By: Ronald West
If there were a wish I would make upon my fellow countrymen, it would be to study up on this issue and force it into the mainstream news with support for then on-profit Military Religious Freedom Foundation which is the only organization I am aware of taking on ‘Christian Dominionism’
This particular [Pentecostal] scourge of torture and murder of accused child “witches” finds its roots in fundamentalism in dark ages or medieval Europe with an initial focus on women. With the ‘enlightenment’ and spread of literacy, the Catholic Church lost much of its authority and its ability for public pursuit of the ‘witchcraft’ agenda. However the overt persecution of innocents continued to manifest in extremist breakaway protestant sects which had been largely driven out of Europe and America inherited one of the more extreme of these- the English Puritans [of Cotton Mather fame]from which our modern Pentecostalism is derived and from whence child murder over ‘witchcraft’ has spread to Africa via missionaries. In today’s Catholic church there is a related resurgence of dark ages hate directed at women with a fascist Hitler Youth Corps Pope Ratzinger having only recently made the ordination of a woman equal to being a pedophile informal church law [related article]Pentecostal and Catholic fundamentalism and related superstitions are both resurgent and this is a great threat to humanity as a whole, not only children and women.
However the Pentecostals and fundamentalist Catholics may differ in minor details, both believe in literal Armageddon and in today’s world of lethal armaments, considering this, it does well to consider where fundamentalism ties to power and politics in a modern weapons world with resurgent dark age superstition gone so far as murdering kids as witches. An excellent history of fundamentalism in America has been recently written by Jeff Sharlet, a New York University researcher and Harper’s Magazine investigative journalist in his work The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power “At the HEART of American Power” Think about that, then read this article on child torture that has spread from Africa, returning full circle to ENGLAND [read article]Meanwhile the BBC is reporting a sharp rise in child witch accusations and murders in Africa [read BBCarticle]Considering this recent manifestation of dark age superstition is an USA export via missionaries to Africa-what’s worse is the people tied up in this religion in the USA are not gone out of power, it is not only Bush/Cheney and friends, it is CHEVRON Board Director and 1st Obama National Security Advisor Jones and it is recently departed Obama Secretary of Defense Gates and anyone who is paying close attention should wonder how it is Barack and Hillary goose stepped policies out in front of Jones and Gates as though Bush/Cheney had never left.
Incidental to this, the Secretary of Defense holds the President’s nuclear key as noted by former Colonel Prouty in his The Secret Team-a man who worked for a decade in the Pentagon for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Colonel Prouty states there is a ‘secret team’ working inside government that had not laid its hand on the nuclear trigger “yet” and Colonel Prouty’s secret team appears to be a match for “The Family” in our intelligence community and military. Colonel Prouty’s assessment of not holding the nuclear trigger “YET” predates Bush/Cheney and their choice of Robert Gates inherited by Obama as Secretary of Defense Paying attention? Here are just a few more observations relating to an article [farther down] I’d picked up from the AP WIRE and subsequently researched.
1) This evangelical import to Africa from the USA has supplanted traditional African culture and is preying on superstition and exploiting poverty but it is not limited in a virulent form to Africa.
2) Military contractors are infected in a big way [watchvideo] and the worst of them, Blackwater [now XeCorporation], has since been given hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts as private Pentecostal armies are being created in the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan
3) Pentecostal people are not all evil- BUT Christians need to put their house in order, because the worst of the Pentecostals are evil beyond belief. It was Pentecostal Bishop Thomas Muthee of Kenya that anointed Sarah Palin as Queen Esther and cast a prayer over her to protect her from “witchcraft” and “make her away” in politics. In Kenya also there are routine murders of accused witches by Pentecostals, not only children; often they are the indigenous African culture’s faith healers. Pentecostal John Ashcroft introduced, via his United States Department of Justice, torture of people of other faith (Muslims) into United States history. John Ashcroft has been identified as a member of The Family.
