Devil Worship | Sunday Vision | March 28 2009
People who believe in satanic powers have resorted to witchcraft… such bondage has led to acts of human sacrifice since devil worship involves shedding precious human blood
By Anthony Bugembe
DON’T ask who is behind the ritual murders. It is devil worshippers at work. Police, spiritual leaders and academicians, all agree that most of the ritual murders that have recently been taking place in the country bear the hallmark of devil worship.
“The cutting off of body parts of innocent victims is consistent with devil worship. The parts are offered as sacrifice to Lucifer, in exchange for wealth and prosperity”, explains Monsignor David Kyeyune, the national pastoral co-ordinator at the Uganda Catholic Secretariat in Nsambya.
Devil worship, according to Kyeyune, thrives in situations where people are obsessed with making quick money, often at the expense of human life.
“As people get more deeply involved in devil worship, the devil asks them to fulfil increasingly difficult demands, including making human sacrifices. Children are prime targets because they are presumed to be innocent and pure and, therefore, acceptable as sacrifices,” he further explains.
Kyeyune has carried out extensive research on devil worship in Uganda and Kenya.
Unlike in Kenya where about 10 years ago devil worship was organised and had ‘high priests, in Uganda it is reportedly still at individual level. However, if the rampant human scarifices continue the practice could gravitate into an organised institution. According to the priest-cum-academician, devil worship is a foreign culture imported from Kenya. “Devil worshipping was very rampant in Kenya in the 1990s. For example, in Nairobi they even had temples for worshipping the devil,” he says. A presidential commission of inquiry in Kenya during the 1990s, concluded that devil worship existed in the country.
Some of the devil worship rituals in the commission’s report include: human sacrifice, drinking human blood, eating human flesh, nudity of the participants in the ritual, incantations in unintelligible language, sexual abuse, especially of children; black magic, narcotic drugs and presence of snakes. Body parts such as tongues, eyes and limbs are also used in the rituals.
Initiation into devil worshipping is normally done at night and the initiates are always naked. The ritual involves drawing blood from the person to be initiated, mixing it with some substances before giving it to members to drink.
Sometimes a human being is killed during the initiation rites or a fresh body is brought in and its parts served to members.
“Anything that involves sacrificing a human being is devil worship. If someone does something that is meant to please Satan and does not treasure human life, then it is attributed to the devil,” says Robby Muhumuza, a researcher on false religions.
Even the Police agree the devil has a hand in the gruesome ritual murders that are causing a lot of public concern. Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba strongly believes there is a link between the rampant ritual murders and devil worship.
“Devil worship is partly to blame for the increasing cases of human sacrifice in the country. Many people think that through worshipping the devil in the form of sacrificing human beings, they can get rid of bad luck and even get rich quick.” she says.
Children targeted
According to the 2008 Uganda Police Crime Report released on Thursday, ritual murders have risen by over 800% over the past year with children emerging as the most targeted victims. Earlier this year, an inter-ministerial Anti-Child Sacrifice/Human Trafficking Task Force, under the Uganda Police, was set up to combat ritual murders.
Since the beginning of this year, over 100 cases of suspected ritual murders have been recorded with the Police in different parts of the country. At first, the victims were mainly children, and the culprits mainly business people acting on the advice of unscrupulous traditional healers.
However, of late even grown-ups are also being targeted, as the practice moves away from the confines of urban centres, to cover the whole country. Mutilated bodies have been recovered with the head, limbs, genitals, tongue and other body parts missing.
According to Muhumuza, devil worshippers get the relevant body parts and take them to witchdoctors to use in devil worshipping rituals. “The witchdoctors claim the body parts are to be used to appease the devil on behalf of their clients,” Muhumuza adds.
Ethics and integrity state minister James Nsaba-Buturo blames the rampant ritual murders on a general moral decline of our society, characterised by devil worshipping. “The people who believe in satanic powers have resorted to witchcraft. They confide in witchdoctors and believe everything that is told to them. Such bondage has led to acts of human sacrifice because devil worship involves shedding precious human blood.
While Kenya’s devil worshippers are organised as a group, with temples where they go to worship the devil and even a ‘high priest’ to lead them in prayer, their Ugandan counterparts are still operating as individuals.
