Papua New Guinea : Young mother burnt alive for sorcery

[Mid]

Young mother burnt alive for sorcery in Papua New Guinea
07 February, 2013


Young mother accused of sorcery who was stripped naked, reportedly tortured with a branding iron, tied up, splashed with fuel and set alight on a pile of rubbish topped with car tyres, in Mount Hagen city in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea on February 6, 2013
(AFP Photo / Post-Courier Papua New Guinea Out)

Accused of sorcery, a 20-year-old mother of two was burnt alive by a group of allegedly drunk and doped-up men while hundreds of people, including schoolchildren, idly watched and took photos on mobile phones.

Police were too scared to intervene.

Kepari Leniata was murdered in Mount Hagen, in the Western Highlands province of Papua New Guinea.

Relatives of a six-year-old boy who died in Mount Hagen General Hospital on Tuesday claimed his death was inflicted by sorcery. They interrogated three women, one of whom was Leniata, native to Enga province.

The attackers forced Leniata to admit her guilt by torturing her with a red-hot iron rod, local newspaper Post Courier reported.

Once they got the ‘confession’ needed, they stripped her naked, bound her hands and feet, doused her with gasoline and set fire to her on a pile of rubbish and old tires.

Hundreds of onlookers, including schoolchildren, watched the torture and brutal murder, taking photos of the woman being consumed alive by the fire, with none of them coming to the defense of the victim.

Several police officers who happened to be near the scene refrained from stopping the auto-da-fe merely because they were ‘outnumbered’ by the executioners.

Once medics and police dared to show up at the scene of the lynching, they couldn’t do anything to save Kepari Leniata’s life.

Kaiglo Ambane, police commander superintendent of the Western Highlands province, condemned the crime and promised to investigate it as murder and bring the culprits to justice.

Local authorities acknowledge that burning women for witchcraft is not an uncommon crime in PNG, but it usually doesn’t take place in broad daylight.

“It's an ongoing problem and has been in the spotlight for some time now,” PNG police spokesman Dominic Kakas told Australian Associated Press.

People in rural areas of Papua New Guinea strongly believe in white and black magic.

The spokesman said that witch-hunting is “part of PNG culture” for which people die because courts prefer not to rule in sorcery claims, despite a sorcery act adopted in the country in 1975.

Rashida Manjoo, the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women, reported last year that ‘culture sensitive’ extreme violence is only a smokescreen to raid women’s property, using misfortune or death as a pretext.

"I was informed that sorcery-related violence is commonly perpetrated by young men or boys who act under orders for other members in the community," Manjoo told the BBC in March 2012.

"They commonly do so under the influence of drugs or alcohol, which is provided by such persons,” he said.

Manjoo maintained that about two-thirds of females in relationships in PNG are familiar with domestic violence, The Australian newspaper reported.

rt.com

[Lorenzo]

WOW ... return of the dark ages

[TizMe]

Did PNG ever leave the dark ages?

[Spin]

^not yet.

[ENT]

And they won't for centuries yet.

[wasabi]

Happens all the time,nothing new. This happens in Central Africa on a regular basis. The ones converted to Christianity then find demon possessed victims to kill,to cleans the community.Had a case in London recently where an African family killed a young girl for being possessed.

[Mid]

Happens all the time,nothing new.

As long as I live I hope I NEVER become so blasé

[Mid]

‘Witch’ burned alive in Papua New Guinea
Feb 08, 2013

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — A mob stripped, tortured and bound a woman accused of witchcraft, then burned her alive in front of hundreds of witnesses in a Papua New Guinea town, police said Friday after one of the highest profile sorcery-related murders in this South Pacific island nation.

Hundreds of bystanders, including many children, watched and some took photographs of Wednesday’s brutal slaying. Grisly pictures were published on the front pages of the country’s biggest circulating newspapers, The National and Post-Courier, while the prime minister, police and diplomats condemned the killing.

