The Cholera Witch-Hunt in Haiti

December 3, 2010 By Jason Pitzl-Waters 5 Comments

As the cholera epidemic in Haiti continues to sicken tens of thousands, killing nearly 2000 people so far, the angry and scared populace is starting to lash out at Vodou practitioners.

“Terror over a fast-spreading cholera epidemic has triggered a violent witch hunt in rural Haiti in which locals have murdered at least 12 neighbors on accusations they used “black magic” to infect people, police said Thursday [...] Rumors began to spread last week in the remote southwestern Grand Anse region, where the first cases of cholera are only now being seen, that Vodou practitioners had fashioned a magic powder to spread the infection. Machete-wielding mobs have since lynched and killed a dozen people accused of practicing such witchcraft, burning the bodies of their victims, national police spokesman Frantz Lerebours said.”

The Haitian government in Port-au-Prince issued a statement saying that “there is no cholera powder, nor cholera zombie, nor cholera spirit”, trying to quell the violence and rumor-mongering. Relief organizations are also trying to spread awareness, but Hurricane Thomas has worsened the situation, washing polluted matter into the water supply, causing the disease to spread. HaitiLibre, reporting on these lynchings, says that any investigation into the deaths will be extremely difficult.

According to Kesner Numa in charge of the investigation “These people are accused of witchcraft related to cholera. According to the crowd, they have sown a substance that spreads the disease in the region”. According to the representative of justice, the investigation will be difficult “because the population refuses any collaboration with justice, because [they] truly believe that witches are killing by taking advantage of the cholera epidemic”.

I am uncomfortably reminded of the incident in the wake of the Port-au-Prince earthquake where Vodouisants were attacked by a mob of Christians. Did anti-Vodou rhetoric help fuel this current fear and violence? This instability, fear, and rumor can become truly catastrophic for Vodou in Haiti should things deteriorate further. One can only hope sanity and stability will be restored soon.

Filed Under: Paganism, Religion Tagged With: , , , , 5 Comments
  • Ursyl

    In such conditions of uneducated people, suffering blow after blow from forces they cannot control or hope to affect, I suspect that if it wasn't Voudun being blamed, it'd be something else. Being able to blame something, someone, and punish them is a way of gaining the illusion that there is some control.

    I note well that the illusion only creates more problems, and solves absolutely nothing.

  • Bookhousegal

    It certainly doesn't help when missionaries come in and *tell* people to blame …Voudouisants and aid workers from India… Notice anything in common in those two scapegoats?

    Of course, the same types do always find someone to blame for things, even in America, it's just taken less seriously. So far, anyway. Some people being uneducated and desperate doesn't mean some don't exploit that.

    • Andre

      Whenever there is a new disease in Haiti, there has to be a scapegoat. For AIDS, the scapegoats were homosexuals. Now for cholera –a disease hitherto unknown in Haiti — the scapegoats are the Vodu priests. And the fact that most of the Haitian people never went to school and don't know anything about science does not help either. And it is unfortunate that Christian missionaries have for so long pictured Vodu practitioners as servants of the Devil, which they of course are not.

  • Mariele

    South Africa, Kenya, now Haiti… I wonder how long it will take for the "burning times" to come to the USA?

  • Jennifer

    Devi, thanks for the reply; "zombi powder" did not come to mind, though it should have. You're probably right that that was what caused the rumor of a "cholera powder."