Modern-Day Witch Hunts Target Men
In Papua New Guinea, a type of violence usually committed against women has increasingly targeted men: attacks on people accused of practicing witchcraft.
Witchcraft accusations and the subsequent attacks on the accused have plagued communities in Papua New Guinea for years. Now, in a new report, anthropologist Dan Jorgensen of the University of Western Ontario described seven cases that involved the killings, beatings and gruesome torture of male victims.
The cases, which occurred near the village of Telefomin, may hold clues to the roots of violence, Jorgensen said.
"The temptation is to blame [the witchcraft-related violence] on the culture" and the backwardness of the beliefs that are allegedly causing all this trouble, Jorgensen told Live Science. "And I actually think it is actually a false lead."
The beginning
The first report of such attacks near Telefomin appeared in 2009 in the local paper The National, which described how a group of men was "tortured with weapons — including iron rods — before being hacked to death."
In the new report, Jorgensen described six cases of male victims between ages 35 and 65, and one case of an attack on a 16-year-old boy. Three of the victims were killed in the attacks.
One of the survivors, Thomas (not his real name), a deacon in his 60s from the nearby village of Talavip, was passing through that area with his two sons when he was assaulted.(Jorgensen used pseudonyms for all the victims mentioned in the report to protect their identities.)
"They beat me and my sons with iron rods and covered me with [oil]," Thomas told Jorgensen. "One of them lit a match and almost killed me, but someone told him that if he did, he would die, too, so they didn't set fire to me."
Violence related to witchcraft and sorcery allegations in Papua New Guinea has attracted media attention in the last decade, and the number of such reports increased fivefold between 2000 and 2006, Jorgensen wrote in the report. (Witchcraft is generally believed to result from inherent powers, whereas it is believed that sorcery can be learned, and practiced by anyone with the right knowledge.)
The violence has even acquired its own acronym: SRK, for "sorcery-related killing." In February 2013, a young mother was publically tortured and burned alive; in April 2013, a retired female schoolteacher was tortured and publically beheaded. The government reacted by introducing legislation to punish the perpetrators of such crimes.
But the violence against men in Telefomin may not stem from old beliefs about witches, Jorgensen wrote in the report. In the recent cases, the perpetrators are believed to be a group of young men who dropped out of school and remain unemployed. The locals refer to these men as "the Boys."
A conflict between the Boys and the community — triggered by the lack of educational or economic opportunities for these men, and likely fueled by their drug use — may instead be the real reason behind the attacks.
Drugs, lack of education and impunity
The Boys may be jealous of other men in the community who are more successful, and may feel rage against their own community because of their own disadvantaged social and economic situations, Jorgensen said.
Many young people from Telefomin have been successful in getting their education and pursuing careers, but "these guys are basically [school] dropouts," he said.
Increased costs might explain why the Boys' didn't pursue education, as the fees for attending the local high school increased over time, Jorgensen said. In 2004, when he was visiting the area, the school fees had risen so high that parents started choosing which of their kids would go to high school. "That basically shut the door for a lot of these guys," he said, and there could be resentment about that.
Moreover, some villagers told Jorgensen that prior to the attacks, the Boys used marijuana and drank tea made from a plant called the angel's trumpet. The drink "is a very powerful hallucinogen, that often produces violent fantasies and reactions," he said.
The lack of response from the local police to the attacks also creates the impression of impunity, which exacerbates the issue of violence even more. "As villagers say, the attacks took place under the noses of two local policemen and the district administration," Jorgensen wrote in the report.
It is not completely clear why the police did not take action to counteract those incidents, he said. The police sometimes say they feel outnumbered, while some villagers have suggested that the police were bribed to keep silent, he said.
When attempting to explain witchcraft-related violence, "the thing to look for is the nature of social and economic relationships between the various people involved," Jorgensen said. - Live Science
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'It disappeared into doorway in sky'
Riverside, CA: On 9/22/14 Monday night about 9:30 PM from the SE direction I saw a ufo. I was sitting in my chair chanting (Mantra Meditation). From the South direction moving East towards where I was sitting a bright white round light moving slow. From the round bright light come out a dark blue edges on each side with small red lights It was very beautiful. The object did not move for about 15-20 sec. There was no noise. It did not fly off into the distance. It disappeared into doorway in the sky and it was gone. When I first saw this glowing object I thought its just like the other one I see. But this is the first time I saw a blue ufo coming out of the glowing bright white light. I was amazed to see its beauty. - MUFON CMS
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UK Defence Intelligence suggests witnesses may have been exposed to UFO radiation
A witness to the UK’s most famous UFO sighting says he may be suffering from the effects of radiation, and in a recent press release, points out that a UK Defence Intelligence (DI) report suggests that he may have been exposed to UFO radiation. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force says they have lost his service and medical records from that time.
john-burroughsIt was reported this week that the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has admitted that they will be releasing more UFO files, despite having said that they had already released all of their UFO files. This current revelation has been due to the efforts of John Burroughs, a military witness to the UK’s most famous UFO sighting.
Burroughs says he has been seeking official answers as to what he might have experienced that night in December, 1980 when he and others witnessed a UFO. At the time, Burroughs was a U.S. Air Force security officer stationed at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, which, along with nearby RAF Woodbridge, was on lease to the U.S. Air Force.
Since then he has had health problems and suspects that his UFO experience may have contributed to his condition. He says, “I have specific medical symptoms that are considered by some very knowledgeable people to be a fingerprint of a specific kind of radiation.” Read more at Open Minds
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