Witch Hunters of Indonesia

- Indonesian Witch Hunters: Since September, 1998, more than 153 people have been murdered in East Java by groups of men clad in black wearing Ninja-style masks. The victims have been mostly Muslim clerics, black magicians and other people accused of sorcery.

The killers have struck against the sorcerers at night, cutting their throats and sometimes hanging their mutilated bodies in trees or tossing them in the street. Victims sometimes have been cut into small pieces and their body parts thrown into mosques.

Shocked by the mysterious murders, Indonesia's justice minister proposed outlawing black magic. In scenes reminiscent of the Salem witch hunts, mobs have also attacked and killed people suspected of being black magicians. Police have arrested more than 100 suspects, but acknowledge there's no clear motive for the grisly slayings.

-Witch Killers in Congo: (800 deep) Since June 15, 2001, over 800 suspected witches were hacked to death in villages in rebel-held northeastern Congo. "Villagers were saying that some people had bewitched others, and they started lynching them. By the time we discovered this, 60 people had already been killed by early last week. About 200 people lost their lives," Brig. Henry Tumukunde said.

Ugandan troops -- who had been in northeastern Congo since 1998 in support of a rebellion against the Congolese government but had been evacuated earlier in the year -- were sent back to the area to stop the killings. The killings began in Aru, 50 miles south of Sudan on the Ugandan border, but have quickly spread throughout northeastern Congo. Diseases and other troubles endemic to the region were being blamed on witchcraft which in turn led to the rampaging violence.

-THERE'S MORE: According to The New Foreign Policy Magazine, in Paupa New Guinea, where the AIDS crisis has been increasing significantly, there is a surge in clashes between victims and those still relying on traditional folklore. AIDS deaths are often attributed to witchcraft and followed by brutal retribution against those deemed responsible (usually women). The government is trying to devise a comprehensive approach to the disease, but it will have to contend with deep-grained beliefs, like this matter-of-fact justification by a farmer who killed his neighbors:

"We ran after them and we chopped their heads off with an axe and a bush knife. I felt sorry for them but they were witches, they deserved to die. If they were still alive they could hurt people with their magic." (source-http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/)

The New York Times released an article in 2001. Below are the first two paragraphs, follow the link after that to continue reading:
In this verdant farm belt of West Java, where sorcery and superstition have deep roots, few were surprised last September when an angry mob decapitated a 70-year-old woman accused of casting spells that made people ill. Before lopping off her head, witnesses said, the crowd gouged out her eyes and severed some of her limbs, which they tossed into the street.

Beheadings of suspected witches are not uncommon in rural towns and villages of Java, Indonesia's most populous and perhaps most mystical island. The local police estimate that there were at least 100 witch killings in Java last year. Still, few people seemed upset by the killings, which typically occur in Indonesia's backwaters and are committed under the guise of wiping out evil.
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