Introduction
In June 2015, in Kabale district in southwestern Uganda, an eighty-six-year-old man was burned to death by a mob formed by his relatives. They believed that he had used witchcraft to cause a road accident that had claimed the life of his grandson.Footnote 1 In October 2016, in Moyo district in northern Uganda, another man, Francis Dramari, was viciously assaulted and subsequently burned to death by an angry mob of young men who believed him to be a witch.Footnote 2 In March 2017, a man in eastern Uganda murdered his seventy-eight-year-old mother, whom he believed had been bewitching his children.Footnote 3 In June 2018, a thirty-eight-year-old man in Bundibugyo district in western Uganda struck his eighty-two-year-old mother with her hoe, killing her instantly. He had been having dreams about his mother eating him alive, and he was convinced that she was bewitching him.Footnote 4 In February 2019, in Albetong district in northern Uganda, Private Isaac Newton Okello, a member of the Uganda People's Defence Forces, shot and killed his brother, his brother's pregnant wife, and their three-year-old child because he believed them to be witches.Footnote 5
These brutal murders of suspected witches stem from a belief in witchcraft that is as widespread as it is deep-seated among the people of Uganda. Belief in witchcraft is part of the social reality of Ugandans cutting across diverse cultures in different parts of the countryFootnote 6 as it is in accord with their basic assumptions about life and modes of reasoning.Footnote 7 Attributing a calamity such as a road accident, business failure, illness, or death to malevolent spirits acting at the bidding of their human master is more reasonable to them than believing that these misfortunes are random and undirected.Footnote 8 That the law seems to do so little to protect the “victims” of witchcraft seems to bewilder many,Footnote 9 leaving them with no recourse but to go after the putative source of the spiritual violence resulting in witch-killing.
Although the incidence of witch-killings in Uganda has not been determined by any reliable empirical study, the number of police and media reports is a testament to its relative prevalence. In March 2007, it was reported that in just three months, twenty people suspected of witchcraft had been killed in Mbale district in eastern Uganda.Footnote 10 The 2008 Uganda Police report revealed that twenty-six people suspected of witchcraft had been lynched to death.Footnote 11 The 2013 police report also stated that twenty-six people had been killed on suspicion of witchcraft.Footnote 12 Subsequent police reports have noted that suspicion of witchcraft is a common cause of lynching.Footnote 13 In the first three months of 2019, there were thirteen different incidents of violence against suspected practitioners of witchcraft from different parts of the country reported by the media. Nine of them resulted in the murder of the suspected witch.Footnote 14
Nine of the killers of Francis Dramari whose murder has been mentioned above were tried and convicted in the 2018 case Uganda v. Ujiga & 8 Others. Footnote 15 At the trial, it was revealed that the late Dramari was believed by many in his village to possess a charm called “Abiba,” which was believed to be “a fire coming from the anus just like lightening [sic] that can be sent to harm others.”Footnote 16 Realizing that his life was under threat from members of the community, Dramari asked the cultural leaders and elders to intervene and protect him. The leaders convened a convocation of the village at an agreed-upon venue seeking to put the rumors of witchcraft to rest. However, a group of rowdy youths disrupted the meeting with threats of violence. Due to the ensuing commotion, the cultural leaders decided to leave the venue and asked the deceased to go with them. They were intercepted by about twenty rowdy youth, who assaulted the cultural elders forcing them to flee. The youth assaulted Dramari with sticks, kicks, and punches. They then piled dry grass on his comatose body, which was then set ablaze. There were sufficient witnesses to prove that the accused did indeed participate in the killing, which nullified the possibility of a defense of total denial. There remained only four defenses open to the nine accused. These four defenses have been used in similar cases in Uganda and other common law jurisdictions in Africa, where witch-killings have occurred. First is mistake of fact, which is based on the idea that the accused made a reasonable mistake in believing that the deceased was a witch. Second is self-defense, which is based on the idea that the accused killed the deceased as a means of defending themselves against witchcraft. Third is insanity, which would mean that the accused had suffered from a delusion of mind that led them to believe that the deceased was a witch. Fourth is provocation by witchcraft, meaning that the deceased's apparent engagement in witchcraft had provoked the accused to commit the murder. On this occasion, none of these defenses was accepted and the accused were convicted and sentenced to death.
In what follows, I examine the phenomenon of witch-killing in Uganda, with a particular focus on the shortcomings of the law in dealing with this issue. I examine the four possible defenses available to individuals accused of killing witches, noting that these can be applied only in the cultural relativist paradigm that, by emphasizing the subjective belief of the accused, tends to downplay the harm done to the victim and their family. I conclude that, given the challenges involved in balancing the accused's often honestly held beliefs that they or a loved one was a victim of witchcraft against the victim's rights, the most pragmatic solution lies in reengaging with these widely held witchcraft beliefs to come up with ways of limiting the harm that flows from them.
Witchcraft Belief in Africa
The African view of witches and witchcraft was summarized succinctly by the Zimbabwean judge, Hungwe J., who stated, “there is little redeeming about African witches who, through sheer malice, either consciously or sub-consciously employ magical means to inflict all manner of evil on their fellow human beings.”Footnote 17 As summarized below, Nelson TebbeFootnote 18 puts forward three characteristics of witchcraft in Africa that are central to any meaningful legal analysis of witch-killing:
1. Witchcraft is practiced in secret.Footnote 19 Unlike western Satanism and Wicca, African witchcraft is not an openly professed faith or religion, rather, it is a dark art done secretly with malevolent intent.Footnote 20 The witch presents a public face of an upstanding community member while practicing his or her wickedness in secret. Anyone, however benign in appearance or manner, can be a witch.Footnote 21
2. Witchcraft is a form of human rather than divine action; therefore, responsibility lies with other people who can be punished for their wicked acts, rather than an unreachable god.Footnote 22
3. Witchcraft is invariably wicked motivated by jealousy or an inherent craving for causing harm.Footnote 23 Witches cause harm and destruction at every opportunity.
