Witchcraft and Murder in East Timor

ETLJB 8 May 2009 SYDNEY In staunchly Catholic East Timor, it is anomalous that there persists a strong belief in witchcraft. In September, 2000, this first came to focus the attention of the judicial system when four men were tried for allegedly torturing and killing an elderly woman accused of witchcraft.

The facts of that case came to light in the court in Baucau, East Timor's second largest city. A 62-year-old woman was murdered in the easternmost region of Los Palos in December, 1999. According to the prosecution, the woman was tortured and left for dead by four men after having been accused of killing children by witchcraft.

In January, 2008, three women accused of being witches were killed and burned along with their house in East Timor. The three women, aged 70, 50 and about 25, were killed in Liquica, about 40km west of the capital Dili. They were Bui-dau, 70, Flora, 50, and another (unidentified) woman about 25 years old. They had been accused of being witches and were attacked by unknown people.

As recently as yesterday, the issue of witchcraft hit the nation's headlines once again with East Timor's national broadcaster, RTTL, reporting that the East Timor National Police Deputy Commander Inspector Afonso de Jesus had called on residents in the capital Dili not to believe in rumor-mongering that there was a witch named Margareta flying around the city.

In his paper, Institutions and the East Timorese Experience, Andrew Harrington discusses the following case concerning witchcraft.

"...in one case involving witchcraft, an UNPol officer directed a deeply upset local who approached him with this complaint to deal with it in the traditional way.

A man had accused the complainant’s daughter of witchcraft and cursing his family. The UNPol (United Nations Police) officer had no authority to deal with accusations of black magic. A few days later, the complainant returned and advised the UNPol officer that he had done as told, and dealt with the problem using traditional means; he killed the accuser.

Another anecdotal example involving witchcraft and local dispute resolution mechanisms resulted in draconian punishment; villagers fatally placed hot coals on [an accused] witch’s back for punishment.

It should be noted that generally witchcraft punishments are not so severe, but that is not always the case; it depends on the ‘severity’ of witchcraft involved, or the degree to which the wrongdoer has disturbed the community’s system of value-circulation and socio-cosmic balance."

The social problem of the supernatural belief in witchcraft in East Timor poses not only serious questions for the Christian soul, but also presents the justice system with the fatal consequences for women accused of witchcraft - torture and murder at the hands of vigilantes and the traditional community leaders in East Timor who administer the customary justice system.

Many anthropologists who lack a comprehension of the concepts of democratic secular law and justice, are ardent supporters of traditional justice systems even though they posit supernatural hypotheses for the explanation of the realities of social disharmony and criminal conduct and impose corporal punishments and worse tortures on citizens accused of the impossible crime of witchcraft.

In his analysis of this issue in the context of traditional local dispute resolution mechanisms, Harrington writes:

"While the ideal is a perfectly efficient and effective justice institution, this simply may not be feasible due to scarce resources or subject matter. Following Qian, in a given situation that which is feasible, not necessarily best, may be what ought to be sought. If an “antiquarian” traditional local dispute resolution mechanism is consistently used, is persistent, and operates on issues outside the formal sphere, then it likely qualifies as feasible. That they are capable of dealing both with issues formal mechanisms can and cannot, but faster and cheaper, perhaps further attests to local dispute resolution mechanisms feasibility. Through a neo-antiquarian lens, local dispute resolution mechanisms are better than merely feasible; they are truly home-grown and not merely connected to a culture, but rather are that culture.

This point must be qualified in two ways, however. While the neo-antiquarian view states, ‘new’ is not always superior to ‘old’, there is no guarantee that ‘old’ is superior to ‘new’. Edgerton broaches this issue in response to overly relativist anthropologists:

[T]raditional beliefs and practices may be useful, may even serve as important adaptive mechanisms, but they may also be inefficient, harmful, and even deadly.”*

He terms this ‘maladaptation’. The main point: even if a practice exists within a culture this does not necessarily ensure it is well adapted and beneficial to that culture.[22] There are certainly numerous examples of specific practices within Timorese local dispute resolution mechanisms that seem blatantly maladaptive."

Supporting and encouraging traditional justice systems that are, in any event, anti-democratic and that admit allegations of witchcraft into "evidence" as well as the violation of human rights including the denial of representation of minors accused of offences and torture of an accused, will only sustain a framework for the perpetuation of the belief in witchcraft - and, tragically, more murders of East Timorese women.

The Roman Catholic Church itself, as well as the state authorities in East Timor, should be engaged in dispelling the irrational belief in witchcraft. copyright etljb 2008


*Edgerton, Robert B. “Traditional Beliefs and Practices –Are Some Better than others?” in Laurence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds. Culture Matters. How values shape human progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000) p 131.

East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin