Censorbugbear reports...

Three-year-old Onele Galata of Thabong/Welkom was tortured to death to harvest her body parts

 2009-12-27 Welkom/Thabong – Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of 3-year-old toddler Onele Galata, whose  badly mutilated body was found on Saturday, just hours after she was reported missing to Thabong police. The little girl went missing on Christmas day. She was grossly mutilated, with multiple stab wounds to her right eye, right side of the mouth, over the left ear, chin, neck, right ribs and middle chest – and her genitals were removed.

Contact investigating police superintendent Kedibone Gopane, South Africa tel 082-442-1372 or 086-001-0111

Her intestines were protruding from her little body, said the SAPS spokesman. These injuries all indicate that the child was undoubtedly the victim of a so-called ‘muti-murder’, in which her body parts would have been cut out while she was alive ‘so that her fear and screams increase the potency of the medicine’.

Picture: the vast majority of ‘traditional healers’ are herbalmedicine men like this man in Pretoria who would never make medicine from human body parts and who reject this inhumane practice. However the practice still persists throughout Southern Africa and recently in South Africa, during the run-up to the World Cup 2010, these muti-murders to manufacture ‘good-luck medicines’ with, have increased dramatically.

 

Such body parts usually are ‘ordered’ by ‘traditional healers’ who do make very expensive ‘good-luck medicines’ from such human flesh and would buy the ‘harvest’ from the child’s murderers.

Officially, an annual 200 ‘muti-murders were reported to the SAPS last year –although these statistics are not maintained in seperate categories and are grossly understated: unofficially it has been reported by medical authorities that at least one child a day is slaughtered in this way in South Africa – sometimes, especially where males are left alive after genital mutilation, their lives can still be saved if they can reach the trauma units of public hospitals in time. 

"She was found dead at B-Hostel in Masole Street at noon Saturday" said Khosana. Her body was taken to the Welkom State Mortuary. No arrests were made, said Khosana. Anyone with information that could assist with arresting the toddler's murderer was urged to contact Superintendent Kedibone Gopane on 082-442-1372 or 086-001-0111.

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/bb326469357548f1b4aec23924fb3127/26-12-2009-10-14/Toddlers_mutilated_body_found

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/92094cab416d4dd1af841b2d9aa59f9a/27-12-2009-09-11/Mutilated_toddler_2_arrested

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sources and background:

witchcraft culture in South Africa:

South Africans smoke brains of endangered vultures for  lotto luck – 300 birds a year slaughtered

By Alexandra Lesieur of Agence France Presse, who reports from Johannesburg  — Smoking dried vulture brains to have a vision of winning lotto numbers -- that's why customers come to Scelo, a vendor of traditional medicines, but it's a trend being blamed for killing off South Africa's vultures."Vultures are scarce. I only have one every three or four months," said Scelo, a young healer in downtown Johannesburg's market for "muti", or traditional medicine."Everybody asks for the brain. You see things that people can't see. For lotto, you dream the numbers," he said. Rolled into a cigarette or inhaled as vapors, vulture brains can also help at the horse races, boost an exam performance, or lure more clients to a business, according to believers.

Next to snake skins and ostrich feet, as well as donkey fat to chase away bad spirits, Scelo sells a tiny bottle with just a speck of ground brains for about 50 rands (6.50 dollars, 4.50 euros).

The entire bird could go for 2,000 rand ($200). Vulture bones or feathers can be also mixed with herbs to make medicines, said one nyanga, or traditional healer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We make the brain dry and mix it with mud and you smoke it like a cigarette or a stick. Then the vision comes," he said.He prescribes mainly vulture heads, which he says bring visions of the future, endowing users with the bird's excellent vision that helps them fly out of nowhere to descend on carcasses. It's a belief shared along Africa's east coast, as well as in some west African countries, according to experts. Mthembeni wanted to buy a blend of ground brains and beaks -- not for himself, but to give to his dogs. "I put it on their nose. Then they can detect any strange presence from kilometres away. It gives security to my family," the young Zulu said before turning away, dismayed at the price.

• At least 160 of these endangered vultures are sold each year for muti, according to a study by two wildlife groups. Researcher Steve McKean estimates that up to 300 vultures are killed annually by a variety of causes, especially in the eastern province of Kwazulu-Natal, where poaching still goes largely unpunished.

"Traditional use as it is currently happening is likely to render vultures extinct in southern Africa on its own within 20-30 years," he said. "Vultures are protected by law," he said, but that so far has been ineffective. McKean said improved public awareness and a better understanding of the trade in the birds was needed. Seven of the nine species of vulture are considered endangered.

• Hunters shoot them, trap them or poison them with a pesticide called Aldicarb, which is deadly to humans, according to the group Ezemvelo Kwazulu-Natal Wildlife. Scelo said he knows how to avoid the pesticide: "The meat is blue when it's poisoned."

Aside from hunters, vultures also face the threat of electrocution if they fly into high-voltage lines or drown in farm reservoirs, all the while coupled with a shortage of food and the loss of their habitat. Despite the danger to the bird's survival, demand remains steady, according to vendors in downtown Johannesburg, who are little aware that they are contributing to the disappearance of certain animals and plants.Among the stalls stacked with python and crocodile skins, two animals also threatened by the demand for muti, nyanga Samsum Mvubu ponders the real importance of the vultures. "I don't believe that these things give you visions," he said. "But they do bring you luck." http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j-1QcGRDhGNwEuag3Vi034hFg5BQ

Government crackdown on 200+ annual muti-murders? The South African government, together with the Council for Traditional Healers, claims it wants to stamp out the witchcraft-related trade in human body parts, to which many children succumb. The harvesting of body parts is usually done while the victim is alive – carried under the guidance of a traditional healer . However, this murky underground world of witchcraft is particulary difficult to investigate because many police officers also fear arresting or questioning the practioners of witchcraft.