Witchcraft Belief in Uganda
Belief in witchcraft persists in many parts of Uganda. A 2010 Pew Research Center report on religious beliefs in Africa noted that 20 percent of Ugandans believe in witchcraft.Footnote 24 Contemporary observers believe the number to be much higher.Footnote 25 In 2012, a survey among corporate workers by a leading newspaper found that 66 percent believed witchcraft to be a frequent practice at workplaces and one of the common means used to gain and maintain employment and promotions.Footnote 26 In 2014, it was reported that a number of public servants had taken to witchcraft to secure their employment.Footnote 27 In 2016, it was reported that staff at Ugandan embassies around the world had taken to practicing witchcraft to protect their jobs.Footnote 28 A number of politicians,Footnote 29 including the president,Footnote 30 have confessed to practicing witchcraft. Witchcraft beliefs can be found even among the most educated people.Footnote 31 As Adam Ashforth notes, “there is no sign that the plausibility of witchcraft narratives is diminishing in contemporary Africa.”Footnote 32
Belief in witchcraft transforms random and senseless events that lead to human suffering into meaningful and purposeful malevolent harm attributed to an individual. The result is that witchcraft is seen to be as much of an injustice as physical violence. As R. B. Seidman puts it:
The African who believes in witchcraft is thus faced by a fearful dilemma. He believes in witches to his bones . . . He knows that they can destroy . . . in sundry mysterious ways, without chance for defense, so that both his physical being and his hope for earthly success are endangered, as much as by threatened blow of panga or spear or machete.Footnote 33
Witchcraft is distinguished from autochthonous spirit worship and herbalism, which prevailed in Africa prior to the conversion of many on the continent to Islam and Christianity and which still persists to this day.Footnote 34 People who practice this are often called “traditional healers,” and in Uganda, their practices are regulated both by their association, the Uganda National Traditional Herbalists and Healers Association, and by municipal ordinances.Footnote 35 Some people practice Christianity or Islam alongside traditional spirit worship.Footnote 36 Traditional healers are opposed to witchcraft and claim to be able to deflect pernicious spiritual forces back onto the perpetrators.Footnote 37
Witches are believed to use various methods to cause harm to their victims: they are believed to cause diseases, accidents, sexual impotence, and so on.Footnote 38 They are believed to be able to launch direct physical attacks on an individual albeit with a metaphysical twist, such as sucking blood out of the individual.Footnote 39 They are believed to be able to attack one's property by killing livestock and starting fires.Footnote 40 As one court put it,
Witches or wizards are supposedly persons who engage in supernatural practices like surreptitiously killing people using all manner of weird means such as sending lightning on a clear day to strike at and kill a victim miles and miles away. Such persons are also renowned for going out at night, literally naked, and fly, for example, in a flat basket, to graveyards to dance and feast on human corpses.Footnote 41
Witchcraft is believed to involve some bizarre activities on the part of the witch as a means of sealing the pact with the dark forces or casting a spell. It could involve such acts as eating or serving others feces,Footnote 42 dancing in the nude at night,Footnote 43 cannibalism,Footnote 44 and other activities that diverge from socially accepted behavior.
The Law on Witchcraft in Uganda
The main law dealing with witchcraft in Uganda is the Witchcraft Act of 1957. The Act recognizes witchcraft as a reality rather than a superstition.Footnote 45 This is in contrast with the laws of a number of other African countries that treat it as nonexistent.Footnote 46 The practice of witchcraft is an offence punishable with up to five years imprisonment.Footnote 47 The Act also originally provided for banishment from an area as a punishment for practicing witchcraft. However, this was found to be unconstitutional.Footnote 48 The law, in a nod to traditional African religions and herbalism, exempts “bona fide spirit worship” and the supply or sale of native medicines.Footnote 49 The Witchcraft Act makes imputation of witchcraft illegal except when the accusation is made to “a person in authority.”Footnote 50 Who qualifies to be a person in authority, however, is unclear, as the phrase remains undefined in the Act. The law therefore criminalizes most witchcraft accusations. While witchcraft accusations as offenses are rarely, if ever, prosecuted in criminal courts, they have founded civil actions for defamation, as accusing someone of committing a crime is defamatory.Footnote 51 Despite this law, prosecutions for witchcraft are very rare.Footnote 52 This is because witch trials come with considerable evidentiary challenges given that the crime is intrinsically invisible.Footnote 53
The Witchcraft Act is a colonial-era law that was maintained after independence. In Attorney General v. Salvatori Abuki,Footnote 54 the petitioner challenged the constitutionality of some provisions of the Act. The petitioner had been convicted of the offense of practicing witchcraft under the Witchcraft Act and sentenced to twenty-two months imprisonment and banishment from his home for ten years upon release. He sought declarations that the offense of witchcraft and the banishment were unconstitutional. He claimed that the offense of witchcraft was vague and lacked precision. He also initially claimed that the offense violated his right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, but he abandoned this ground when the court pointed out that the Witchcraft Act specifically excludes bona fide spirit worship from its definition of witchcraft. He further claimed that the penalty of banishment contravened the constitutional provisions on dignity and protection from inhuman treatment.Footnote 55 At first instance, the Constitutional Court found that the offense of witchcraft was unconstitutional, as it was vague and lacking in precision because the word “witchcraft” is undefined in the Witchcraft Act. The banishment was also found to be unconstitutional.Footnote 56 At appeal, however, the Supreme Court found the offense of witchcraft to be constitutional, reasoning that witchcraft was defined by its exclusions such as bona fide spirit worship. The provisions on banishment were the only ones found to be unconstitutional.Footnote 57
Witch-Killing in Uganda
Witch-killings are prosecuted as regular murders under the Penal Code Act.Footnote 58 The offense of murder under the Penal Code Act has been interpreted as having the following ingredients: the death of the deceased, the cause of death was unlawful, there was malice aforethought, and the accused directly or indirectly caused the death.Footnote 59 The prosecution of suspects in witch-killings does not seem to have any deterrent effect on the violence, as killing of recalcitrant witches is seen as laudable in the eyes of many members of African communities.Footnote 60 This is especially true in scenarios where one or one's loved one is perceived as the victim of witchcraft. In that case, the killing of the witch is done as a form of self-defense,Footnote 61 to save the life of the loved one,Footnote 62 or as revenge.Footnote 63
Witch-killing is a practice that dates back to precolonial times in Africa.Footnote 64 The practice of witch-killing seems to have been predicated on the belief that the witch's evil power was stronger than the witch's own willpower and, therefore, he or she could do harm irrespective of their good intentions. Those who still hold onto such beliefs today find themselves “in a position where no outside power [can] save them from witches. They [have] no alternative but to strike in terror and self-defence.”Footnote 65 Witch-killings in Uganda tend to be brutal and vicious. Suspected witches have been burned alive,Footnote 66 stoned,Footnote 67 beheaded,Footnote 68 hacked to death,Footnote 69 or sometimes brutally murdered in a grotesquely macabre combination of different modes of killing.Footnote 70 These disturbingly inhumane methods of killing seem to be adopted from the precolonial customs of dealing with witches that were meant to deter people from practicing witchcraft.Footnote 71 A survey of the reported incidents of witch-killings suggests that a disproportionate number of those suspected of witchcraft are women.Footnote 72 For example, all twenty-six victims of witch-killings reported in 2013 were women.Footnote 73
