CULTURE: Destructive Superstitions Key Part of Political Life in Swaziland

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Mar 14 2003 (IPS) - ”Ritual murder” has allegedly long been a dark and secret part of politics in Swaziland, a conservative kingdom where traditions good and bad, including some destructive superstitions, are a key part of life.

”The charming traditions draw the tourists, and the nefarious ones cause ambitious people to kill others and harvest their body parts for potions they believe will make them stronger and wealthier,” sociologist Themba Shongwe told IPS this week.

This October sees parliamentary elections, which are held every five years. Already, candidates are positioning themselves in the media, and drawing attention to their records through well-publicised acts of charity. The current food shortage that finds nearly a third of the population without enough to eat has given politicians a chance to win support by distributing a few bags of maize or contributing some cows from their herds.

But other candidates, it is feared, are turning to illegal means to secure support. ”Ritual murder” is said to be such a serious threat among ambitious politicians that this week legislators warned during parliamentary deliberations that parents must safeguard their children during the campaign.

”Ritual murder is a fact in Swaziland. Our only protection is to adopt a defensive attitude,” said MP Clement Dlamini.

”Ritual murder” is the imprecise name given to gruesome killings where no ritual is involved.

”The victim is usually easily overpowered – a child, or a widow – and killed usually by hired killers,” says Vusie Masuku, public relations officer for the Royal Swaziland Police Force.

Body parts are then ”harvested” from the victim: bits of flesh from under the armpits, a finger, and some internal organs. Legend says that the most potent parts are cut from a still living person. The parts are then brought to a witch or sorcerer, who combines them with other ingredients to make a potion that brings ”invulnerability” to the user.

”It’s a form of sympathetic magic – the life force of the victim is sacrificed to give power to the user,” says Shongwe.

The Swaziland police report a half-dozen findings of mutilated bodies annually. The number increased twofold in 1998, the year of the last parliamentary elections. Some suspects were caught and tried for a few of the killings that year, but none were involved in the elections. This did not keep the Swazi press from linking the upswing in ”ritual murders” with electioneering.

Swaziland has several thousand traditional healers, and though they were condemned as ”witch doctors” by European colonialists, they provide herbal medicines and cures for a majority of Swazis, for whom these healers are the preferred health care providers. Recently, the Ministry of Health enlisted traditional healers in efforts to combat HIV/AIDS in a country where 38,6 percent of the adult population is HIV positive. Legitimate healers opposed any misuse of traditional medicine, and unanimously condemn the practice of ”ritual murder”.

”A diviner/healer gets his power or her power from the ancestral spirits. But if a healer is involved in a Satanic type of activity like ritual murder, the ancestors will kill him,” one well-respected healer, Gogo Phutaza, told IPS. ”That is why it is forbidden for healers to even be near dead bodies.”

Worries over ritual murders have taken on a new urgency in anticipation of the trial of Swaziland’s first mass murderer. David Simelane confessed to police nearly two years ago that he kidnapped and killed more than 60 women and children. He was caught after dozens of shallow graves were uncovered in the commercial timber forests of Malkerns, 50 kilometres south of the capital Mbabane. Simelane confessed to the killings, and brought police to more graves.

He has not been tried, and this week the Swaziland Senate urged the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to apply for a trial date. ”The Swazi people want to know who is behind this,” submitted Senator Abednego Dlamini.

The prosecutor’s office claims it cannot proceed until DNA evidence is processed in Pretoria, South Africa.

”Swaziland has no DNA testing facilities. The sheer number of victims makes the testing time consuming,” former Director of Public Prosecutions Lincoln Ng’uara says.

Vusie Ginindza, editor of the Times of Swaziland Sunday edition, voiced the suspicions commonly heard on the streets of the kingdom: ”Simelane had no car. He had no job, and therefore no money. How did he lure dozens of women to their deaths? How did he transport their bodies to remote areas? In other words, who were his accomplices?”

A conspiracy theory swirls around Simelane and this country’s first case of serial killings, and that is the self-confessed murderer was working with others, perhaps a syndicate whose business was to secure body parts for ritual murder potions.

The suspicion has increased the public’s desire to see a trial, and with no trial forthcoming, has raised fears that a powerful cabal of authorities is keeping Simelane out of view, lest he implicate others.

”There is no evidence for the conspiracy theory, but doubts were inflamed last year when Simelane grew mysteriously ill in prison, and was reportedly close to death. Many people thought his colleagues on the outside wanted him dead before he could talk,” Ginindza wrote in the Times.

Shongwe said the reality of ”ritual murder” in Swaziland has convince people that the 63 alleged victims of Simelane were killed for their body parts.

A history of this crime in the country has also increased fears that the upcoming elections will see more killings.