Albino Killings Continue in Africa

I've posted about the murder of albinos in Africa before. Here is the latest from BBC Africa:

24 October 2010 Last updated at 03:51 ET
Burundi albino boy 'dismembered'
The dismembered body of a young albino boy has been found in a river on the Burundi-Tanzania border, reports say.
The boy, aged nine, was taken from Makamba province in Burundi by a gang that crossed the border, the head of Burundi's albino association said.

Kassim Kazungu told AFP the remains had been recovered from the Malagarazi river and given a formal burial.

Albino body parts are prized in parts of Africa, with witch-doctors claiming they have special powers.

Mr Kazungu told the AFP news agency that Tanzanian police had arrested five people, although there was no official confirmation from Tanzania.

In Tanzania, the body parts of people living with albinism are used by witch-doctors for potions which they tell clients will help make them rich or healthy.

Dozens of albinos have been killed, and the killings have spread to neighbouring Burundi.

In August a court in Tanzania sentenced a Kenyan to 17 years in jail on charges of trying to sell an albino person.

Tanzanian authorities have promised to crack down on albino traffickers, and several people have been sentenced to death in connection with killings.

Oh No - Witch Hunt is on in Tanzania

Well, you can just imagine what's going to happen, with anonymous accusations being leveled...

Story from BBC News Online
Tanzania 'witch-naming' under way
Page last updated at 13:56 GMT, Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Thousands of people in Tanzania have been taking part in an exercise aimed at identifying those behind the killing of albinos for ritual purposes.

The process - in which people fill in forms anonymously, naming those they suspect of involvement - was ordered by President Jakaya Kikwete.

But some fear the nationwide exercise, which has begun in the Lake Zone area, could be used for personal vendettas.

Witchdoctors reportedly buy albino body parts to make "magic" potions.

Since late 2007, 45 albinos have been slaughtered in Tanzania.

Forty-four of the killings have taken place in the Lake Zone district. Police believe the killers are selling their victims' limbs, hair, skin and genitals to traditional medicine practitioners who make potions promising to make people wealthy.

Superstitious miners and fishermen in the region hoping to get rich quick have been accused of fuelling the demand.

President Kikwete has said the murders have brought shame on the country and urged the public not to fear retribution for naming the culprits. But correspondents say it is not clear how effective the exercise will be in a society which believes in witchcraft and where confidence in the legal system is wearing thin.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon last month decried the albino killings during his official visit to the country.

The government issued a ban on all traditional healers in January in an effort to stop the killings and several have been arrested since then on suspicion of flouting the order.

Friday Night Miscellany - One Day Late

Hola darlings!

Unbelievable news stories out this past week - I couldn't make up some of this stuff if I tried. Yeah, I know I keep saying that, but it's true!

Asshole in Charge of Zimbabwe Denies Cholera Epidemic - even as more and more graves are being dug. The hapless and helpless UN says the whole country could be consumed with the epidemic while Mugabe denies there is a problem. What's the old saying - a picture is worth a thousand words... I would not be surprised if an entire generation of Zimbabweans are wiped out by the epidemic. It's always the children and women who suffer the most - sonsofbitch men who run the world could care less, of course. Well - they will care - A WHOLE LOT - when there aren't any women left to rape, er, marry and breed more chattel (children) to work the fields and use for cannon fodder in endless wars. Get this, the Zimbabwean government is now claiming that the cholera epidemic is a plot by the British Government! I do not understand, no, I will never understand, why someone with a rifle has not taken out Mugabe to end that particular problem in Zimbabwe. President-Elect Obama, please appoint Tom Clancy as head of the CIA.

Respected Wall Street Investment Manager/Market-Maker Defrauded Investors of Billions: Does it feel any different for someone who thought he/she was a billionaire to suddenly realize they don't have any money left than it does for the average wage-earner in this country ($45,000 a year), struggling to make ends meet, having their 401(k) wiped out in a few days by the October stock market crash and the value of their home decrease by 40% (or more) over two years? Somehow, I just can't rummage up much sympathy for the billionaires who may no longer be so because they entrusted their money to a lying fraud.

This dude may have defrauded investors of up to $50 billion. Ironic, isn't it, that the Republicans in the House blocked legislation to lend $14 billion to the Big Three automakers because the United Auto Workers Union representing the average Joe workers refused to accept some ridiculous concessions the Republicans wanted to impose on money that is a LOAN to the auto makers (what about some concessions and give-backs from the millionaire fat cats who managed the companies all the way into the ground???), and this Wall Street dude lost $50 billion through lying and cheating his clients! The Republicans are up in arms about the hairy Democrat Governor from Illinois with the unpronounceable name who is being charged with attempting to "sell" President-Elect Obama's now vacant Senate seat for personal gain, but the Wall Street dude who ripped people off for $50 billion doesn't merit a mention by any of the Republican Congressmen or Senators. Hmmmm.... Where is Elliott Spitzer when you need him? Oh - the fat cats sure got rid of him, didn't they... No New York attorney general sniffing around the Wall Street boobies now. I expect Bernard Madoff will plead diminished capacity by reason of Alzheimers, or some such, and he'll never spend a second in prison.