It should, however, be noted that, despite widespread belief in witchcraft, assaults against witches are relatively rare. In many communities, people suspected to be practicing witchcraft are left unmolested.Footnote 74 This is attributed to a number of factors. First, although witchcraft is seen as a real and present danger, many people deplore violence and may choose not to retaliate.Footnote 75 Second, many who believe themselves to be victims of witchcraft are either too afraid to make a move against the purported witch or resort to other means of protection such as the use of charms from traditional healersFootnote 76 or prayers from religious leaders, especially evangelical and Pentecostal pastors.Footnote 77 Finally, the presence of “well-respected figures . . . able to speak with authority in a community”Footnote 78 can be useful in preventing mob justice against suspected witches.Footnote 79 It appears that witch-killings are more likely to occur where such figures are absent or have lost authority. This seemed to be the case in the murder of Francis Dramari, discussed above, where the cultural elders were unable to stop the rowdy youth from murdering him. Similar cases abound.Footnote 80 In one case, a mob was attacking a woman suspected of witchcraft because she was believed to have kept her deceased brother's witchcraft instruments. The village chief begged the mob not to punish her for her brother's wrong, but they refused to heed his advice and went ahead and killed her.Footnote 81 In another case, the suspected witch was set upon and forcefully evicted together with his family by a riotous crowd that, in defiance of their cultural leaders, who opposed his eviction, burned thirteen of his houses and left him and his family in the open to die.Footnote 82
Moreover, cultural leaders have themselves on occasion fanned the flames of witch-killing. In Terensio v. Uganda, the house and properties of the suspected witch were set on fire by villagers with support from the local leaders.Footnote 83 In Watete v. Uganda, the decision to hunt down and kill witches was taken by the local authorities and elders who then appointed young men to do it, and these young men proceeded to brutally kill the suspected witch.Footnote 84 In Wanzama v. Uganda, the village chief read a letter in public purportedly written by the president of Uganda, directing that all witches in the area should be killed. A team of five people then went and beat the suspected witch to death.Footnote 85
Defenses Available for Witch-Killing
As stated above, four possible defenses for witch-killing exist in Ugandan law: mistake of fact, self-defense, insanity and diminished responsibility, and provocation by witchcraft. Below, I detail and discuss each in turn.
Mistake of Fact
Section 9 of the Penal Code Act provides that an act committed “under an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief in the existence of any state of things” is not criminal.Footnote 86 Mistake of fact therefore prevents the prosecution from establishing that the defendant possessed the necessary mens rea at the time of the offense. The accused is liable only to the extent that the real state of things had been such as he or she believed to them to be.Footnote 87 Therefore, for it to work as a defense, courts must find that if the mistaken belief of the accused were true, then there would be justification to act as he or she did. The mistaken belief must be “honest and reasonable.” Applied to witch-killing, the accused must have honestly and reasonably believed that the victim was a witch. This is where the classic English Common Law ceases to be common in African societies. Whereas the accused's belief in witchcraft would obviously be reasonable under the customs of most communities,Footnote 88 this may not be so under the English Common Law. The courts here have to consider the “reasonableness” of the accused's belief that his or her life was threatened by an act of witchcraft.Footnote 89 In other words, what matters is not what the defendant believed the facts to be or even what the facts objectively are but rather what he or she reasonably believed them to be.
Whereas the honesty of the belief in witchcraft seems readily acceptable to the courts,Footnote 90 the reasonableness of the belief has often been rejected when they choose to use the objective English Common Law standard.Footnote 91 An imagined reasonable person is placed in the defendant's circumstances with the defendant's evidence and facing the same background conditions. The court then determines whether the reasonable person would have done as the defendant did. If the defendant acted as the imagined reasonable person would have then the defendant was reasonable. Where the court considers that a reasonable person would not believe in witchcraft, the accused's actions cannot be considered reasonable. This was the approach adopted in Rex v. Dominiko,Footnote 92 where eleven Ugandans participated in the murder of an employee of the Ugandan Medical Service under the belief that Europeans kidnapped and ate natives. They put forward mistake of fact as a defense. The court, in rejecting the defense, tersely noted that though they honestly believed that the victim intended to cannibalize them, such a belief “could hardly be held to be reasonable.”Footnote 93
The reasonable person rule, it is argued, should involve some subjectification, that is, some characteristics of the defendant should be given to the imagined reasonable person in assessing how he or she would react.Footnote 94 In witch-killings it could be argued that the defendant's belief in witchcraft be taken into consideration to determine whether a reasonable person believing in witchcraft would in fact act as he or she did. This approach found support in at least one case. In Yovan v. Uganda, the court in considering provocation as a defense for witch-killing used a subjective approach adopting a definition of a reasonable person as “an ordinary person of the community to which the accused belongs.”Footnote 95 The court further noted,
What might be a deadly insult to a member of one community might be a mere triviality to members of another community. In this respect the opinion of the assessors with their local knowledge of the customs of the people of the community can be of the greatest assistance to the trial judge although, of course, evidence can, and should (if necessary) be led as to the nature and meaning of a particular wrongful act or insult and as to any relevant customs.Footnote 96
The challenge with subjectification is that it could defeat the entire purpose of the reasonable person test. For instance, should the test for reasonableness also include the defendant's racist beliefs in a racially motivated murder?Footnote 97 Or, in a more African context, should the accused's belief in tribal or clan stereotypes be taken into consideration?Footnote 98 In the U.S. case of People v. Goetz,Footnote 99 the defendant, who had previously been robbed, shot and injured three young African American men who accosted him in the subway under the belief that they were attempting to rob him. The court rejected an entirely subjective test to determine whether he had used deadly physical force appropriately as every defendant who believed that his actions were reasonable, no matter how bizarre and unconscionable the rationale behind them might be, would qualify for an acquittal. The court explained that employing a different test of reasonableness for every single defendant claiming justification would be untenable.
However, belief in witchcraft in Africa is not as unreasonable as it might at first seem.Footnote 100 While an isolated individual's belief in witchcraft can justifiably seem unreasonable, the entire African belief system taken as a whole including the belief in witchcraft could be considered rational and logical. Witchcraft is a social reality in Africa and explains many otherwise unexplainable occurrences and is rational and logical within the society that believes it.Footnote 101 This view has however been attacked because although witches are a part of Africa's social reality they lack the ontological status of theoretical entities in scientific research and when the justification for belief in witchcraft is assessed by external objective standards it turns out to be insufficient.Footnote 102 In the Nigerian case of Gadam v. Queen, the accused had killed an old woman in order to destroy the spell that he believed she had placed on his wife who lay mortally ill.Footnote 103 Though the court acknowledged that the accused had killed the deceased because of a belief commonly held by members of his tribe, it rejected his defense of mistake of fact. The court noted that it would be “a dangerous precedent to recognize that because a superstition, which may lead to such a terrible result as is disclosed by the facts of this case, is generally prevalent among a community it is therefore reasonable.”Footnote 104 The mere fact that a belief, however demonstrably absurd, is held by many people in a community would not thereby qualify it to be reasonable.
