Haiti - Social : Lynchings, at least 45 dead, cholera or religious war ?

"We counted 40 deaths by lynching in the Department of Grand'Anse and 5 communes of the Plateau Central [...] people attacking healer accused of witchcraft related to cholera", said Fritz Moses Evens an official from the Ministry of Communication, who presented the results of a survey mede between December 4 and, 2010 in Grand'Anse. "The victims, most are voodoo priests, are beaten with machetes and stones before being burned in the street", added Moses Fritz Evens...

Wednesday at a press conference in Port-au-Prince, Marie Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Minister of Communication, warned against this practice and wished to recall that voodoo had nothing to do with the cholera epidemic. She announced that the campaign of awareness about the disease will be strengthened, at the same time that justice will proceed against those who attack the vodouisants as pretext of spreading cholera.

The National Council of Haitian voodoo (Conseil National des Vodouisants Haïtiens KNVA) had called the day before, to mobilize its members to defend themselves against the crimes they are victims. "The vodouisants will go on the offensive against the perpetrators of lynchings" said KNVA leaders, who denounce the passivity of the police, despite their repeated requests for protection, these crimes are taking place in view of police and judicial authorities, of the Ministry of Justice, Interior and Religious Affairs as well as civil society organizations, especially human rights.

The priestess Euvonie Augustus and the voodoo priest (houngan) Dieudonné Jean-Jacques, see rather in these lynchings, the result of a campaign anti-Voodoo directed by some rival religious sects. Recall that in Haiti there are over 60,000 voodoo temples.

See also:
http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-1808-haiti-social-lynchings-in-series-at-least-14-victims.html
http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-1842-haiti-epidemic-grand-anse-supernatural-cholera-204-dead.html

S/ HaitiLibre www.haitilibre.com