The arrest of an African pastor for accusing children of witchcraft has turned the spotlight on African customs and the recent revamping of laws regulating witchcraft in Zimbabwe.  In Zimbabwe, where state sanctioned violence and apathy colludes with a spiraling economic crisis, reliance on traditional occult practices appears to be on the rise.  However, the government’s response to people’s fears of bewitchment has been decidedly controversial.   Laura Mitchison reports for Index on Censorship.  

The British public was scandalised on January 25 by a report of an African pastor denouncing children in his congregation as witches and encouraging their parents to beat them on the BBC’s flagship Today programme.  Dieudonne Tukala, 40, was arrested in North London on suspicion of child abuse, but the police were unable to charge him because witchcraft accusation is not an offense on the statute books. 

After the aborted prosecution of pastor Tukala, child protection agencies in the U.K. immediately called for legal amendments which would make it an offense to demonise children. Ironically, their campaign is a precise inversion of new laws in Zimbabwe lifting the century-old ban on accusing or punishing witches. In 1899, when vitriolic retribution against suspected witches was rife, the British missionaries made it illegal to name someone as a witch or to provide occult related services.  New Zimbabwe newspaper reports that the amended legislation of July 2006 allows traditional healers to practice divination, concoct muthi (spells), communicate with ancestors and roll bones to predict the future. However, people convicted of harmful witchcraft can be punished by up to 5 years´ imprisonment or a hefty fine. Hailed as a promising advance in the African renaissance by traditional healers and condemned as an affront to civil liberties by human rights activists, the Zimbabwean state’s decision has divided public opinion in the region.

“Witchcraft is not an area that lends itself to police scrutiny”
 According to the minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, judicial officers and policemen are currently being trained so they can implement the law in court.  The practical difficulty of ensuring a fair trial for defendants has raised concern among civil rights defenders in Zimbabwe.  In the absence of DNA evidence or crime-scene clues, the jury can only rely on testimony from n’angas, or spirit mediums, who are adept at ‘sniffing out’ witches.  The n’anga ’s diagnosis would provide the expert opinion required under the amended Act.  Because witchcraft is performed in the utmost secrecy, there is little demand for further witnesses.  As Police Spokesman Wayne Budzijena Police Spokesman wryly remarked: “Witchcraft is not an area that lends itself to police scrutiny.”
     Although it is tempting to regard state recognition of witchcraft as the latest example of Robert Mugabe’s eccentric policy-making, this simple picture is complicated by the prevalence of faith in the occult in the country. The Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1899 was immensely unpopular in its day because it prevented people from resolving witchcraft disputes in traditional courts, while the agnostic state apparatus refused to acknowledge occult aggression. Even in contemporary Zimbabwe, some people felt that the old laws, which were frequently enforced, unfairly restricted their religious and cultural rights. 

The proliferation of occult practices
Many in the country retain a firm belief in the healing power of spirit mediums and herbalists, coupled with abject terror at the prospect of bewitchment or witchcraft-related violence. As the economy deteriorates and people resort to desperate measures for securing their health and livelihood, the practice of ritual murder to obtain body parts for muthi spells is on the rise.  According to police reports from the capital city Harare, 98 people were murdered in 2005 alone, and the majority of those cases appearing in court were ritual killings. 

Mdudzi Mathuthu, news editor of New Zimbabwe said that occasionally bogus healers are involved in the body parts trade, but most rely on divination or herbalism and do not regard themselves as witches.  He added: “If that’s what they believe in, people should not be prevented from visiting herbalists or healers.”  Reliance on traditional medicine is hardly surprising when the price of a 5 minute consultation with a GP is about £12 (€18), more than the average domestic worker earns in a month, according to the New Scotsman.   It is estimated that 80% of Zimbabweans regularly consult traditional practitioners for reasons ranging from health complaints or marital infidelity to reversing the ill effects of bewitchment. Of course, some people are highly sceptical, but for many Zimbabweans evidence of the supernatural abounds. In a BBC World Service interview, a man called Alfred described how his hair disappeared just before he went to bed one evening, a fact that he attributes to witches. He spent several months visiting traditional healers to make it grow back.  
     While playing to people’s fears, the new legislation is also a response to intense pressure from traditional healers´ organisations, which were instrumental in Mugabe’s rise to power. The President of the Zimbabwean National Traditional Healers´ Association (Zinatha) Professor Gordon Chavukunda applauded the government for reasserting African culture after years of colonial suppression. “It would be wise to verify what the motive of the Zimbabwean government is,” said one Nigerian academic.
      Although Mugabe’s administration is faced with vociferous demands to accommodate traditional African beliefs and to combat witchcraft violence, criminalisation may not be the answer. By implementing legislation to penalise “bad” witches, the government imperils the political and cultural rights of citizens who don’t endorse the majority belief system. Defendants in witchcraft trials could find themselves accused, on scanty evidence, of crimes relating to a paranormal universe that they experience as completely alien. Even for those who accept its existence, magic is often not amenable to legal adjudication because its effects are so subjective.  A man who uses muthi to prevent his wife from committing adultery feels that he is protecting her, but her potential lovers may believe that they have fallen foul of a malevolent hex. It would be difficult to maintain the amended law’s firm distinction between healing, protective magic and bad witchcraft in these sorts of cases. 
     Zinatha President Chavukunda at least acknowledges the link between social adversity and the rise of occult practices: “The worse the economy gets, the more political tension there is in society and the more frightened people get. They turn to witches to gain riches and hurt their enemies.”  The danger is that people are being encouraged to blame economic deprivation on diabolic forces rather than holding government incompetence and foreign business interests accountable for their suffering. For several academic commentators, the potential for witchcraft accusations to be used as a form of social control and intimidation is the most worrying prospect.

New Zimbabwe