The Sunday News
Stanford Chiwanga
THE unfolding saga of Rodney Tongai Jindu, a 25-year-old man suspected to have killed and dismembered his friend (Mboneli Joko Ncube, 30) in order to sell his appendages to a South African inyanga for instant riches, has not only shocked Zimbabwe to the core, but has confirmed what was thought to be an urban legend — that such ritualistic killings are a living reality.
A good number of people who are not-so-superstitious may be quick to dismiss the existence of a dark market where human body parts are traded, but Ncube’s missing heart, head, hand and both legs corroborate the claims that were once thought to be a creation by parents and guardians who wanted to scare their children from venturing far from home.
The infrequency of such horrific incidents may make a mockery of the hysteria that has gripped Bulawayo and other parts of Zimbabwe, but the disbeliefs still fail to sway the public’s posture that people’s heads and other body parts are at risk of being cut off, sold and bought mostly for fetish and magical reasons.
Beyond the borders of Zimbabwe, the procuring, buying, and selling of human cadavers and body parts for ritual and scientific reasons is for real. It does not matter what part of the world you are in, there is an underground market nearby for buyers and sellers. Whatever you want and however you want it, it’s all available for a price.
In early January this year in Mozambique the Attorney-General began strengthening a case against alleged traffickers of human organs in Nampula, the regional capital of the country’s northern region. Brazilian missionaries and Nampula residents suspect local police officers of organising the illegal trade, which may have cost several lives. The research of Attorney-General Joaquim Madeira is slowly yielding results. The investigation was provoked by reports from local human rights groups and the Brazilian Mission in Nampula, reporting of local children that were missing vital body organs.
According to RDP Africa, a Portuguese radio in northern Mozambique, the population of Nampula accuses the local police of complicity with the traffickers by failing to investigate suspicious deaths among local children. Police officers are said to simply order the burying of corpses without any autopsy or inquiry and without any legal proceedings.
According to the Brazilian Mission in Nampula, there is definitively an organised syndicate that deals in human body organs in the region. The missionaries care for numerous poor children and orphans and have cared for victims of organ theft.
Several children have died as a result of this, the Mission revealed. This has resulted in the exhumation of several bodies in suspected cases of illegal organ trafficking.
In year 2000 the government of Mozambique acknowledged the existence of illegal organ harvesting in the country.
Investigations so far have established that trafficking in Mozambique is organised mostly by crime rings in Southern African.
The main market for these groups is in neighbouring South Africa. Most of the organs — kidneys and corneas — are trafficked for the purpose of transplants, although trafficking of organs for witchcraft purposes also exists.
In fact organ trading is a worldwide phenomenon. In Bangladesh, rural villagers are known to sell their kidneys for $2 567.
On the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, refugees from Africa are reportedly subject to organ theft. In China, the kidneys, lungs and hearts of executed death row inmates are used for transplants. In the Balkans, the trade in human organs is also well established.
In Nigeria, body parts are sold and bought mostly for fetish and magical reasons.
Exactly how many organs around the world that are taken out of donors’ bodies against their will are hard to determine. But, one thing is clear; the illegal trade in human organs has risen in recent years across the globe.
“The demand for transplant organs is much higher than what is available. The organ trade is the type of organised crime that is growing very quickly,” said Manfred Nowak an international lawyer from Vienna, who formerly served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
The Human Rights League in Mozambique and Childline South Africa commissioned a report that trafficking of human body parts in Southern Africa rose ahead of the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup.
According to the report, over 70 percent of South Africans believed that muti (concoction) killings increased before, during and after the World Cup. The survey added that of the people surveyed in Mozambique and South Africa, 70 percent believed human body parts make muthi more effective.
It added that one in five people in South Africa’s rural areas had had first-hand experience of a human body part being trafficked after a muthi killing and of the body parts mentioned in their accounts, male genitals, breasts, hearts, fingers and tongues were the most commonly listed.
The scepticism in Zimbabwe is understandable when one considers the fact that a survey on the issue has never been done.
South Africa, on the other hand, acknowledges that human body parts’ trafficking exists. The government takes the matter so seriously that it set up a Commission of Inquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual Murders (CIWVRM) after a spate of killings of boys aged between one and six in Soweto.