Self Defense
Section 15 of the Penal Code Act provides that “criminal responsibility for the use of force in the defense of person and property . . . shall be determined according to the principles of English law.”Footnote 105 Under English law, self-defense based on a mistake of fact is valid.Footnote 106 However, self-defense requires that the force used be both necessary and proportionate.Footnote 107 Whether or not one acted in self-defense is a question of fact, and each case must be considered and judged on its own merits.Footnote 108
Necessity of Action
The necessity of the violent action in self-defense can be determined by the imminence of the threat. The accused will be justified only in reacting to a threat that is imminent. While this does not require the defendant to first suffer physical harm before striking, it does mean that there must be some immediacy about the threat.Footnote 109 With witchcraft, there is hardly ever a clear immediate threat to the victim, as it is often believed to be performed remotely.Footnote 110 The immediacy that would justify a witch-killing is therefore usually lacking. In Uganda v. Adima, the accused beat the deceased to death believing that the deceased had used witchcraft to bring about the death of his cousin and was plotting his death as well.Footnote 111 Self-defense was rejected because of the absence of any immediate threat.Footnote 112
Moreover, alternative remedies exist. As seen above, the Witchcraft Act provides that one can report a suspected witch to a person of authority, and the witch can then be prosecuted.Footnote 113 In many local communities, dispute settlement by village elders or local councils regarding witchcraft is also possible.Footnote 114 This is relevant because, although the law does not require an attempt to retreat when one is under threat of violence or a felony, in all other cases it requires the individual to do “all that is necessary in the circumstances to retreat or avoid a fight or disengage from the fight.”Footnote 115 Self-defense against a witchcraft-related assault would therefore apply only where no other alternative exists. With witch-killing, there will likely always be an alternative available but unexplored.
Proportionate Force
Self-defense law also requires that the would-be victim prove that the force he or she used in resisting the attack was neither excessive nor unreasonable under the circumstances.Footnote 116 Under common law the test for proportionality of the force is an objective one therefore even if the accused believed that he or she was using proportionate force, what matters is whether it was objectively proportionate.Footnote 117 Thus, any force or means resorted to must be proportionate to the force and means used by the assailant. The assailant may use his or her fists, sticks, bows and arrows, a gun, and so on, and the self-defense must be of equal measure.Footnote 118
However, such tangible weapons can hardly be accepted as appropriate and proportionate in self-defense against witchcraft. Given the supernatural nature of the witchcraft assault, imagined or otherwise, perhaps resorting to a supernatural power in one's self-defenseFootnote 119 would be the only proportionate means of self-defense.Footnote 120 There is no shortage of potential supernatural defenses in Uganda. Many evangelical and Pentecostal churches claim to be able to protect their congregations from witchcraft by the relatively benign means of God's supernatural protection.Footnote 121 Traditional healers also claim to offer protection,Footnote 122 which, in most cases, can be classified as bona-fide spirit worship, which is legal.Footnote 123 The only limitation seems to be that if one resorted to retaliatory witchcraft as a means of self-defense, one would fall foul of the Witchcraft Act and be liable to prosecution for practicing witchcraft.Footnote 124 This would still be a more desirable outcome than would being prosecuted for murder.
Discussion on Self-Defense
For use of violence to amount to self-defense, the accused must have had “an honest belief based on reasonable grounds that it was necessary and the violence attempted by or apprehended from the attack is really serious.”Footnote 125 The belief in the threat posed by witchcraft is often honest, for, to most witch-killers, “there is no essential ontological difference between the violence perpetrated by witches and the ordinary forms of violence perpetrated by physical means.”Footnote 126 However, as already noted, it is doubtful that violent actions based on a belief in witchcraft can be considered objectively reasonable. In Galikuwa v. Rex,Footnote 127 a self-proclaimed witch was demanding payment from the appellant. The appellant claimed to have previously witnessed a goat and chicken die as if by magic without the witch touching them, and the appellant claimed to have started hearing voices from the witch's “spirits” saying they would eat him if he did not pay. Perceiving the situation as a threat to his life, he killed the witch to save his own life.Footnote 128 A plea of self-defense was rejected as untenable because “it is difficult to see how an act of witchcraft unaccompanied by some physical attack could be brought within the principles of English Common Law.”Footnote 129
Insanity and Diminished Responsibility
Defense of Insanity
The majority of English speaking countries in Africa follow the rules of the insanity defense set up in Daniel M'naghten's Case.Footnote 130 Section 11 of the Ugandan Penal Code Act contains an almost pristine version of the M'naghten rules laid out in that famous case.Footnote 131 Insanity refers to the cognitive capability of the accused to distinguish between right and wrong. There are two alternatives open to an accused, either he or she does not understand the nature of the act or does not understand that the act is wrong. Insanity has generally been interpreted broadly to include all kinds of mental conditions, including neurosis and low IQ, as long as they could be identified as the cause for the accused's inability to understand the difference between right and wrong.Footnote 132 Crucially, the key term “wrong” in the M'naghten rules has been held to mean contrary to law not contrary to morality.Footnote 133 Thus, where the accused performs an act that he or she considers to be morally justified but knows to be legally wrong, the defense would not apply. The burden of proof for the defense of insanity lies with the defendant, and the standard of proof is the balance of probabilities.Footnote 134
The defense of insanity has been accepted in at least one Ugandan witch-killing case. In Regina v. Magata, the accused believed that his father had bewitched and killed his wife and two sons and was now bewitching him as well, so the accused attacked his father and beheaded him.Footnote 135 In his defense he claimed, “Because I was bewitched my head was not right; even my ears were affected; when I have sexual connections with my wife, my penis burns.”Footnote 136 The court held that he was guilty of murder but insane at the time. He had held those thoughts that his father was bewitching him for a long time, and this had affected his mind. The court noted, “an African living far away in the bush may become so obsessed with the idea that he is being bewitched that the balance of his mind may be disturbed to such an extent that it may be described as a disease of mind.”Footnote 137 A defense that combines both mental illness and cultural considerations has been accepted in at least one other jurisdiction.Footnote 138
Defense of Diminished Responsibility
The defense of diminished responsibility is established by the Penal Code Act under section 194, and it applies when the accused commits the crime of murder but is “suffering from such abnormality of mind, whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind, or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury, as substantially impaired his or her mental responsibility.”Footnote 139 In these circumstances, the accused is guilty of murder, but with diminished responsibility. The burden of proving diminished responsibility lies with the defenseFootnote 140 and the standard of evidence is the balance of probabilities.Footnote 141 The phrase “whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury” suggests that the intention of this provision was to restrict the scope of this defense to persons suffering from mental illnesses recognized by psychiatrists.Footnote 142 This has been the position taken by courts in Uganda.Footnote 143 It is therefore doubtful that this provision can be extended to cover a culturally based belief in witchcraft in the absence of a clearly recognized psychiatric disease of mind. In Uganda v. Owor, evidence was adduced and accepted that the accused was a “fearful man,” “always drunk,” “prone to violence,” and “always aggressive.”Footnote 144 In rejecting the defense of diminished responsibility, the court stated, “Strange as he (accused) may have been behaving, this did not mean he was a victim of diminished responsibility.”Footnote 145
Discussion on the Defense of Insanity
It is questionable whether the defense of insanity can be readily applied to all cases of witch-killing. While it was acknowledged in Regina v. Magata that a disease of mind could arise out of an obsessive belief in witchcraft,Footnote 146 it is doubtful that every belief in witchcraft can be considered a disease of mind. Significantly, Magata considered “an African living far away in the bush.”Footnote 147 It would be difficult to extend the reasoning in that case to educated Africans living in metropolitan cities and even many modernizing rural communities. Further, in a situation where the witch-killers are a large group of people, as is sometimes the case,Footnote 148 an insanity plea is unviable. Moreover, insanity exculpates the defendant when the defect is a function of mental disease and should not be brought into play due to mere defects in the training of the mind.Footnote 149 Witchcraft belief is usually a result of training, not a disease of mind.
