

him and ninety four is of the senate will

28:06

in the south and have a child had been

28:09

such from my dad had been settlements lot I

28:11

didn't As for torso. Is

28:15

there any sense of remorse when Mackenzie

28:17

appeared at trial? For. Usually what

28:19

happens in Mccain is brought court to that

28:21

like you would like of peace in the

28:24

air and his say something is full of

28:26

some sort of like call and response thin

28:28

and don't respond and he seems to lack

28:30

of depth and have died and having fun

28:33

A journalist like in this enclave. He's telling

28:35

them that if you want to photos that

28:37

forty five go ahead. And

28:40

then at some point he tells them

28:42

that you guys you don't know who

28:44

you're fighting with and whatever you're fighting

28:46

with will come back and be to

28:48

base And that is still the attitude

28:50

he has whenever he talks in court

28:52

or whenever he he talks to journalists.

28:54

Why these his and are in courts.

28:57

Wow. Okay, so he's not remorseful.

28:59

Axel. Does. Actually doubling down

29:01

and in fact found Mckinsey has

29:03

been writing letters to hello from

29:05

to them new evidence files before

29:08

the lot of the songs law

29:10

courts on Thursday, so the Circle

29:12

Lock Out leader Paul Mckenzie is

29:14

using the letters to follow instructors

29:16

follows in and outside prison to

29:18

continue fasting until death. Is.

29:20

Comes after a letter continue Contact

29:23

teachings was discovered by investigating officers,

29:25

raising concerns over the mechanism use

29:28

by the main suspect to continue

29:30

indoctrinating his followers. To. Concede

29:32

even when people abroad for the

29:34

courts that's when my kids himself

29:36

as a healthy some with followers

29:38

are tying up to code been

29:40

very frail v monsieur to some

29:42

of them famed arm of the

29:44

courtroom because of a week but

29:46

also one of them actually died.

29:49

While from stabbing himself when he was in

29:51

prison. It's very sad how

29:53

even a year after doing with

29:55

and divorced most of them since

29:57

it has successfully believe. That.

30:00

that by starving themselves to death, they

30:02

will go to heaven. Do

30:04

you think Mackenzie believes that? Do you

30:06

think he actually believes that the people who are starving

30:08

themselves to death are going to go to heaven? I

30:11

don't know. I've

30:13

been going back and forth about this over

30:15

the past year also, because

30:17

like the other motivations

30:19

you would usually have that like say he was doing

30:22

this as a long term to get people's land

30:24

and property doesn't make sense because he

30:26

doesn't even benefit financially from the entire

30:28

thing. And I think it's

30:30

easier to like pass with his senior followers because

30:33

his very senior followers, including

30:35

his number two, their children

30:38

actually starve to death, you

30:40

know, and the fact that someone

30:42

could actually make their own

30:44

child starve means

30:47

that they most likely truly believe in it.

30:49

But for Mackenzie himself, even

30:51

when he said that children should be the

30:53

first ones to die, his own child never

30:55

starved. His wife never starved when the other

30:57

women were starving. She's still

30:59

very much alive. So because

31:01

of that, there's a bit of doubt about

31:04

whether he genuinely believed that making

31:07

people starve was the way to make them go

31:09

to heaven. And

31:17

what about back in Malindi and Shakahola?

31:19

How are people there making sense of

31:21

what happened? This is a man

31:24

I spoke to who was involved in rescuing people. When

31:26

the children escaped the forest, they

31:29

lived in his house. The horror

31:31

of what was happening and the fact that they

31:33

didn't know until boys escaped is

31:35

still with him. People like Jacinta or people

31:38

who like went to the forest, like they

31:40

still have this sort of psychological trauma from

31:42

what they saw. It actually rings

31:44

in my head day to day. I

31:46

can actually see probably it be traveling,

31:49

doing some other errands. Once again, the

31:51

images come back, they reflect in my

31:53

mind. Ah

32:00

stories even he talking about. How

32:03

did it upsets you reporting when it

32:05

speaking for these people and go into

32:07

the forest. Once. I imagine

32:09

the were Mackenzie had tremendous effect.

32:12

a bit like scale but when

32:14

of a lot like was like

32:16

the footage of Mackenzie someone didn't

32:18

Stats I'm filled with this that

32:20

is is taught them that plate.

32:23

She. Was presumably than than people end up dying. How.

32:29

Likely Is it that. Something like this could

32:31

happen. Again, One

32:33

of the signs that you think people should maybe be

32:35

keeping an eye out for when you're dealing with other

32:38

past. As I mean he said you, what's his sermons

32:40

and. You'll. Filled with rage.

32:43

What should people be less? not for. A

32:45

long road city because be and every

32:48

religion. As a professional believe every religion

32:50

involved. You have a cousin in a

32:52

like. have some of your faith in

32:54

whatever it is this is telling you.

32:56

Said treated like terms of what was

32:59

that Internal sensors should. Should

33:01

pigeonhole as the line and or

33:03

because Mckenzie in his someone's a

33:05

little in the save don'ts defar

33:07

to dramatically from what relative of

33:10

and a little bit of the.

33:13

I find that like enough events such as the Cabal of

33:15

the Know that seems to like some. Anti

33:17

colonial movements so it's like the Americans

33:20

are the British bars the pope want

33:22

control of rebounded this and this way

33:24

so you must select resist them because

33:26

by reducing them it would be prepared

33:29

for let the second coming of Jesus

33:31

Christ as soon as a for mckenzie

33:33

he said although this things and the

33:35

only difference between him and like a

33:38

little history says is that he added

33:40

that extra step. Of you

33:42

have to like Prepare for the second

33:44

time of Jesus Christ. Like testing.

33:47

And if you've been in this region

33:49

for like your entire life and you

33:51

believed everything that the Preacher's eight, it's

33:53

really hard that that I went. To.

33:56

Be a livable a pocket this last

33:58

five percent. Of the believing meant. The

34:00

Hand this love five percent is

34:02

what I'm going. To.

34:05

Not Believing. One

34:12

of the barricade lists. Send me

34:15

from the story is how much

34:17

of it wasn't actually that shocking?

34:19

I think it's like you and

34:21

I, you are African, and you've

34:23

heard about similar stories of evangelical

34:26

passes taking things way too far

34:28

and really pivoting. What is the

34:30

word of goods and. Justifying

34:33

really have a reset acts in

34:35

God's name you. You wouldn't be

34:37

surprised. he looks the best. Don't

34:39

think it's quite sad because this

34:41

is one of the biggest mass

34:43

killings in Kenya's history, but I

34:45

think it's unfortunate that actually stories

34:47

like these were people who are

34:49

in power abuse up our and

34:51

meet people do with horrible things

34:53

have become so commonplace that this

34:55

isn't actually that's looking to me.

35:00

Juri think you say much for joining us

35:02

today if you have me, Thank

35:18

you for listening to this episode of the

35:20

Weekend. intelligence reports out with

35:22

carry baraka and the producer

35:24

was buckley brand sound design

35:27

was by nicholas real fast

35:29

and executive producer of the

35:31

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