4) Both Sarah Palin and John Ashcroft cut their teeth as Pentecostals in the Assemblies of God church. The Pentecostal belief concerning Muslims is not so different to Pentecostal superstition concerning child witches, the Assemblies of God teach “Muslims are the Children of Satan” [that is for real folks, they have traveling teachers who give ‘advanced’ Bible studies of which Sarah Palin was a student] All of the people you see mentioned in the “The Family” article are Pentecostal or fundamentalist Catholic, fear mongers, hate mongers, and intolerant of other beliefs (including many ‘Christian’ sects.) The Family includes Senators, Congressmen, Generals etcetera, and their cult heroes are not only Jesus, but Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot. Hitler controlled Germany with 8% of the population, the NAZI party members practicing point 22 of the NAZI Party Platform: “Positive Christianity.”
A Pentecostal element known as “dominionists” are behind this evil in today’s USA, at more than 12% in today’s populace and representing a wealthy clique in the corporate elite. Pentecostalism is the brand of fundamentalism Obama’s White House “Faith Director” practices and dominionist fundamentalism is what the Department of Defense has been force feeding our soldiers and promoting to the highest positions in our armed forces.
5) These murders (article follows) are the result of exploiting ignorance and fear. If you think this cannot happen in the USA, think again. The USA is where this has originated, and when you read The Family article you will discover some of the people attempting to make this fear and loathing our nations and the world’s primary faith. This intolerance must be fought. It is not going to be wished away with love and turning the other cheek will not make it go away either. AP WIRE Oct 17th, 2009 | EKET, Nigeria — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall. His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse A month later, he died.
Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of “witch children” reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.””It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity,” said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria. For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund “When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats,” he said. “It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change … and children are defenseless.”
The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria’s 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire. Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children’s Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa church signs sprout around every twist of the road snaking through the jungle between Uyo, the capital of the southern Akwa Ibom state where Nwanaokwo lay and Eket, home to many more rejected “witch children.” Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner’s material worries as well as spiritual ones — eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day “Poverty must catch fire,” insists the Born 2 Rule Crusade on one of Uyo’s main streets “Where little shots become big shots in a short time, “promises the Winner’s Chapel down the road “Pray your way to riches,” advises Embassy of Christ a few blocks away It’s hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft. Nwanaokwo said he knew the pastor who accused him only as Pastor King.
Mount Zion Lighthouse in Nigeria at first confirmed that a Pastor King worked for them, then denied that they knew any such person Bishop A.D. Ayakndue, the head of the church in Nigeria, said pastors were encouraged to pray about witchcraft, but not to abuse children “We pray over that problem (of witchcraft) very powerfully,” he said. “But we can never hurt a child.”The Nigerian church is a branch of a Californian church by the same name. But the California church says it lost touch with its Nigerian offshoots several years ago “I had no idea,” said church elder Carrie King by phone from Tracy, Calif. “I knew people believed in witchcraft over there but we believe in the power of prayer, not physically harming people.”The Mount Zion Lighthouse — also named by three other families as the accuser of their children — is part of the powerful Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. The Fellowship’s president, Ayo Oritsejafor, said The Fellowship was the fastest-growing religious group in Nigeria, with more than 30 million members “We have grown so much in the past few years we cannot keep an eye on everybody,” he explained. But Foxcroft, the head of Stepping Stones, said if the organization was able to collect membership fees, it could also police its members better. He had already written to the organization twice to alert it to the abuse, he said.
He suggested the fellowship ask members to sign forms denouncing abuse or hold meetings to educate pastors about the new child rights law in the state of Akwa Ibom, which makes it illegal to denounce children as witches. Similar laws and education were needed in other states; he said Sam Itauma of the Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network said it is the most vulnerable children – the orphaned, sick, disabled or poor — who are most often denounced. In Nwanaokwo’s case, his poor father and dead mother made him an easy target. “Even churches that didn’t use to ‘find’ child witches are being forced into it by the competition,” said Itauma.”They are seen as spiritually powerful because they can detect witchcraft and the parents may even pay them money for an exorcism.”That’s what Margaret Eyekang did when her 8-year-olddaughter Abigail was accused by a “prophet” from the Apostolic Church, because the girl liked to sleep outside on hot nights — interpreted as meaning she might be flying off to join a coven. A series of exorcisms cost Eyekang eight months’ wages, or US$270. The payments bankrupted her. Neighbors also attacked her daughter. “They beat her with sticks and asked me why I was bringing them a witch child,” she said. A relative offered Eyekang floor space but Abigail was not welcome and had to sleep in the streets.