Many obviously sane individuals do believe in witchcraft and cannot claim the insanity defense. The insanity plea was rejected in the Zimbabwean case of The State v. Shingirai, where the accused, who was having erotic dreams about his mother yet experiencing erectile dysfunction with other women, decided, on the advice of a witch, to murder her, believing that she had turned him into a spiritual husband.Footnote 150 Similarly, in the Kenyan case of R. v. Muswi,Footnote 151 the defendant killed his wife, with whom he had occasionally quarreled, by shooting her with an arrow as she sat in her kitchen. He believed she was practicing witchcraft against him. According to the testimony of a psychiatrist, there was a history of madness and epilepsy in the family, and the defendant was suffering from mild depression at the material time.Footnote 152 The court nonetheless rejected the insanity defense stating, “Even if [the defendant] believed that he was justified in killing his wife because she was practising witchcraft, there is again no evidence that such belief arose from any mental defect; it is a belief sometimes held by entirely sane Africans.”Footnote 153
Use of Executive Clemency
Under the Constitution of Uganda, the president has the prerogative of mercy, which allows him to pardon anyone convicted of an offense.Footnote 154 Colonial judges in East and West Africa, faced with the peculiar cases where the defendant claimed to have killed a supposed witch in imagined self-defense against his or her diabolical craft, convicted and sentenced the defendant to death, yet in the same breath pleaded for executive clemency from the governor.Footnote 155 In R. v. Mawala, the accused murdered a relative believing him to be the witch responsible for the recent deaths in his family; the court convicted him of murder and sentenced him to death but pleaded for the colonial governor to use his prerogative of mercy.Footnote 156 In R. v. Kumwaka,Footnote 157 known more famously as the Wakamba Witch Trial, a group of seventy Kamba “natives” killed a woman whom they genuinely believed was a witch and had bewitched the wife of one of them, causing her to fall ill. The group seized the witch and compelled her to lift half the spell off the sick woman, but she attempted to escape before lifting the rest of the spell. The group ran after her and pounded her to death.Footnote 158 The group was sentenced to death; however, a plea for clemency from the governor was made by the court.Footnote 159 Reliance on executive clemency as a means of dealing with witch-killing does not appear to have continued in the postcolonial period.
Though executive clemency is not a defense against witch-killing, I include it in this discussion because it has the same effect as the traditional defenses: allowing the witch-killer to escape full penalty for his or her actions. Executive clemency has the advantage of maintaining the high standard of the law while also recognizing the obvious fact that a rigid application could be unfair. It also allows for a case-by-case analysis such that it can be applied only in particular cases where penalizing the witch-killer for murder would be patently unjust. However, it is a political tool, and therefore might not be applied in some deserving cases where it is politically inexpedient to do so.Footnote 160 Further, a consistent almost institutionalized reliance on executive clemency obviously negates the deterrent effect of any penalties that the law puts in place. The courts’ reliance on clemency simply underscores the inadequacy of judicial solutions to witch-killings.Footnote 161
Provocation by Witchcraft
Under section 192 of the Penal Code Act, a person who “unlawfully kills another . . . in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation, and before there is time for his or her passion to cool,”Footnote 162 commits the crime of manslaughter. The Act defines provocation as any wrongful act that, when done to an ordinary person or to another person who is intimately close, is likely to deprive him or her of the power of self-control and to induce him or her to commit an assault.Footnote 163 The Act refers to an “ordinary person” as the standard that imports an objective test for provocation. However, in applying it to witch-killing, the courts have used a subjective test.Footnote 164 In any case, the defense revolves around the fact that the accused was in the heat of passion and had lost self-control.Footnote 165
In R. v. Fabiano,Footnote 166 the defense of provocation was extended to perpetrators of witch-killings. In that case, the defendants caught the deceased naked, crawling about their compound at night. They believed the deceased had bewitched their relatives, and that they had caught him in the act of bewitching them. They forcibly inserted unripe bananas into his bowel through the anus, which was considered the traditional method for killing a witch.Footnote 167 The court found that the defendants genuinely believed, as would have other ordinary persons in the community, that the deceased was then and there practicing witchcraft against them, and it allowed a defense of provocation. The court emphasized that this was not the creation of a new rule but “merely a special application of the usual rule which reduces to manslaughter a killing done in a provoked passion.”Footnote 168 The court in Galikuwa v. Rex subsequently summarized the requisite elements for the plea of provocation to succeed as follows:
a) The act causing the death must have been done in the heat of passion, i.e., in anger. Fear alone, even fear of immediate death, is not enough.
b) The victim must have been performing, in the actual presence of the accused, an act which the accused genuinely believed, and which an ordinary person of the community to which the accused belongs would genuinely believe, to be an act of witchcraft against him or another person under his immediate care.