An estimated 300 people are sacrificed every year in South Africa so that their body parts can be used in traditional medicine.
The commission believes that the figure could be as high as 500.
Most of the victims are young children; hence parents and guardians in Zimbabwe have every right to fear that their children are targets of body snatchers who want to exploit the South African market.
The Mail & Guardian (October 9 to 15 2009) gives weight to the palpable paranoia in Zimbabwe in its article aptly titled “How to get a head in business.” It reported that: “selling human body parts is a lucrative business in South Africa. Prices for eyes, breasts, brains or genitals range from R1 000 to R10 000 — depending on the body part for sale . . . most traditional healers are afraid to talk about this thriving bloody commerce.”
“The reputation of South African traditional healers of being blessed with supernatural powers prompts businessmen to consult certain ‘sangomas’ to help with ‘ukuthwala’ (accumulation of wealth). The sangoma will recommend certain human body parts as ingredients to be used in brewing the muthi. Sometimes witch doctors tell husbands to murder their wives in order to concoct special good-luck muthi.”
If Jindu was really contracted to harvest human organs by a South African inyanga then the way Ncube was killed was not only repugnant, but might be because that is what the “doctor” ordered — for the killings are rarely spontaneous. According to the CIWVRM the murders are done according to the instructions of the sangomas, or witch doctors, commissioned by clients with a particular need.
But how are these harvested body parts used? It is believed that human skulls are placed on the foundations of new buildings to bring good luck to the business. Body parts are buried on farms to secure big harvests, severed hands built into shop entrances to lure customers.
Human hands are burnt to ash and mixed into a paste to cure strokes. Blood “boosts” vitality; brains bring political power and business success. Genitals, breasts and placentas are used for infertility and good luck, with the genitalia of young boys and virgin girls being especially highly prized. The head makes one the boss within his or her sphere of influence and can lead one to a powerful position of authority.
“People might reject the notion that human body parts are sold in South Africa and other markets, but that is happening. In Zimbabwe I have never heard of a traditional healer who recommends his client to do that, but that does not mean Zimbabweans are not being killed for such purposes. I urge the police to treat such matters seriously because they have been happening for a long time now. Where do think the bodies of children who have disappeared without a trace go to? They were victims of this trade whether you deny it or not,” said Mr Andrew Nyathi a local traditional healer who is a member of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (Zinatha).
The world over, organ harvesting used to be dismissed as nothing more than a myth, an urban legend. In the mid-1980s, rumours that Americans were kidnapping children throughout Central America only to harvest their organs led to brutal attacks on American tourists in the region. When those stories proved false, the State Department classified organ-trafficking reports under “urban legend”.
Evidence of the trade was largely anecdotal and came in part from interviews with known criminals — it did not convince the US department officials. “It would be impossible to successfully conceal a clandestine organ-trafficking ring,” Todd Leventhal, the department’s counter misinformation officer, wrote in a 2004 report, adding that the stories are “irresponsible and totally unsubstantiated.”
But documentation of the human organ trafficking business is now acknowledged by the world. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Human Rights Watch have broken away from the old myopic view and acknowledged that organ trafficking is a real international problem.
In the Western world, human organs are not only sold for ritual purposes but scientific ones. For example according to the FBI body parts in the American and European thriving black markets are subject to the laws of demand and supply and other market forces.
There is a growing belief that globalisation has seen human body parts trade becoming more and more lucrative than ever before. According to Trevor Harrison, an international expert on human trafficking; “the emergence of a commercial market for organs has been greeted with concern by governments and professional organisations alike.
“These concerns are heightened by reports that, in some instances, especially in the underdeveloped world, human body parts are being sourced coercively from the young, the poor, the illiterate, the captive, and the infirm. Frequently, the ‘consumers’ of these organs come from countries other than those in which the organs were obtained.”
Back home, consumers are in South Africa and as much as the killings are not yet documented and widely acknowledged by everyone in Zimbabwe, the existence of markets beyond our borders must lean on us to admit today or tomorrow — that human body parts trade exists — that it’s not an urban legend — and that it may not only be happening outside our borders but maybe within.
