ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 15, 1996 TAG: 9606180015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WESTERNBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
SOURCE: Associated Press
The witchcraft summit sometimes deteriorated into debate over whether anyone has the power to strike down an enemy with lightning or turn a rival into a zombie.
But for the most part, the 100 or so politicians, scholars and ministers gathered in a chilly auditorium Friday had little time for philosophical questions.
They were desperate to find a way to stop the violence that no one denies is real: Hundreds of alleged witches have been burned or stoned to death in this barren corner of South Africa in recent years.
``There's no way we can say, `So-and-so cannot believe in witches,''' said Seth Nthai, the provincial Cabinet minister in charge of police. ``Belief is not a problem of law and order. Violence is a problem of law and order.''
The Northern Province Council of Churches organized the summit in part in response to Nthai's pleas for help educating people in the region about what many see as a tragic distortion of traditional beliefs.
Nthai suggested better science education, particularly on the subject of lightning. The rainy season, when lightning sets fire to huts that dot the Northern Province's brush-covered plains, is high witch-hunting season.
It is not unheard of for body parts to disappear from South African morgues, apparently stolen by people who believe fingers or penises or lumps of human fat can be fashioned into powerful charms.
Newspapers across the country occasionally report on families refusing to bury a relative, convinced that the corpse is a zombie that can be brought back to life if the right spell is cast.
But only in Northern Province has it become almost commonplace to hear of deadly attacks on people believed to be witches.
Exact figures are hard to come by. A task force appointed by Nthai pored over police reports from 1985 to 1995 in one area of the province and found more than 300 deaths could be traced to alleged witchcraft.
Hundreds more people chased from their homes by mobs have established ``witch villages'' in the province - refugee camps for outcasts.
Abraham Maharala has lived for the past two years in one such village, located just a few miles from the community hall where experts discussed witchcraft.
Maharala's story began innocently enough, with a son bringing home a gift from Johannesburg - a portable stereo. The family celebrated with an impromptu party.
``The villagers accused us of dancing naked all night. They said we were practicing witchcraft,'' he said. He denied he was a witch, but said: ``I realized the danger was imminent, so I escaped. They burned my houses.''
Jealousy is often the motive behind witchcraft accusations, Selaelo Thias Kgatla, dean of the department of theology at South Africa's University of the North, told delegates to the witchcraft summit.
Maharala had owned four huts. He and his family lived comfortably on a pension from his years as a miner, and his sons were earning money in Johannesburg. That was enough to make him a wealthy man in the Northern Province, one of South Africa's poorest regions.
Under apartheid, large tracts of the province were designated homelands - places to which blacks could be banished because the land was too desolate for whites to covet. That has created a challenge for the black leaders who took over after all-race elections in 1994.
``They must build schools and houses for the people and prevent them from opting for crime and violence,'' said Kgatla, who also is president-elect of the provincial council of churches.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Abraham Maharala fled to the "witch village" twoby CNByears ago after his neighbors accused him of witchcraft. Hundreds of
alleged witches have been burned in South Africa in recent years. 2.
A nun blesses herself during the witchcraft summit's opening
prayers.