c) A belief in witchcraft per se does not constitute a circumstance of excuse or mitigation for killing a person believed to be a witch in absence of an immediate provocative act.
d) The provocative act must amount to a criminal offence under criminal law.Footnote 169
Element (d) is peculiar as it makes witchcraft provocation distinct from the general law of provocation. The requirement that the provocative act must amount to a criminal offence is not generally part of criminal law.Footnote 170 Whereas adultery may not be a criminal offense any more,Footnote 171 if a man sees his wife in the act of adultery, he may be provoked even to commit murder, and the defense of provocation should nonetheless be available to him. The passion engendered by seeing a witch performing his or her rituals could cause one to lose self-control even if no law prohibits witchcraft. The Supreme Court of Uganda has reiterated what was stated in Fabiano—that the defense of provocation by witchcraft is just a mere extension of the ordinary defense of provocation.Footnote 172 Element (d) should therefore be excluded when determining what would constitute legal provocation in the case of a witch-killing.Footnote 173
Heat of Passion
The requirement of “heat of passion” means that the defense of provocation cannot apply where the murder has been planned and thought through over time.Footnote 174 In Galikuwa v. Rex, the appellant pleaded provocation and self-defense, claiming that he was being tormented by “spirit voices” that were threatening to kill him if he did not pay money to a self-proclaimed witch.Footnote 175 Regarding provocation, the court held that the requirement that the act causing death must be done in the heat of passion—that is, anger—was not complied with. The court concluded that the appellant was motivated by fear alone and not anger: “He struck, not in the heat of passion but in despair arising from his inability to raise the money and his hopeless fear of the consequences. He was not suddenly deprived of his self-control.”Footnote 176 In Kamiliango v. Republic, four sisters hired a witchdoctor to murder their elder sister, whom they believed to be on a killing spree, attempting to wipe out their family by means of witchcraft. They had traveled across a lake to negotiate with the witchdoctor and then traveled back with him to guide him to their victim.Footnote 177 In convicting them, the court found that they had “calculated their move with cool minds and in full possession of their faculties.”Footnote 178 In Uganda v. Yuman, the accused saw the deceased moving around naked at night on various occasions and, convinced that this was causing his impotence, subsequently poisoned the deceased.Footnote 179 The court, though accepting the evidence that the deceased was moving around naked, rejected provocation by witchcraft as a defense as the accused had not killed the deceased immediately but rather had waited for a period during which he should have cooled down.Footnote 180
Physical Act of Witchcraft
To constitute a defense in a charge of murder, the belief in witchcraft must be founded on some physical, not metaphysical, act.Footnote 181 The mere suspicion or rumor that the deceased was a witch cannot avail the defense of provocation by witchcraft. The alleged witch must be seen performing an act believed to be witchcraft in the actual presence of the accused.Footnote 182 In Uganda v. Munyirwa, an angry mob attacked the deceased, set his house on fire, and threw him into the fire.Footnote 183 The defense of witchcraft provocation was not raised; however, the court stated, “The killing must have taken place against the background that the deceased was a notorious wizard. But that could not constitute any lawful defense under our law.”Footnote 184 In R. v. Kelement, the accused strangled and killed the deceased, whom he found dancing naked in his compound.Footnote 185 Dancing naked in the accused's compound was held to satisfy the requirement for legal provocation.Footnote 186 In Kutosi v. Uganda,Footnote 187 the appellant said that he had hired the witchdoctor to heal his wife, who was suffering from asthma. When the witchdoctor came for payment, the appellant started beating him up. He said that the witchdoctor threatened him, saying, “if you beat me whereas you have refused to pay me I will plant a bean and you will die.” He then got a knife and stabbed the witchdoctor to death.Footnote 188 The court held that since the appellant believed that he had just witnessed the witch heal his wife, his defense of provocation would be allowed.Footnote 189
An apparent exception to the requirement of a physical act is a situation where a self-declared witch makes death threats.Footnote 190 In Yovan v. Uganda,Footnote 191 the accused confronted his stepmother believing her to be responsible for the deaths of his two children through witchcraft. She replied that he would die before he could bury his children. He got angry and cut her head, causing her to fall into her fireplace and burn to death.Footnote 192 The court, though finding that the words did not amount to sufficient provocation, did clarify that a threat to cause the death of the accused may amount to provocation, depending on the circumstances.Footnote 193 This was applied in Uganda v. Bashaija,Footnote 194 where the deceased told his son to go out with him and buy him alcohol so that he would stop bewitching him. However, even after buying the alcohol, the deceased declared that he would continue bewitching his son. This prompted the son to attack the father with a machete, hacking him to death.Footnote 195 The defense of provocation was accepted in the circumstances despite absence of a physical act, and the son was convicted of manslaughter.Footnote 196
Mere Belief in Witchcraft Insufficient
The mere belief in witchcraft on its own is not sufficient to avail the defense of provocation.Footnote 197 In Katiba v. Republic,Footnote 198 a woman was brutally murdered by the deceased, who believed that she was a witch but offered no proof save for the village rumors. The court noted the absence of evidence such as illness of the accused or death or illness of close members of his family, which by reason of attribution to witchcraft by the deceased provoked him to lose self-control. His defense of provocation by witchcraft was rejected.
