Vicious attacks have no place in PNG

IF it was not for the quick intervention by police this week in Lae, a woman accused of killing someone through sorcery, and her husband, would have met a worse fate at the hands of the relatives of the deceased.
The incident happened along Cassowary Road, a short drive from the Top Town and the China Town police stations. Police arrived in time to save the couple from their torturers.
Elizabeth Nicholas, from Asaro in Eastern Highlands would have died the same way as young mother Kepari Leniata did in Mt Hagen in 2013.
Like in Leniata’s case, Nicholas’ accusers and tormentors stripped her, bound her hands and feet and tortured her with a hot iron rod and knives before laying her on tyres to be burnt, while people looked on as if such criminal deeds are acceptable.
It is a shame that this happened in the country’s second largest city where one would expect the people to be a lot more civilised and disallow such acts.
Similar to what happened in Mt Hagen on Feb 6, 2013, there was a crowd of people standing there watching as the woman and her husband were tortured.
The onlookers were either helpless against the angry relatives or simply watched out of curiosity or amazement. Some even captured the gruesome event on their mobile phone cameras and posted the images on social media platforms.
The death of Kepari Leniata, a young woman from Paiela in Enga, made headlines here and abroad and instigated a public outcry. Leniata had been blamed for the death of a boy at the Warakum settlement in Mt Hagen and it was claimed that she was a sanguma or sorcerer.
They stripped her naked, tortured her with a hot branding iron, bound her and set her on fire. A couple of months later, a national haus krai was held to launch a campaign against violence on women.
But sadly, all the excitement gradually fizzled out, and with it the campaign. Kepari Leniata became just another statistic in a country where such ritual killings are rampant in villages and towns.
The United Nations estimates that there are 200 witch killings in PNG annually. There are no exact figures because sanguma is done secretively thus unreported.
Sorcery-related killings and gender-based violence are among the biggest law and order problems in this so-called Christian country.
Churches are seemingly unable to educate their followers to refrain from these forms of violence which are mostly based on circumstances which cannot be proven in any court.
In a recent article in The National, Lutheran missionary Anton Lutz spoke of the worrying strong hold of sorcery on the PNG population, especially Christians.
Lutz is a strong campaigner against beliefs in sorcery and is one of many individuals who want to see an end to this evil behaviour.
The incident in Lae this week is not the first, according to a doctor at the Angau Memorial Hospital who attended to the tortured husband and wife. He says there have been many “sorcery” victims who were treated at the hospital.
The spread of sorcery beliefs around the country and the extent of violence arising from such beliefs cannot be addressed by legislation alone. It must also involve education and training too.
Knowing the word of God alone is not sufficient. Christians need much better understanding of medicine, psychology and neuroscience, the missionary says.
Such knowledge would eventually dispel superstition which promotes belief in sorcery.
Lutz says for too many schools or educational programmes, academic knowledge is disconnected from ethical decision-making.
He says we have lost the key truth that knowledge means responsibility, and those who are educated have a responsibility to discern truth and untruth.
Indeed. A good start to tackling this huge social problem is to learn and accept the truth and let go of the superstition and fear associated with sorcery that drives peoples to commit the most horrific crimes against fellow citizens.
It almost all cases, it is always the weak, defenceless and elderly who are targeted in such attacks.
It must be stopped.
Such satanic and evil deeds have no place in our Christian societies.