My heart bleeds (not) for the fat cats who got ripped off by one of their own. The Wall Street Journal coverage today said Madoff was turned in by his own sons. Wonder what the motive was behind THAT move? Greed? Trying to save what's left of the family company for themselves and their posterity? Did they actually have - consciences? Geez, what a concept - uber-rich SOBs having a conscience! Madoff put us his Manhattan penthouse as security for his $10,000,000 bail. Yeah, it just breaks me up. Cough, cough. The last thing he wanted to do before he got arrested was dole out some of the last $200 to $300 million left in bonuses for his loyal employees, friends and family. My heart just bleeds.

Some of the Wall Street Regulars figured Madoff was cheating - and they (all unnamed, of course) specifically invested with Madoff BECAUSE they figured he was cheating -- they thought he was trading on "insider" information. They just didn't figure that he was cheating with a classic Ponzie scheme. I mean - how outre, darlings! A Ponzie scheme! Har!

Health Care in Canada - here's hoping whatever plan the Obama Administration comes up with isn't like what they have in Canada - euuuuuwwwwww! Within months of each other, horrendous stories about people who arrived for emergency treatment ending up dying in the waiting rooms:

• September 23, 2008: The 45-year-old arrived by taxi at the Health Sciences Centre around 3 p.m. Friday from the Health Action Centre, a community health centre in central Winnipeg, where he had an earlier appointment, officials said. He was found dead after midnight Sunday.
• December 12, 2008 inquest into death that occurred on January 11, 2008: Man arrives at emergency clinic blue in the face, with difficulty breathing and in obvious distress, told to sit down. He died sometime while seated, and someone in the waiting room dialed 911 in an attempt to learn how to do CPR on the man. Unbelievable explanation as to why no one on the medical staff acted to remove the now deceased patient from the waiting room - the doctor who took (and evidently found n0) pulse thought it would be treated by the police as the scene of a crime. Evidently dying for lack of care in an emergency clinic in Montreal is now a crime. Oh those Frenchies, what will they think of next???

Albinos in Tanzania are being targeted for blood and body parts in aid of black magic. What century are we living in???
Time to dance around the room for 30 minutes to songs such as Love Shack (B-52s) and get my aerobic work-out in. 'night.

Albinos Hunted in Africa

From The New York Times

Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: June 8, 2008
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus.

The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others.
Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin.

“I feel like I am being hunted,” he said.

Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.

As the threats have increased, the Tanzanian government has mobilized to protect its albino population, an already beleaguered group whose members are often shunned as outcasts and die of skin cancer before they reach 30.
Police officers are drawing up lists of albinos in every corner of the country to better look after them. Officers are escorting albino children to school. Tanzania’s president even sponsored an albino woman for a seat in Parliament to show that “we are with them in this,” said Salvator Rweyemamu, a Tanzanian government spokesman.

Mr. Rweyemamu said the rash of killings was anathema to what Tanzania had been striving toward; after years of failed socialist economic policies, the country is finally getting development, investment and change.

“This is serious because it continues some of the perceptions of Africa we’re trying to run away from,” he said.

But the killings go on. They have even spread to neighboring Kenya, where an albino woman was hacked to death in late May, with her eyes, tongue and breasts gouged out. Advocates for albinos have also said that witch doctors are selling albino skin in Congo.

The young are often the targets. In early May, Vumilia Makoye, 17, was eating dinner with her family in their hut in western Tanzania when two men showed up with long knives.

Vumilia was like many other Africans with albinism. She had dropped out of school because of severe near-sightedness, a common problem for albinos, whose eyes develop abnormally and who often have to hold things like books or cellphones two inches away to see them. She could not find a job because no one would hire her. She sold peanuts in the market, making $2 a week while her delicate skin was seared by the sun.

When Vumilia’s mother, Jeme, saw the men with knives, she tried to barricade the door of their hut. But the men overpowered her and burst in.

“They cut my daughter quickly,” she said, making hacking motions with her hands.

The men sawed off Vumilia’s legs above the knee and ran away with the stumps. Vumilia died.

Yusuph Malogo, who lives nearby, fears he may be next. He is also an albino and works by himself on a rice farm. He now carries a loud, silver whistle to blow for help.

“I’m on the run,” he said.

He is 26, but his skin is thick and leathery from sun damage, making him look 20 years older.

Many albinos in Tanzania are turning to the Tanzanian Albino Society for help. But the nonprofit advocacy group operates on less than $15,000 a year. That’s not enough for the sunscreen, hats and protective clothing that could save lives.

Mr. Mluge, 49, is the society’s general secretary. He grew up with children pelting him with chalk in class. He said he had learned to live with being constantly teased, pinched and laughed at.

“But we have never feared like we do today,” he said.

Al-Shaymaa J. Kwegyir, Tanzania’s new albino member of Parliament, said, “People think we’re lucky. That’s why they’re killing us. But we’re not lucky.”