Discussion on Defense of Provocation by Witchcraft
The provocation by witchcraft defense has been compared to the “nonviolent homosexual advance provocation defense” or “gay panic defense” in U.S. criminal law.Footnote 199 The gay panic defense rests on pervasive cultural beliefs that same-sex attraction is dangerous and undesirable. According to this defense, an advance by a person of the same gender itself provokes a loss of self-control and “incites uncontrollable homicidal rage in any reasonable person, regardless of homosexual tendencies,” and “the reasonable and ordinary person provoked by a homosexual advance kills because the solicitation itself causes an understandable loss of normal self-control.”Footnote 200 The rationale behind the provocation defense for witch-killing and the killing of LGBTQ people is basically the same: the criminal's belief that the victim was evil entitles the criminal to a lesser punishment.Footnote 201 One of the most famous applications of the defense was in People v. Schmitz,Footnote 202 where the victim declared that he had a “crush” on the accused, his close friend, on a television talk show. The accused was so “embarrassed” and “humiliated” that three days after the show he purchased a shotgun, drove to his friend's home, and shot the friend twice, killing him. In his defense, the accused claimed that he felt objectified by his friend's affections, and this led to the murder. The jury found him guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder, despite the fact that the prosecution tried him for first-degree murder.Footnote 203 Interestingly, in one Kenyan case the opportunity for a similar defense did arise but was rejected. In R. v. Kibiegon Arap Bargutwa, the son viciously murdered the father, claiming that he had made sexual advances on him and claimed the defense of insanity brought on by the shock of the father's advances. This was rejected by the court, which went on to convict him of murder.Footnote 204
Both the witch provocation defense and the homosexual advance defense are based on strong cultural and religious beliefs that are empirically unfounded. LGBTQ persons are not inherently evil, and witchcraft does not exist. These defenses are problematic because they appeal to stereotypes that portray minority groups as deviant and abnormal.Footnote 205 The outlandish beliefs in witchcraft and the evil of same-sex relations are used to justify violence against powerless and vulnerable groups and therefore should be neither excused nor tolerated regardless of how sincerely the accused holds such beliefs. The defense of provocation “provides tacit recognition that in certain communities killing a ‘witch’ is not merely explainable, or excusable but praise worthy.”Footnote 206
The provocation defense in common law was rooted in a desire to mitigate the harshness of the mandatory death penalty.Footnote 207 The death penalty for murder in Uganda is established under a provision drafted in mandatory terms.Footnote 208 However, in 2009, the Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that the mandatory death sentence was unconstitutional.Footnote 209 Sentencing guidelines issued in 2013 provide that the court may only pass a sentence of death in exceptional circumstances described as the “rarest of the rare” cases where alternatives are demonstrably inadequate.Footnote 210 The result of these measures limiting the application of the death penalty is that rather than issuing death sentences, long and life sentences are now preferred.Footnote 211 No execution has been carried out in Uganda since the Supreme Court decision.Footnote 212 In these circumstances, it can be argued that the original rationale for the provocation defense no longer holds, and therefore the defense can be done away with. The judge during the sentencing could then exercise his or her discretion in considering evidence indicating a loss of self-control and provocation as mitigating factors in sentencing.Footnote 213
Cultural Relativism and Universalism
The application of possible defenses discussed above—mistake of fact, self-defense, insanity, executive clemency, and provocation—in effect calls for the appreciation of the cultural diversity in a heterogeneous country like Uganda.Footnote 214 It also acknowledges the fact that Africans in general and Ugandans in particular, despite adopting the laws of their former colonial masters, did not completely abandon their norms and beliefs and there is thus frequently a conflict between the two. Whereas the concept of mens rea is traditionally restricted to the objective intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm,Footnote 215 this approach introduces a subjective component to the concept. Objective mens rea works perfectly in a society in which the hypothetical reasonable person and the average person have little distinction, as there is little difference between moral and legal guilt. However, the mens rea used in former British colonies “was cut from African cloth, but shaped to British patterns,”Footnote 216 and thus the law's reasonable person and the country's average citizen are continents apart.
Criminal law is based on the presumption that all members of the community subject to it have knowledge of the community's norms and standards,Footnote 217 and therefore, when a member breaches the established norms, his or her actions can be rightly perceived to involve some quantum of moral turpitude because they are expected to know and fully appreciate that their conduct was offensive.Footnote 218 Indeed, as has been stated by Henry Hart, “If the legislature does a sound job of reflecting community attitudes and needs, actual knowledge of the wrongfulness of the prohibited consequences will exist.”Footnote 219 Such knowledge can only serve as a barometer of one's moral culpability to the extent that it is reasonable to assume that one could have knowledge of the standard of conduct to which one is being held. However, where the defendant comes from a different community or culture that is unfamiliar with the norms of the society within which he or she is to be judged, attributing moral blameworthiness as part of criminal guilt becomes problematic.Footnote 220 To truly be considered justice, the punishment must be tailored to fit the degree of culpability. Imputation of knowledge of a particular law to a defendant is unfair in a situation where the defendant did not have the same opportunity to learn the law as have individuals raised in the cultural majority.Footnote 221 Violence against suspected witches cannot be curbed by policies that further undermine the possibilities of collective justice.Footnote 222
Justice must not only be done, but it must be seen and appreciated by the community in which the law operates as having been done. On the one hand, from the rationalist point of view, the innocent victims of witchcraft accusations and violence—who often belong to vulnerable groups, such as women and the elderly—deserve justice, which would involve apprehending and punishing those who do them harm as a deterrence against such behavior again. On the other hand, for the millions living in fear of witchcraft, justice can be seen as having been done only when the perpetrators of witchcraft, who are perceived as dangerous and powerful figures, have been dealt with by the law. For them, “there is no essential ontological difference between the violence perpetrated by witches and the ordinary forms of violence perpetrated by physical means.”Footnote 223 In their eyes, witches are perpetrators of an invisible criminal violence of which we see only the effects. It is therefore argued that the law should rightly consider the cultural backgrounds of the defendants in witch-killing trials.
While this approach is tempting, wholesale recognition of peculiar beliefs and cultures in criminal actions has been avoided by courts because to do so would result in judicial sanction of conduct destructive to the very laws and social order that the courts are intended to preserve.Footnote 224 To ensure social discipline, there must be an objective distinction between acceptable and unacceptable conduct. Allowing subjectively held cultural beliefs to override criminal liability would equate those beliefs to other defenses, such as immaturity or mental defect, and would very likely lead to patently erroneous judgments.Footnote 225 In the Wakamba Witch Trial, the court noted that such an approach would “encourage the belief that an aggrieved party may take the law into his own hands, and no belief could be more mischievous or fraught with greater danger to public peace and tranquility.”Footnote 226
The cultural relativist approach appears to have been rejected in many other applications of the law in Uganda. The objective uniform applicability of criminal law is the basis of the criminalization of actions such as female genital mutilation, which remains widely practiced in some parts of the country.Footnote 227 Female genital mutilation has no health benefits and can lead to severe pain and bleeding, infection, problems urinating, diminished sexual pleasure, problems in childbirth, and depression and other mental health problems.Footnote 228 In Uganda, the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2010 (FGM Act) makes “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-therapeutic reasons” illegal.Footnote 229 This is despite the widespread practice of the act among certain groups within the country who perceive female circumcision as the only means of achieving feminine beauty and cleanliness.Footnote 230 Customs and beliefs are recognized in Ugandan law only as long as they are not “repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience and not incompatible either directly or by necessary implication with any written law.”Footnote 231 Cultural relativists, however, argue that because plastic surgeries that involve sex-change operations and breast implants, tattoos, and body-piercing are viewed as normal, therefore female genital mutilation should also be acceptable.Footnote 232 The president of Uganda has in fact pardoned people convicted under the FGM Act, noting that he has argued with his own daughters about ear-piercing.Footnote 233 The explicit criminalization of female circumcision, it is argued, may add little more to the existing law except more stigma to the groups that practice it.Footnote 234
These competing views were tested in Law and Advocacy for Women in Uganda v. Attorney General,Footnote 235 where the petitioner sought to declare female circumcision unconstitutional. The court acknowledged that the practice persisted among several tribes in the country. However, on the basis of the obvious potential harm that results from female circumcision—such as excruciating pain to the victim, death from excessive bleeding or sepsis, and disease and urinary incontinence from the use of crude implements thereby—the court found it to be unconstitutional, violating the provisions for the right to life and freedom from torture.Footnote 236 A cultural relativist approach would be untenable in these circumstances, as it would lead to the perpetuation of harm against the victim. A similar universalist approach underpins the setting of the age of consent at eighteen,Footnote 237 despite the fact that many communities in Uganda still view child marriage as acceptable.Footnote 238 Cultural relativism prevents normative judgment about harmful cultural practices like witch-killings, and it equates with culture what objectively are merely the views of some dominant social groups, thereby obscuring the underlying rationale behind their violence.Footnote 239 Simply because beliefs are sincerely held does not imbue them with moral validity. The people who perpetrated the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 might have sincerely believed that their victims deserved to die,Footnote 240 but this did not make their actions any less reprehensible nor less deserving of punishment.
