Traditional healers distance themselves from sorcerers

 

Some traditional doctors have dissociated themselves from their counterparts that are implicated in ritual murders.

Speaking to The Midweek Sun in an interview, Bafedile Duncan Setlhare of the Botswana Traditional Health Practitioners Association, said he wants people to understand that the role of an African traditional doctor, just like that of the western-trained ones, is to protect lives.

“Anybody who calls himself ngaka (doctor) but engages in the killing of people to harvest their body parts and then sell those, is a murderer and not a doctor. It is the duty of a traditional doctor to heal body parts and not to harvest them. It is God who gives us the powers to protect lives,” Setlhare said.

He is worried by the growing numbers of ritual murders because, innocent and God-fearing practitioners are put in the same basket with the morally crooked individuals who thrive on criminal practices.

“A real traditional doctor is driven by service to humanity unlike a witch who is driven by profit,” said Setlhare, who is concerned that genuine traditional doctors who do their jobs ethically, are being painted with a tainted brush.

His view is that all the laws pertaining to traditional doctors should be revisited to empower associations and government to flush out dubious characters in the traditional health profession.

“There might be a need for government to enact laws that will expose the culprits for what they are. That way, the dignity of the practice will be restored,” Setlhare opined.

His position is that there may be a need to empower the people. Setlhare is concerned that some of the people who trade in body parts may be strangers from foreign countries who may be difficult to catch, as they may disappear while investigations are ongoing.

Just like Setlhare, Bonie Tatlhego would like body part harvesters to be seen for what they are; murderers. Ba ba bolayang batho, ga se dingaka. Ke baloyi. (Those who kill for ritual purposes are sorcerers. They do not save but destroy life.)

“In fact, a witch who masquerades as a doctor should be easy to discover. He lacks the abilities that genuine traditional doctors have because they have powers from God who gives life,” said Tatlhego, who started the practice as a teenager.

“My observation is that the parts harvesters and their customers do not live long because God does not like what they are doing,” said Tatlhego, who also claims to be Christian.

“While I use traditional means to diagnose, I also pray to God to heal the patient through the herbs I use,” he revealed.