In rural Papua New Guinea, witchcraft is often blamed for unexplained misfortunes. Sorcery has traditionally been countered by sorcery, but responses to sorcery allegations have become increasingly violent in recent years.

The death was the first sorcery-related murder in Papua New Guinea in a year, national police spokesman Dominic Kakas said.

Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old mother, had been accused of sorcery by relatives of a 6-year-old boy who died in the hospital the day before.

She was tortured with a hot iron rod, bound, doused in gasoline, then set alight on a pile of car tires and trash in the Western Highlands provincial capital of Mount Hagen, Kakas said.

Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Kauba on Friday blasted Mount Hagen investigators by phone for failing to make a single arrest, Kakas said.

The public were apparently not cooperating with police and police carrying out the investigation were not working hard enough, Kakas said.

“He was very, very disappointed that there’s been no arrest made as yet,” Kakas said.

“The incident happened in broad daylight in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses and yet we haven’t picked up any suspects yet. He was very, very curious about that and he blasted the investigators on the phone,” Kakas added.

Kakas described the victim’s husband as the “prime suspect” and said the man fled the province. Kakas said he did not know if there were a relationship between the husband and the dead boy’s family.

He said more than 50 men and people are suspected to have “laid a hand on the victim” and committed crimes in the mob attack. While many children had witnessed the murder, there were no child suspects, he said.

Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga described the murder as “shocking and devilish.”

“We are in the 21st century and this is totally unacceptable,” Commissioner Kulunga said in a statement.

He suggested courts be established to deal with sorcery allegations, as an alternative to villagers dispensing justice.

Prime Minister Pete O’Neill said he had instructed police to use all available manpower to bring the killers to justice.

“It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with,” O’Neill said.

The U.S. Embassy in the national capital Port Moresby issued a statement calling for a sustained international partnership to enhance anti-gender-based violence laws throughout the Pacific.

The embassy of Australia, Papua New Guinea’s colonial ruler until independence in 1975 and now its biggest foreign aid donor, said “We join … all reasonable Papua New Guineans in looking forward to the perpetrators being brought to justice.”

asiancorrespondent.com

[wasabi]

Happens all the time,nothing new.

As long as I live I hope I NEVER become so blasé

If You choose one day to live amongst a community such as this for a long period,eventually despair will set in. Try it.

[CaptainNemo]

^
Is that what living in Isan did to you?

Aren't they metaphorically doing that in Argentina and Spain these days over the results of wars they lost?

[wasabi]

^
Is that what living in Isan did to you?

Aren't they metaphorically doing that in Argentina and Spain these days over the results of wars they lost?

Isaan would be normal. I lived in "The Heart of Darkness" Joseph Conrad.

[khmen]

^Congo?

[kingwilly]

This lack of cooperation and lack of arrests is reprehensible. The entire fukking village and all the relatives of the dead boy should be locked up.

[sabang]

The entire fukking village and all the relatives of the dead boy should be locked up.

Difficult- Mt Hagen is the third largest city in PNG. Along with Goroka, it is the main urban centre for the Highlanders- many different tribes. Even by PNG standards, they are backwards. Fascinating country, but a nightmare to govern. There are said to be more indigenous languages in PNG than any other country in the world, over 700. In the case of the highland tribes, they are basically still in the stone age.

[DrAndy]

I worked in a bar called "The Heart of Darkness"

that was fun

[kmart]

Happens all the time in parts of Africa, as well as killing / mutilating albinos and physically-abnormal people for body parts.

Seems to be what passes for a family day out, or entertainment there.

[wasabi]

^Congo?

Just over the border,on the Copperbelt.

[Rural Surin]

^
Is that what living in Isan did to you?

Aren't they metaphorically doing that in Argentina and Spain these days over the results of wars they lost?

Isaan would be normal. I lived in "The Heart of Darkness" Joseph Conrad.

Lord Jim would be a more appropriate Conrad selection as it relates to Isaan.