Sorcery-related attacks discussed at forum in PNG

Transcript

The Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea is hosting a regional forum that it hopes will help address sorcery-related violence.

The Catholic Bishop of Mendi is hosting this week's event which follows a number of brutal attacks on people accused of sorcery.

Bishop Donald Lippert told Koro Vaka'uta, now is the time to act.

DONALD LIPPERT:  Just a few months ago we had multiple horrific cases and we've seen it happen in neighbouring provinces too of Mount Hagen and also of Enga.  Something has to be done about it.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  So what kind of format will this forum have?  How do you expect it to help the situation?

DL:  Well we have some very powerful and knowledgeable speakers coming from Australia also you may have seen that the Ambassador of the United States to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu will be here with us.  We are very much hoping that these speakers will be able to draw attention and focus on this issue which many people just ignore.  At the same time we hope that we'll have some of the people who will make a difference.  Some police personnel, magistrates, some government politicians    as well will be here to be able to hear that this is a cry from much of our community here that this kind of practice must come to an end.

KV:  How confident are you of getting local buy-in, people who are in the midst of it in the communities?

DL:  It's an uphill battle unfortunately.  It's still amazing to me how many people actually still continue to believe in sorcery, even intelligent educated people.  It's such a complicated issue because it involves fear, greed, it involves some would say custom so it's something that is multi-layered or multi-levelled.  It's going to take a concerted effort from every sector of society if we're going to make any difference.  The only thing that is going to make a difference is that if the people that are perpetrating these kinds of horrific atrocities are held accountable.  Right now people do these things with impunity.  They just get away with it.  We just can't maintain the conspiracy of silence that is surrounding this issue.  It's a dirty secret and the only way we're going to put an end to it is by shining light on it.

KV:  Is there a cultural aspect to it?

DL:  There is a long history of belief in sorcery.  However I have been told that it has changed in recent times.  In the past animals were kind of blamed as the perpetrators of this.  A pig or a flying fox or something like that was looked upon as the evil culprit of things that would happen.  Now it's been transferred to human beings which is in some sense, not the traditional culture.  It's a perversion of traditional culture.  While we have to respect culture as something holy and sacred, at the same time, this isn't that.  Some of the torture that they do and the exposing people naked in public, the grandparents of the people doing these things would not even have imagined doing such things.  My own thinking is that it is very difficult to stop someone from believing something so if people want to believe in sorcery for the rest of their lives, it is up to them, but they have to know that if they act on those beliefs in a way that harms innocent people then they will be held accountable.