“I don’t think it is an organised group working under the same leadership. They are controlled by the devil but they operate independently, not as an organised congregation. However, the bottom line is that they all work for the devil.” Muhumuza explains. Buturo concurs with Muhumuza: “These people operate on individual basis. It is really a desperate lot of individuals being misled into devil worship by witchdoctors.”
However, the Kenyan report notes that initiation into devil worship is presided over by a ‘high priest’ at night in secluded places. It is also believed that devil worshippers use wealth to lure new members.
Ki-Nigeria blamed
A number of religious leaders blame the proliferation of Nollywood movies (Ki-Nigeria) for cultivating devil worship in the country. Most of the Nigerian movies on the Ugandan market contain scenes of devil worship.
Sources also pointed a finger at some Christian church that has bizarre teachings that lure members of the congregation into devil worship unknowingly. There are unconfirmed reports that a pastor of one church in Kampala sprinkles the congregation with water mixed with drops of blood.
Most times, sacrificial rituals have been attributed to traditional medicine. However, Sylvia Namutebi (Maama Fiina), the head of traditional healers in the country, draws a distinctive line. “A genuine traditional healer cannot sacrifice a human being. Besides, sacrificing a person cannot make you rich. This is a foreign culture that has been copied from societies that believe in offering human sacrifices,” she argues, adding that in her 17-year career as a traditional healer, the ‘powers’ have never asked her to make a human sacrifice. To show that the ‘powers’ she serves don’t cherish human blood, Namutebi explains that a female traditional healer cannot practise during her menstrual periods.
Herbalists in Uganda are known to dispense medicines while witchdoctors are linked to the spiritual world and they demand different kinds of sacrifices, including human beings.
Radio presenter Roger Mugisha “The shadow” is a self-confessed former devil worshipper. He chose to worship the devil out of the desire for money and quick wealth and believed that the devil would grant him his wish. He says that in the spirit world, names are very important. To that effect, ‘The Shadow’ was short for ‘the shadow of death’. He was the brain behind the erotic dance group, Shadow’s Angels. Mugisha later disbanded the group after becoming born again in 2003.
Muhumuza says that some people engage in devil worship unknowingly usually through subscribing to witchcraft while others do it knowingly. However, he insists that whether knowingly or unknowingly, ritual sacrifice is a form of devil worship and should be discouraged in every possible way.
But what is the Uganda government doing about the whole situation? Dr. Buturo says: “This trend has generated a lot of concern on our part as the Government because it is our responsibility to ensure that people live peacefully. That is why next week, my office in conjunction with the ministries of health, gender and internal affairs are going to meet and find a way of tackling this emerging trend (of devil worship).”
On her part, Nabakooba calls upon the Government to put in place guidelines to check on the activities of witchdoctors since in most cases, they encourage human sacrifice. Nabakooba adds that it is always hard for the Police to bring to book some of the devil worshippers who engage in human sacrifice because of the discreet nature of their operations.
“Most of these (human) sacrifices are done stealthily and at awkward hours. When we start investigating, there are no people to give us personal accounts because most of the victims don’t live to see the next day. This makes it difficult to pin down these criminals,” she observes.
Kenya and Uganda are not the only East African countries having to contend with devil worship. In May 2008, Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete announced a crackdown on witchdoctors to save albinos in the country following reports that they were being killed for devil worship rituals involving their body parts. The sexual organs of male and female albinos were believed to have miraculous powers.
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What different body parts are wanted for
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Blood: Believed to boost one’s vitality when taken raw.
Skull: Placed in the foundation of new buildings to bring good luck to a business.
Brains: Eaten to achieve political power and success in business.
Hands: Built into shop entrances to attract customers. They are also burnt to ash and mixed into a paste, which is used to treat strokes.
Entire bodies: Buried on farms to secure big harvests.
Genitals, breasts and uteruses: They are used to treat infertility and to bring good luck. Those taken from young boys and virgin girls are especially prized as uncontaminated’ and, therefore, highly potent.
There is a belief among devil worshippers that body parts taken from live victims are rendered more potent by their screams.
