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Cuthbert Mavheko
THE amendment of the Witchcraft Suppression Act a few years back was hailed by many Zimbabweans as it resonated with Zimbabwe’s culture and tradition.

For many years Zimbabweans had agitated for the amendment of the Act so that the country could recognise the existence of witchcraft, which was made illegal by past colonial regime. The new amendment that took effect in July 2006 was a culmination of years of intense negotiations and acknowledges the fact of the existence of witchcraft in the country.

Traditionalists aver that the amendment of the Witchcraft Suppression Act shows that the country is finally waking up to calls from the generality of Zimbabwean people who felt the Act was stalling the development of African culture in Zimbabwe. The Witchcraft Suppression Act was enacted in 1899 by white colonial settlers who, being ignorant of African culture and tradition, downplayed the existence of witchcraft. According to this Act, it was a criminal offence to brand anyone a witch or wizard or to accuse someone of meddling in the supernatural, even in cases where tangible evidence existed that he practised witchcraft. By rejecting the existence of witchcraft, the white settlers managed to destroy one of the tenets of African traditional beliefs, thereby disenfranchising blacks of their religious bed-rock.

It is insightful to note that studies in spiritism and related phenomena conducted in the US, Britain and Europe have established conclusively the existence of a spiritual realm where wizards and witches rule the roost.

But what is witchcraft and how is one inducted into it, one might ask. The Advanced Learners Dictionary describes witchcraft as the use of magic powers, especially evil ones, to attain specific goals. Within the African context, particularly in Zimbabwe, there is consensus of opinion among traditionalists that witchcraft is passed from one individual to the other in the form of an evil spirit (shavi/idlozi).

Not much is known about witchcraft in Zimbabwe, except that its practitioners are believed to cause death or injury to other people through supernatural powers that can be effected or sent from remote places. In Zimbabwe and other African countries the only people who claim to understand witchcraft and to have control over it are traditional healers. Whichever way one looks at it, witchcraft is a wicked practice and is used for no other purpose other than to advance the cause of evil. For instance, some people have been known to use lightning to maim or strike their enemies out of existence. Not so long ago, we heard that the disgraced former Vice-President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Joice Mujuru once used juju in a futile attempt to dethrone President Mugabe.

One should state here that using witchcraft to attain one’s goals is not only unconstitutional, but is, in fact, wickedness of elephantine proportions. However, in our modern, overly-permissive world it is quite “normal” to see people using bribes, sex, intimidation and even witchcraft to advance their selfish personal interests, notwithstanding the fact that some of the methods they use offend, injure or hurt other people. Sadly though, in a culture where individualism is the norm, even the back-firing, short-lived gains of those who use corrupt or wicked methods to advance their selfish goals, are just not enough to deter future enthusiasts from indulging in the sordid game of greed, chicanery, intrigue and deception that characterises this so-called enlightened age.

Due to the fact that the generality of Zimbabwean people view witchcraft as a serious crime, today more and more people are calling on our courts of law to impose stiffer sentences on alleged witches and wizards. However, sight should not be lost of the fact that alleged criminals are convicted on the strength of available evidence. This may be in the form of witnesses or tools/weapons used in the commission of the alleged crime. In short, legal practitioners (lawyers, judges, magistrates, prosecutors etc) rely on hard, palpable facts and not hearsay to convict lawbreakers. Evidence is, in a nutshell, the alma mater of our judicial system.

In the absence of empirical evidence it is very difficult, if not altogether impossible, for one, for instance, to convince a modern court of law that his/her neighbour used lightning to wipe out his/her herd of cattle or that so-and -so used mubobobo (a kind of muti) to have sexual relations with his wife while he was fast asleep. Some people have suggested that the police should be mandated to raid the homes of suspected witches/wizards for incriminating evidence. The inference here is that they (police) should seize the tools of suspected witches/wizards such as pythons, human skulls, hyenas, goblins, owls and so forth and bring them to court as exhibits. I am not a legal practitioner myself, so I am not qualified to say whether or not such tools can be used in our courts of law as evidence to prosecute alleged witches/wizards.

In my opinion, one factor which has accorded impetus to the campaign against witchcraft in Zimbabwe is the increase in the number of people confessing, in public, that they are witchcraft practitioners. Yesteryear a woman convicted of contravening a section of the Witchcraft Suppression Act gave a blood-chilling account of how she and her four accomplices opened graves and ate human flesh at night. She sent ripples of consternation and shock across the length and breadth of the country when she confessed that the five of them had a python, an owl, a hyena and a human skull which they used on their errands at night. Such gory incidents have, no doubt, awakened sceptical Zimbabweans to the chilling reality of the existence of a shadowy, scary world inhabited by cannibalistic people who use supernatural powers of darkness to open graves, eat raw human flesh, cruise to and fro in reed baskets or on the back of hyenas and keep pythons and owls as pets.

Given the foregoing as a backdrop, it is the strong contention of the author of this article that the time is now ripe for other African countries to follow Zimbabwe’s example by repealing all legislation that denies the existence of witchcraft before people take the law into their hands and start meting out mob justice to alleged witchcraft practitioners. In South Africa, for instance, witchcraft killings rose sharply in the wake of the promulgation of the Witchcraft Suppression Act in 1957.Prior to the enactment of this piece of legislation, people used to consult their chiefs and traditional healers for advice if they felt bewitched. Be that as this may, when this was outlawed they became desperate. With nowhere to go, they embarked on an orgy of violence, stabbing, stoning or setting alight those alleged to be witches and wizards.