Members of two other families said pastors from the Apostolic Church had accused their children of witchcraft, but asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. The Nigeria Apostolic Church refused repeated requests made by phone, e-mail and in person for comment——At first glance, there’s nothing unusual about the laughing, grubby kids playing hopscotch or reading from a tattered Dick and Jane book by the graffiti-scrawled cinderblock house. But this is where children like Abigail end up after being labeled witches by churches and abandoned or tortured by their families. There’s a scar above Jane’s shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of $60 didn’t cure her of witchcraft. Mary, 15, is just beginning to think about boys and how they will look at the scar tissue on her face caused when her mother doused her in caustic soda. Twelve-year-old Rachel dreamed of being a banker but instead was chained up by her pastor, starved and beaten with sticks repeatedly; her uncle paid him $60 for the exorcism Israel’s cousin tried to bury him alive. Nwaekwa’s father drove a nail through her head. Sweet-tempered Jerry; all knees, elbows and toothy grin, was beaten by his pastor, starved, made to eat cement and then set on fire by his father as his pastor’s wife cheered it on.
The children at the home run by Itauma’s organization have been mutilated as casually as the praying mantises they play with. Home officials asked for the children’s last names not to be used to protect them from retaliation. The home was founded in 2003 with seven children; it now has 120 to 200 at any given time as children are reconciled with their families and new victims arrive. Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar, where Nwanaokwo used to live. Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches pull out a man’s eyeballs. In another book, she advises that 60 percent of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft. In an interview with the AP, Ukpabio is accompanied by her lawyer, church officials and personal film crew “Witchcraft is real,” Ukpabio insisted, before denouncing the physical abuse of children. Ukpabio says she performs non-abusive exorcisms for free and was not aware of or responsible for any misinterpretation of her materials, “I don’t know about that,” she declared. However, she then acknowledged that she had seen a pastor from the Apostolic Church break a girl’s jaw during an exorcism. Ukpabio said she prayed over her that night and cast out the demon. She did not respond to questions on whether she took the girl to hospital or complained about the injury to church authorities
After activists publicly identified Liberty Gospel as denouncing “child witches,” armed police arrived at Itauma’s home accompanied by a church lawyer. Three children were injured in the fracas. Itauma asked that other churches identified by children not be named to protect their victims. “We cannot afford to make enemies of all the churches around here,” he said. “But we know the vast majority of them are involved in the abuse even if their head quarters aren’t aware.”Just mentioning the name of a church is enough to frighten a group of bubbly children at the home.
“Please stop the pastors who hurt us,” said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. “I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch.”
L. A. Breaux
Reading your article triggered a strange musing that perhaps has been fermenting for awhile, that is that we really haven’t removed ourselves that much from our distant ancestors who practiced human sacrifice to appease the gods. They were just less hypocritical. They chose the innocent, the pure as they believed these gentle victims would please their gods better and did not try to claim their sacrifice was the result of a deep internal evil that had not yet been manifested.
At some point, human consciousness became aware that the open sacrifice of the innocent was in itself an evil act, so then, how does one continue to sacrifice innocent lives; which apparently for some, was quite a pleasurable occupation; without looking like the bad guy? The answer was to look for internal evil instead of the outward signs of wickedness. This way wickedness could be justified as the lesser evil toward the greater good. It then became easier to persecute people who had done absolutely nothing to wrong others and to send children off to battle other facetious manifestations of evil.
What we harbor in our hearts is our own internal struggle between the desire to do good and the temptation to do wrong. These struggles are ours alone and not to be judged by others. What is to be judged is our actions. Actions that involve torturing, abusing and murdering children are evil. No matter how much flim-flam you decorate it with, there is no getting around it.
