RITUAL MURDERS BEFORE ELECTION

Times of Swaziland

18 June 2008

What follows is an editorial comment after the killing and mutilation of two woman that were suspected to have been ritual killings connected to the national elections.

Killing the way to parliament

In football they skin chickens alive to win games; in politics it seems they chop humans alive to win seats in parliament.

It’s shocking to imagine that while some people are looking at others as possible candidates for election, some are looking at people as ideal candidates for the best human body parts. Anybody staring at you is a likely suspect.

That is the level to which this country will degenerate if recent events are anything to go by.
Call it sheer coincidence, but the number of dead bodies emerging just about everywhere in the past few months is just too high to ignore, especially during election time for a people that has demonstrated a strong belief in muti in order to win.

This satanic ancient belief is so strong it has invited calls from His Majesty the King who has issued repeated warnings against ritual murder which is commonly associated with elections.

Warning

If anything, such warning seems to have spurred them on. We must therefore take note that it takes more than just talk to deter people.

It takes properly grinding wheels of justice that do not take five years to solve a murder case.

That our judiciary is failing to conclude a case where over 40 women and children were murdered makes it opportune and lucrative to kill in Swaziland given the price wanna-be Members of Parliament(MPs) are said to be willing to pay for human body parts.

It is in times like these that the death penalty becomes most appropriate, but because of world politics we have to settle for life sentences that only help drain our resources in feeding murderers while families who lose their breadwinners starve to death.

Two mutilated bodies have been found at Sandleni since April, two more at Elangeni in a space of two weeks, not to mention individual cases elsewhere.

We could be forgiven for thinking another serial killer was on the prowl who is out to perfect what others started and got away with (for now).

poverty

But then again it could be a community member of each area who is well known to those conspiring with the murderer(s) and harboured in return for food in this poverty stricken country.

People are selling their votes for food, others are obviously selling their souls and, unfortunately, those of innocent people too.

We cannot sit silently while our relatives are being slaughtered right before our eyes.

Let us make every effort keep our families, relatives and friends alive through this election because if we don’t, these killings could be the reason we may end up with the wrong candidates in parliament. Then we’ll all be dead politically, economically, socially or otherwise.

In the meantime, we demand that the police and the army carry out a joint raid on all traditional healers’ homes in search for illegal ‘herbs and body parts’ in the interest of public safety. We also demand that the traditional healers association come out to denounce the involvement of its members in this barbaric act.