Published on: Saturday, 28th March, 2009
http://www.sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=123&newsId=676215
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Uganda: Human Sacrifice on Rise as Culprits Go Scot-Free | All Africa March 18 2009
Dr. Myers Lugemwa
Kampala — IT is perverse and a challenge to human cognitive faculties to see all sorts of atrocities take place in a country, one time described as the Pearl of Africa and the people therein seem not to be bothered.
What is therefore, bereft of this nation? The answer is straight on the wall: Cry the beloved country!
To wit: A country where child sacrifice is on the rise and the culprits are never brought to book just because of evidence beyond reasonable doubt has not been adduced and in defense of the human rights of the killer as if the killed did not have rights also.
A country where female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced abundantly and with abandon in the name of culture. The next time a culture that removes people's eyes will evolve and in the same vein, this country will obviously absolve it. Primitive Idi Amin would have criminalised such a culture.
A country where fires incinerate markets, night clubs, schools and nobody learns a lesson to prevent future fires by way of criminalising all such institutions without functional fire extinguishers, sand or training in fire drills?
According to the press in the recent Nakivubo inferno, the water hydrants around the area were empty at the time of the catastrophe. Where were the people responsible for monitoring the state of the hydrants? Unless charges are preferred on people for negligence, no sobriety will prevail in Uganda and with forests of petrol stations in and around Kampala, this country is apt to become ashes one day.
A country where building standards are not followed and the powers that be stand aloof as these dangerous structures proliferate at the alter of killing innocent, poor site porters. I bet, even if Mulago collapsed, the country would only shed crocodile tears and life would go on because Ugandans never learn through experience. Cry the beloved country.
A country where safety belts, helmets, life jackets and speed governors are deemed a burden from the Police instead of a primordial prevention for accidents.
A country where, in the implementing of its constitutional mandate in preventing diseases such as malaria, the health ministry is taken to court just for trying to save the lives of 320 persons that succumb to the disease, because the plaintiffs have obscurant political and economic and other myopic intentions against the wananchi. If this country was not crying, it would have charged such people for murder afore thought!
A country where some people have jiggers and want the Government to extract the jiggers for them. These are the same people who will get cholera after eating fresh feaces because they do not want to build and use pit latrines.
A country where most people cannot afford health charges at any health facility when they or their siblings become indisposed and when the Government endeavours to ameliorate the situation by the introduction of the health insurance scheme, they cry foul including the elite who pretend to be protecting these people.
Ironically, when these people become victims of disease, the said opponents of the scheme cannot even contribute one shilling for these people's treatment at the critical time of need!
A country where poor women sweep Kampala roads and drain feacal infected drainage systems without masks or gloves and with dust entering their lungs with a potential of acquiring chest infections. Nobody ever bothers to sue companies that flout labour laws in this regard. Cry the beloved the country!
A country where the youth smoke bangi, use khanabis, inhale aviation fuel and sober members of society watch as if they do not know that these youths will be a danger to them and their families tomorrow.
A country where we talk of modernisation of agriculture without even the concerned ministry putting one hand tractor in at least one village. How do you expect the wananchi to walk the talk when they are still using muscle power like the stone age man?
A country where government property, such as vehicles rot in ministry compounds without being disposed of by the Public Procurement and Disposal Authority so that monies accruing from such sales are used to procure replacements?
A country where people living at the equator cry foul when there is no hydro power when the majority would have invested in solar energy for domestic use and pay no bills to God who created the sun rather than Umeme?
A country which discovers oil and people start writing and discussing and calling this blessing a 'curse'. If this country was not crying, it would curse these people instead.
A country where patriotism let alone nationalism is deficient. Where support for Air Uganda, the country "flag" bearer is not even in the minds of government officials who ply the routes that this airline operates, but preference is to foreign airlines. If I had powers, I would make all government officials use this airline to inculcate the element of patriotism.
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There are many other things this country can continue lamenting over. The quest bereft of us is, do we have to continue like this? The answer to any sober thinking person is, no. I would personally suggest the following; that government strengthens and ensures that laws, policies, ordinances in regard to the above are implemented. Parliament should honour budgets in connection to items related to these cries.