I hate to disagree Karlsie, but I see the phenomena as proof that “morality” is purely a social construct – that any action can be defined as “good” or “evil” if the proper spin is put on it. Killing kids is generally considered “bad” in most societies, but what if the context of the act was changed? What if the child *had* to die so that a greater “good” can be served (read: some one with an agenda wants those kids to die so that he might benefit from the death)? Once this question is raised, it’s just a matter of time before some one invents an ad hoc justification for the act of killing kids: answers can range from “the innocent blood appeases the intangible powers around us” to “the children are witches” to “the children have the same taint as the rest of the family that begot them and they must be destroyed to… well, you get the picture.
My point is this – the powers that control this society already wants kids to die for its own advancement. All it needs is to break it to the lower-levels of society in just the right way to get them to accept that the kids must be killed of…
It took a couple of readings, but i get the gist of what you’re saying, which is basically the same thing i said, but with an exception. My presentation of ancestral sacrifice was a guileless one, of a guileless society that somehow got it into their heads that human sacrifice was necessary as appeasement. What you’re saying is that guile had been the prevailing force at the start, that there was an internal motivation presented by the priest or leader or whoever proposed this “necessary” evil apart from the well being of society.
I can see one main reason why a power seeker would advocate the sacrifice of children. Usually, if you forcibly remove a child from its parents for any reason, you’ve gained a sworn enemy, one who could potentially harm you in the future. But if you convince the parents the surrender of the child was necessary (to appease the gods, to purge witchcraft, to arm for battle) you have the loyalty of the parents for the rest of their lives because to be otherwise would be to admit their child died for a lie.
“you have the loyalty of the parents for the rest of their lives because to be otherwise would be to admit their child died for a lie”
Absolutely courageous insight. And I might add, the very psychology employed by the church in relation to the ‘sacrifice’ of Jesus .. how many Christians could bring themselves to admit the ‘faith’ demanded of fealty to their religion is essentially a demand they believe in a lie .. after all, what could come after such admission except a question mark with no point of reference to anything meaningful for a people with no practical insights to alternative purpose?
The ideas they had put to death with the ready murder of other cultures, could only serve to reinforce the thought their ‘lives had been a lie.’
In that case were one to be boxed into a circumstance of inescapable realization of the lunacy of their culture’s proposed reality, maniacal laughter could be a healthy first reaction..
@ Karlsie,
Yeah – my take on the concept of human sacrifice (or society in general, for that matter…) is a lot more cynical than most: the average person today only perceives barbarity, ignorance and out-and-out madness in such acts – when people like me look at the situation the first question asked is “qui bono?” Who stands to reap the benefit of the brutallity and how did they convince the victims to go along with their little game?
It never ceases to amaze me just what people can be conditioned to accept as being “good” or “evil” – oe can make people think that kiling children is “good” but wearing a robe of mixed fabrics is “an abomination” unto the powers that control their lives…
What more needs be said here. If there is such a thing as an abomination, this is one. However it is clear that talking about it is not as helpful as doing something. Pass on the information, particularly to those who are funding the Church projects in Nigeria who very often don’t know how their money is ultimatly being spent.
Very good report Ronald.
The UK based child rights charity mentioned in the article (Stepping Stones Nigeria) have launched a global campaign with their Nigerian partner organisations to Prevent Abuse of Children Today (PACT). PACT aims to bring long-term social change to vulnerable children in the Niger Delta who have been accused of witchcraft or have been abused. To end this terrible abuse there’s plenty of ways to get involved with PACT – from simply signing the petition, to letter writing, organising events and more. Please see the website to sign the PACT and find out more: http://www.makeapact.org thank you.
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Fuck these people….how many people are starving in the USA?? What the fuck is wrong with you guys? If these stupid aboriginal people would pull their dick out of the fat women they fuck every once in a while they wouldn’t be having 10 fucking kids a year now would they
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