Why publish this site on ritual killing in Africa?

I have long hesitated to create this site on ritual killing in Africa. It all started in Liberia, West Africa, in the 1970s. Upon arrival in the country, I first lived in the capital city, Monrovia, and was surprised and shocked reading about ritual murders in the local newspapers. Some articles were accompanied by graphic pictures showing victims, invariably with ‘certain parts missing’. Later I moved to Harper, the capital of Maryland County, in the eastern part of the country, bordering Ivory Coast. Here I witnessed the public execution – by hanging – of seven convicted ritual murderers. It was in the year 1979, a year before the Liberian President William R. Tolbert Jr. – then also Chairman of the Organization of African Unity – was brutally murdered in a military coup. Was he ritually killed? We will never know the answer with certainty. I asked a colleague at the University of Liberia and close friend from Zimbabwe about these ritual murders. Was it a phenomenon that occurred in Liberia only? He did not give me a straight answer. He returned my question: ‘Do you think it is different in other African countries?’ It was only later that I would learn of ‘muti murders’. He never mentioned this practice to me. Muti’ is the Zulu word for ‘medicine’. Muti murders are ritual murders and occur not only in the Republic of South Africa but also in other countries in Southern Africa.

In Nigeria, ‘money rituals’ often imply ritual murders and trading in body parts for rituals. In other anglophone West African countries (Gambia, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone) juju-related murders for ritual or occult purposes also occur frequently. Albinos in Eastern Africa fear for their lives for the same reason. Some years ago the world was shocked by incessant reports on albino killings and mutilations in the Great Lakes region and in Eastern Africa, notably in Tanzania.

Have these practices since disappeared? No, unfortunately not.

For over forty years I have studied the phenomenon of ritualistic killings in Africa and I’ve come to the conclusion that these practices are widespread across the continent. Ritual murders are also committed beyond the African continent, but that is not the focus of my research. So now I come back to my initial question: Why this site on ritual killing in Africa?

The answer is simple. The basis of these cruel, age-old practices, which have no place in the 21st century, is superstition, the belief in witchcraft.  Its prolonged existence is the result of a combination of factors, most important of which are greed, lack of education and the absence of the rule of law. What results is the unpunished violation of human rights. The freedom of fear is one of such human rights. In 1979 the people of Harper were dancing before the gallows, relieved, after the executioner had done his work. They told me that now they were no longer afraid to walk the streets of Harper and to return home after sundown. The trial and hanging of ‘The Harper Seven’ was an exception, even in Liberia. African governments seldom investigate ritual murders and trials of accused suspects occur even less frequent. Impunity for the perpetrators of these atrocities has almost been systematic. Why? Is it because of the often observed increase in ritualistic killings during election time? I will not dwell here on the reasons for this lack of action of African governments and their failure to enforce the rule of law. At a later stage I will do. I will also pay attention to this lack of action by those in power in the country-specific reports on unexplained disappearances and ritualistic killings. But let it be understood that I am not driven by a desire to reveal sensational practices, nor do I want to stigmatize or humiliate certain groups of people. All I want is an end to these practices which are rejected by the majority of the African people as well as by people in other parts of the world. Freedom of fear is a human right, the rule of law an obligation of the state.

Governments in countries where ritual murders frequently happen must be held accountable if they fail to react to these crimes, when for this reason their citizens live in fear and perpetrators of these crimes and their accomplices go unpunished. To hold these African governments accountable is an important objective of this site.
Furthermore, the lack of education makes it difficult to completely wipe out ritualistic murders and the related belief in witchcraft. This site aims to contribute to end these cruel crimes by exposing perpetrators and revealing their motives for killing and mutilating innocent people. Education starts with facts and awareness.
Last but not least, I want to break the silence on ritual killings in Africa. Nearly every day one can read about ritualistic murders that have taken place somewhere on the continent (!), but only in a few countries there exists organized resistance to these crimes which are often perpetrated by powerful and rich people.

As briefly mentioned above I’ve been studying the phenomenon of ritualistic killings in Sub-Saharan Africa since the late 1970s. In 2001 I started a website on Liberia including a section on the history of ritual murders in this country and the present state of affairs. For comparison reasons I later added a page on ritual killings in other African countries, in 2003. Unfortunately, many links to relevant articles and reports which I included have since disappeared. In some cases this has resulted in the definite loss of precious relevant information. For this reason I’ve decided in 2018 when starting this site on ritual killings in Africa to include the full text of the articles cited while always mentioning the source of my information and the name of the author when known. For more information on the methodology used and the further explanation of the approach used, see under ‘Methodology’.

For information purposes and completeness sake I have added the original introductory text of the section of my Liberia website named ‘Not Only in Liberia – Ritual Killings in Other African Countries‘ at the end of this page, presented in three screenshots. The reader who wishes to access the original articles mentioned in this Introduction may use the links included in the original posting, provided the links have not disappeared.    

The present site is part of a research project. Relevant material is collected and presented, often accompanied by my observations and/or analysis. The information will be based on publicly available sources, predominantly consisting of reports published by local and international media. If reported cases of (alleged) ritual murders have not been confirmed and are merely based on rumors, I will specifically mention it. 

Warning

Ritual murders, human sacrifice, cannibalism, witchcraft
Visitors of this website will be confronted with violence, atrocious acts, horrifying pictures, repulsive reports. I offer them my apologies in advance. Th reason for drawing attention to these heinous crimes resulting from superstition and belief in witchcraft and involving human sacrifices and abuse of children is neither related to sensationalism nor has it anything to do with a feeling of (racial) superiority – as explained above.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in Africa but is not limited to African countries and societies. It is very likely that witchcraft has existed since the earliest human cultures. Also cannibalism is an age-old practice that may even go back between 50,000 to 10,000 years ago. Cannibalism is also called anthropophagy and has been practiced by various communities and individuals all over the world including on the Afrfican continent.

Rutual murder or ritual killing – human sacrifice – is a much more complex phenomenon. I will not go into the anthropological details and definitions here. This website is not meant to be only for specialists, it rather aims to serve the general public. The interested reader may like the two links included in the first sentence of this paragraph.

This site contains names of victims, perpetrators and accomplices. Likewise, in a few cases I mention names of accused offenders or reproduce newspaper clippings with their names. Since it is not my intention to blame, shame or to insult anybody, I apologize to their relatives and friends for any inconvenience or embarrassment caused by this exposure. Moreover, the principle that nobody is guilty until he or she is found guilty after a fair trial continues to be applicable.

Third and last comment, it is not my intention to stigmatize a particular tribe, political class, group of people or country.

Finally, if readers find information on this site incorrect, incomplete or biased, I invite them to react and bring it to my attention, bearing in mind a famous quote of the Irish novelist and poet Oscar Wilde: ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple’. 

ruleoflaw imagesCAJYI7RJ

This is how I started in 2003 (for technical reasons it’s not possible to change the original text): 

Source: Liberia Past and Present of Africa’s Oldest Republic
Source: Liberia: Past and Present of Africa’s Oldest Republic
Source: Liberia: Past and Present of Africa’s Oldest Republic

Interested readers are advised to click the link mentioned in the Source in order to access the links to the articles mentioned in the original introductory text.  

Leave a Reply