SOMETIMES THE USA DOESN'T SEEM SO BAD

Witchcraft blamed for deadly Congo soccer riot

13 dead in stampede at stadium

Thirteen people are dead after a stadium riot was apparently sparked by accusations that a soccer player used witchcraft during a match in Congo, a UN-funded radio station reported Monday.

Most of the dead ranged in age from 11 to 16 and were suffocated in the fracas Sunday in Butembo, in eastern Congo's North Kivu province, Radio Olapi said.

The Nyuki System soccer club was losing to rivals Socozaki when Nyuki's goalkeeper reportedly ran up the pitch chanting "fetishist" spells in an attempt to change the course of the match, Radio Olapi said. The station provided no more details.

Fighting soon broke out between the opposing teams. When a police officer tried to intervene, spectators pelted him with rocks, wounding him on the head, the radio station said.

Police then retaliated by firing tear gas into the crowd, where 13 are believed to have died in the ensuing rush for the exits.

Many Congolese use charms and other objects to practise witchcraft as part of their traditional animist beliefs, Reuters news agency reported.

Dozens of teenagers marched through Butembo's dirt streets Monday in protest and the regional governor visited the hospital.

WHAT WERE THEY PROTESTING? THEIR OWN BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT?? THE FACT THAT ONE TEAM USED SPELLS? THAT POLICE WERE PELTED WITH ROCKS? THAT POLICE ENFORCE ANTI-SPELL LAWS? THAT THE POLICE USED TEAR GAS RATHER THAN BE INJURED WITH ROCKS? And why do you carry rocks to a stadium anyway? Baffling!

ACCORDING TO THIS BBC ARTICLE, MANY OF THE WITCHES ARE CHILDREN:

ALLEGED CHILD WITCHES



By Mark Dummett
BBC, Kinshasa

At a church in Kinshasa the children sat glassy eyed and nervous as they waited to be exorcised by the priest.

One by one they stood up and explained how they became witches, were kicked out of their homes and ended up at the church.

Parents who don't work or who lose their jobs... are looking for a scapegoat.

Ange Bay Bay Nzuzi, an eight-year-old with a sad face, said she was tricked by some class mates.

"They gave me some bread at school. It was poisoned and they came to get it back later." (HUNGH?)

Nzuzi said that when her family slept, she would sneak out to join her friends to fly in the night sky.

When they found out, she joined the growing ranks of children abandoned by their parents in Kinshasa, and accused of witchcraft.

The children rights organisation, Save the Children, estimates that there are more than 20,000 of them.

'New problem'

Although the belief in sorcery is traditional in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as elsewhere in Africa, many people are concerned that children never used to be blamed in such huge numbers.

"It is a new problem, because when we grew up we never saw this problem of children accused of sorcery. It is only since life became bad," said Ange Bay Bay, a children's rights lawyer.

War and misrule make life hard in Kinshasa

When something goes wrong in a family the children are often blamed, she said.

So a child can be accused of sorcery when death, an illness or sudden unemployment strikes the home.

As Kinshasa's economy and infrastructure collapsed in the last decade, as a result of government corruption and war, so the number of children accused of witchcraft exploded.

"Parents who don't work or who lose their jobs because of the economic situation are looking for a scapegoat," Mrs Bay Bay said.

Nabor, for example, who now lives in a home supported by Ange Bay Bay, was blamed, along with his brothers, for the death of his father.

"My dad was ill, he had tuberculosis. And when he died, we were chased away from the house because we were accused of having eaten him," he said.

Song for change

Many of the children suffer appalling treatment from their families and in the churches where they are forced to undergo sometimes painful exorcisms, Mrs Bay Bay explained.

"There are children who are ironed with a clothes iron, there are others who are not given food for a whole week - there are these unbelievable things going on," she said.

We want to educate the whole world that what is going on in our country is not good

A group of former street kids turned musicians are now trying to do something about the situation.

Their band, called La Chytoura, backed by a Unites States NGO Centre Lokole, has released a song and a video to change people's attitudes.

It tells the story of one young boy who is blamed by his parents for his father's unemployment.

When he accidentally kicks over a cooking pot, he is accused of sorcery and thrown onto the streets.

The song, of course, has a happy ending, and the band members hope its story line and catchy rhythm will have an impact on Kinshasa's music-loving and TV-watching public.

"We want to educate the whole world that what is going on in our country is not good," singer Romain Mazamba said.


HERE'S AN EXCERPT FROM ANOTHER ARTICLE FROM WORLDWIDE RELIGIOUS NEWS:

Olivier, a nine-year-old witch, sighs, making a half-chewed, blue plastic crucifix bobble against his tummy. He knows his mother has died, but not why he has been blamed. 'I'm not a sorcerer,' Olivier whispers, his thin skin gleaming with the tell-tale sheen of Aids. 'I didn't cast any spells.'

Three years ago his mother succumbed to the virus marauding through Kinshasa's slums, leaving him an orphan. An uncle took him in, but with five children of his own to feed Olivier's was one mouth too many. Within a week he resorted to another phenomenon raging through Kinshasa's slums, accusing the child of witchcraft and casting him onto the streets.

Ever since, Olivier has been scavenging for survival, begging for scraps in Kinshasa's markets, or for a few francs in its fume-filled traffic. Last year he went back to his uncle seeking forgiveness. 'He said that he'd burn me alive if he saw me again,' Olivier said.

WHOLE ARTICLE: WWRN


OK, how freaky is this? Someone has just forwarded me a video of a Pastor Thomas Muthee, an African witch hunter from Kenya. Somehow, the witch hunter has turned up in Wasilla, Alaska--AT THE VERY CHURCH SARAH PALIN HAS ATTENDED SINCE AGE 12! She claims that Pastor Muthee's prayers made her governor.




After watching this, please tell me which preacher is more insane, Sarah Palin's or Obama's Pastor Jeremiah Wright? And remember how often we heard about Pastor Wright? Heard Muthee's name ONCE on the news? I really started writing this blog entry thinking that I'm glad I didn't live in a country which believed in witchcraft. Only to find that some do, and one believer may be headed to the White House.
And it ain't the black guy with a grandmother in Kenya--it's the twisted woman from Alaska! SICK!