Witch-killings go against the country's constitutional provisions, which are meant to have universal application across the country. The Ugandan Constitution specifically prohibits “cultures, customs or traditions which are against the dignity, welfare or interest of women or which undermine their status.”Footnote 241 Women are the primary victims of witch-killings. Any approach that tolerates such violations makes a mockery of international efforts to end gender based discrimination and violence.Footnote 242 Attacks against suspected witches violate their fundamental rights such as the right to life, the right to hold property, the right to a fair trial, and the prohibition against torture.Footnote 243 Witch killings are frequently done by mobs.Footnote 244 Sometimes the entire village will take part in the witch-killing, with the reluctant participants compelled by threats or fear of being accused of the same.Footnote 245 Village mobs can be organized by communities for the express purpose of killing witches.Footnote 246 Suspected witches are often killed in front of their relatives and loved ones.Footnote 247 In one case, the suspected witch was murdered while she was preparing supper for her family.Footnote 248 In another case, the suspected witch was caught while he was with his brother and was dragged away to be hacked to death as he begged for mercy.Footnote 249 It is not uncommon for witch-killings to be done by close relatives.Footnote 250 In one case, a man beheaded his own father, whom he suspected of killing his wife and two sons through witchcraft.Footnote 251 In another, four sisters came together to kill their elder sister, whom they believed to be wiping out the family by means of witchcraft.Footnote 252 Although individuals are usually the victims, on occasion entire families can be victims.Footnote 253 Human rights violations like these, no matter how culturally justifiable, should be unequivocally condemned.
Conclusion
Taking witchcraft beliefs into account under general defenses, such as mistake of fact, and considering such beliefs in mitigating sentences has the merit of offering a mild form of recognition of cultural beliefs while preserving the unity and stability of the rule of law.Footnote 254 Doing so retains the authority of the general legal framework and creates relatively little division among the citizenry.Footnote 255 However, this cultural relativist approach undermines the deterrent aspects of the law against murder in general and perpetuates manifest injustices. Moreover, it would involve treating patently absurd beliefs as reasonable in some instances, as some of the courts noted in the cases discussed when acknowledging such demonstrably irrational beliefs as reasonable.
A sustainable solution appears to still be wanting. The guiding principle should be victim-centered, such that the law should never “allow the killing of wizards like it does the killing of snakes and other prowling beasts.”Footnote 256 In seeking to explain and understand why an individual killed another suspected of witchcraft, the rights of the deceased should not be overlooked. It is unlikely that a legislative formulation that adequately maintains the balance between these two competing interests can be put forward. In the end, the most pragmatic solution may be to do away with all these inadequate defenses and depend on judicial discretion at the point of sentencing to take into consideration all the facts and circumstances surrounding the murder and come up with what is deemed to be the most suitable penalty.
The final solution must deal with the belief in witchcraft. A multifaceted approach involving education, religious leaders, politicians, and other influencers is necessary. Such an approach will emphasize an education that teaches a scientific explanation for what happens around us, encouraging free thought and scientific analysis of events that can help spread enlightenment and cause the fear of witchcraft to dissipate.Footnote 257 Henry Ford Miirima, a veteran journalist in Uganda spent ten years studying witchcraft in the country, and in Unveiling Witchcraft in Uganda,Footnote 258 he and Anatoli Wasswa expose it as a dangerous sham that perpetuates a delusion among many people. Through efforts such as this, it is possible that belief in witchcraft will eventually recede into distant history.
Influential religious leaders should be encouraged to take a stand against belief in witchcraft.Footnote 259 Claims that witchcraft is behind certain occurrences are often fueled by Pentecostal church leaders, who seem to profit from people's witchcraft fears, which lead them to give church offerings for prayers of protection and exorcism.Footnote 260 It is common in Pentecostal services for self-declared former witches to give dramatic testimonies.Footnote 261 As anthropologist Koen Stroeken has noted, “Witchcraft's reality becomes stronger with every witch they claim to have converted.”Footnote 262 It is easy to see how this firm belief in witchcraft can lead to church-inspired, and sometimes even church-led, assaults on witches. In August 2017, the residents of Oyam district in northern Uganda, led by a Pentecostal church pastor and an Anglican Church priest, burned down a shrine and residence of a witchdoctor, accusing her of extortion and of causing mysterious accidents.Footnote 263 The early Christian church, which today's Pentecostal movement seeks to emulate,Footnote 264 believed the devil to be a defeated foe that was utterly powerless. Saint Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential theologians of the early church, wrote in 420 CE that witchcraft was merely the “error of the pagans” who believed that there was “some other divine power than the one God.”Footnote 265 This view was held by the medieval church, which felt little need to persecute or preach against witchcraft. Witch-trials and killings did not occur in Europe until the 1400s.Footnote 266 The Pentecostal movement would do well to adopt this more orthodox view rather than one that encourages fear. With a concerted effort, belief in witchcraft in Uganda and concomitantly, the necessity of witch-killing, can be done away with.
Politicians should be encouraged to take a stand against belief in witchcraft. Local politicians have on occasion encouraged punitive action against suspected witches for their own self-interested reasons. When the community in Gulu town believed that they were under attack from a suspected witch, the district police commander and two members of Parliament visited the affected locations and encouraged local mobilization to deal with the threat. One MP even recommended that the suspected witch be dispossessed of his properties and lands.Footnote 267
Entrenched beliefs such as those relating to witchcraft do not die easily. It is possible that such beliefs will always remain in some segment of the population. But this will probably be an increasingly smaller segment of the population as time goes by until the risk of killing of suspected witches eventually vanishes.