Secondly, Parliament should pass a Bill creating an autonomous body to regularly monitor and evaluate the state of affairs in every sector, ministry or organisation and report to the concerned ministries and Parliament for action. The wananchi are entitled to living in a country that can protect them rather than crying everyday without any rescue.
The writer is a medical doctor
http://allafrica.com/stories/200903190085.html
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Rising child sacrifice worries Ugandan authorities | Xinhua | March 24 2009
www.chinaview.cn 2009-03-24 02:47:13
by Ronald Ssekandi
KAMPALA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- A 12-year-old Ugandan girl fell victim of Africa's long practiced witchcraft over the weekend despite of intensified crackdown operation, leaving police and authorities determined to curb the vice across the east African country.
In the Saturday murder, Sylvia Kangume of Ntunda Children's Center in the central Ugandan district of Kiboga was found dead with her private parts removed, a replica of the various ritual murders witnessed over the past months.
Her death was followed by another similar incident in Bugiri, central Uganda, of which a three-year-old boy's private part was cut off with a razor blade by a witchdoctor. The boy survived and is under medical treatment here.
Moses Kafeero, the police spokesman for central Uganda told reporters here on Monday that despite efforts to bring culprits to justice, the crime mainly targeting children have continued to rise countrywide.
Police's formation of a 15-man committee to strengthen investigations into the disturbing pattern of child sacrifice is yet to achieve much success.
"Our people still believe in witchcraft, we have talked, many people have been taken to court but the problem is still with us," Kafeero said.
But the revelation of the crimes is more shocking and disturbing that some parents or family relatives have been helping in the murder of their children while police is urging parents to keep closer watch of their children. According to the statistics, 18 suspected ritual murder cases were recorded last year, of which15 were investigated.
Witchcraft involving child sacrifice is usually practiced for bringing fortune, good health and so on in some African countries. Matia Kasaija, Uganda's state minister for internal affairs recently said that the fight against child sacrifice has been complicated by the increase in other types of crimes targeting children like kidnapping, abduction and child stealing.
According to the interior ministry, there were 230 such cases in 2006 while in 2007 they dropped to 108 but shot up to 318 last year. While the country still ponders what to do to curb the vice, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has suggested that those who are convicted of child sacrifice deserved to be executed.
The Cabinet is expected to table a paper in parliament on steps taken, which will be debated by legislators and used for finding a common position. Meanwhile, Christian leaders are in their forty days of fasting and pray in a nationwide campaign against human sacrifice, which is named 'Weeping For Uganda's Children'.
Traditional healers, who many Ugandans blame for the act, going by radio talk shows, have denied the claims and instead joined in the fight against child sacrifice. As Ugandans still await effective measures to be taken, it is believed that almost every week a child is being sacrificed.
Editor: Yan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-03/24/content_11060253.htm
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Uganda: Govt Officials Involved in Witchcraft, Says Kivejinja | All Africa | March 18 2009
Joyce Namutebi and Catherine Bekunda
Kampala — SOME senior government officials are involved in questionable traditional practices, which may lead to escalation of human sacrifice, the internal affairs minister has said.
"There are increasing numbers of people, including the elite and senior government officials, who believe and practice traditional rituals," Kirunda Kivejinja said.
His revelation was contained in a statement circulated in Parliament on "incidents related to suspected human sacrifice and trafficking in persons."
But he did not name the officers. The minister explained that the absence of a national policy on the operations of traditional leaders and herbalists was hampering the fight against the vice.
He said in January, a murder case linked to human sacrifice was registered, while seven deaths were recorded in February.
In the same month, 18 persons were reported missing. Five of them have been found, he said.
In January, 15 people were arrested over involvement in human sacrifice.
Three of them have been taken to court, Kivejinja said.
Last month, the minister explained that eight of the 85 persons who were reported missing had been found and that 13 suspects were arrested.
Twelve of them have been charged with various offences, Kivejinja explained.
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He noted that Kampala recorded the most cases of human sacrifice, suspected kidnaps and human trafficking in January and February.
The Government, Kivejinja said, had established an anti-human sacrifice/trafficking task team to assist the police with investigations.
He also said plans were underway to register traditional herbalists for easy monitoring.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200903180259.html
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