'Stop Fortifying Thugs With Muti' - Marumoloa

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE
Staff Writer | Monday March 1, 2010 00:00

 

In a development that is likely to create debate for a long time, chief Mompati Garlicks Marumoloa of Pitsane last week summoned traditional doctors in the village, with the intention of giving them an ultimatum: STOP HELPING CATTLE RUSTLERS ESCAPE or else. A promising encounter between traditionalists, with the chief and his deputies on the one hand, and traditional doctors on the other could not materialise because of heavy downpours that kept the morafhe, and the traditional doctors indoors. When The Monitor team arrived only four doctors had arrived.

The chief had expected over 20 doctors and was compelled to postpone the meeting as the majority had not turned up.

Asked what prompted him to call the meeting, Kgosi Marumoloa said there had been a public outcry about traditional doctors in the area who connive with criminals by giving them spells to escape justice.

'We hear some of the criminals go around the village boasting that they will continue committing crime and that they will never be caught because they are well-protected by muti that they obtain from traditional doctors in the village, that the muti makes it difficult for anyone to trace them and that if anybody does manage to trace them, it would be a futile exercise as they will walk scot-free,' said a worried Marumoloa.

Marumoloa said that if indeed traditional doctors gave thugs spells to help them escape the law then they are jeopardising the law's effort to combat crime in the area. Kgosi Marumoloa said that was going to set a new meeting date where he will discuss the role of the church and medicine men in combating crime. Marumoloa said he wants all traditional doctors in the village to attend the meeting so that no one will say they were left out of the discussions.

Goodhope Police Station commander, superintendent Tshegofatso Mokumako whose jurisdiction Pitshane falls under said the police had introduced cluster policing to reduce crime in the area. He said he does not want to believe it is the work of muti that some criminals are walking about free when they should be in jail. 'We arrest some criminals here, some are charged and found guilty and serve their punishments while some get released, mostly due to lack of evidence linking them to the crime. I would not say we failed to arrest them due to muti, we just follow the law and do our work, he said. He noted that ever since the introduction of cluster policing in the area, they have recorded a significant drop in some crimes like rape and house break-ins, but some continued to escalate like stock theft and cross-border crimes as they are close to the South African border.

While the law may not recognise the use of muti as a factor in diverting the course of justice, many people believe that it could help criminals escape the long arm of the law. So rooted is the belief that some 'medicine' men and women even place newspaper adverts such as 'need to win a court case? Then visit me' in local newspapers.

Last year Mmegi Newspaper insert, Naledi carried a story in which a police officer narrated how he always found himself talking gibberish whenever he was supposed to give evidence for the state. He blamed muti, that was being used by the accused against him. The same publication reported in a later issue how a medicine man in Letlhakane boasted how he made law enforcement officers fall asleep when he came to steal one of their horses for his own personal uses.