Using fear of witchcraft to gain political power in S.Africa

• Under the growing Africanisation of all South African society, including the legalisation of Traditional Healers by law as ‘legal medical practitioners’, whites in South Africa could not only be forced to submit to the judiciary laws of the so-named ‘traditional councils’, but might also have to submit to the ministrations of 'traditional healers' in public hospitals . In 2008, the use of witchcraft to gain political power has soared in South Africa. And at least one child a day is now slaughtered live in South Africa a day to obtain 'muti'. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2008/10/can-safrican-whites-be-charged-with.html

Whites increasingly targetted by harvesters of witchcraft-body parts: While some 200 to 300 'muti' (traditional medicine) related killings are reported during an average year in South Africa, whites usually weren’t targetted as frequently before 1994 as they are now. The organisation Doctors For Life  - representing a large numbers of medical doctors, dentists, veterinaries and other professionals – started warning from 2004 that South Africa’s legalisation of African witchcraft was very dangerous: read law "Traditional healers should be kept out of South Africa's health care system because traditional medicines were potentially harmful to patients,' they warned. It is also seen inside the political system that traditional healers yield great political power behind the scene with ruling-party high-level officials. DFL predicted that the Bill would provoke more so-called "muti" murders. Many healers do share the belief that "human tissue can make powerful medicine," the doctors' organisation warned. The Doctors for Life campaigners were correct: ever since the new Act was adopted and ‘traditional healers’ were placed on a legal par with medical practitioners, a gruesome, thriving trade has grown up in the trade of human body parts. A large variety of body parts are being harvested: penises, eyes, noses, vaginas, breasts, heads and limbs - with the hapless victims preferably screaming and fully aware.  The 'traditional healers' who order these body parts are almost never prosecuted, even though some victims survive the mutilation see here The live harvesting is necessary, they say,  because the victims' pain and fear 'increases the power of the muti.' Besides the fact that whites also are increasingly mutilated while alive and their body parts harvested for muti before they are slain, fears are also growing among white South Africans that they will increasingly be forced to submit to the local-level political rule of the traditional leaders and their witchdoctors. This worry was first raised in 2008 -- in the following debate between a Boer and a black resident who asked why whites shouldn’t submit to ‘traditional tribal customs’ on this video: http://www/youtube.com/watch?v=FD6Nlok93ww&sdig=1

Whites’ body parts harvested for muti: names, details:

• Koekemoer, Sarel, 69, 20090909 Bultfontein smallholding Pretoria North - http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/4de002454c034b859c2d8b850e127e1c/11-09-2009-02-49/Hulle_het_hom_regtig_verniel%E2%80%99
• Lotter  Alice 57, mother Helen 77,20090306 Allenridge Free State farm, extensively tortured, glass shards ingenitals, listed as muti murders: Kill the Boer  ritually smeared with victims’ blood on homestead walls http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/11/genocidal-black-gangs-target-sa_30.html
• Steenkamp, Gerrit, 39, M, 19970813 Bothaville farmer and Afrikaans musician, killed for muti, two black men found guilty http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/09/unreported-farm-murder-gerrit-steenkamp.html
• Unnamed Dutch tourists breast, hand removed after car accident (we know the victims’ names but withhold these to protect the family) 20090621 Acornhoek Mpuma, two men were arrested at traditional healer’s shop trying to sell the body parts. On July 17 2009  a 48-year-old man accused of ‘violating a corpse and selling human body parts” was denied bail at the Acornhoek Magistrates' Court .The famous South African ‘muti-killer-hunter,’ captain Leonard Hlathi said Philemon Batulekile Baloyi was one of two men arrested for the crime in June. Baloyi was caught after an “inyanga,” (traditional herbal healer) who he tried to sell body parts to, alerted police. The suspect was found in possession of a white woman's breast and a manicured left hand. "He told police that he received the body parts from a certain man at a funeral parlor, who was also arrested.The funeral home's official  did not deny that they had arranged the shipment of the bodies of two Dutch tourists, a mother and daughter who had died in one accident in Lydenburg in May, exactly as was described by their arrested ex-employee. Two other members of the same family, a father and son who ran a hotel in a small Dutch town, also were seriously injured in this crash.Baloyi wanted to be paid 800 Euro’ for the body-parts. He in turn had bought the body parts for 80 Euro from Mr Ben Mongadi, 35, described as a part-time employee at a funeral parlor. http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/11/farm-murders-names-dates-sources.html
• 2009-03-27 Jan van Wyk, 82, mutilated for ‘traditional medicine’ on farm Vierfontein Viljoenskroon, Free State http://jv.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2494684,00.html
• 2009-03-27 Basie Venter, 65, mutilated for 'traditional medicine' on farm Vierfontein, Viloenskroon, Free State http://jv.news24.com/Beeld/Suid-Afrika/0,,3-975_2494684,00.html
• 20020212 Catherine Watkins (21) found dead with windpipe torn out,  listed by SAPS as a muti murder, Potchefstroom, NW http://www.100megspop2.com/crimebusters/FarmVictims.html