wfn.org | All Africa News Agency Oct 13 2003 Features

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ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY
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NAIROBI, Kenya.
Tel: 254-2-4442215 or 4440224;
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Email: aanaapta@nbnet.co.ke

AANA Bulletin			Bulletin APTA
Editor -Elly Wamari		Editor - Silvie Alemba

AANA BULLETIN No. 40/03 October 13, 2003

FEATURES  SECTION

Where Human Beings Vanish Into The Unknown

To the naked eye, Mount Mulanje in Southern Malawi would simply pass as 
another spectacular  geographical attraction. But mention Sapitwa, a peak 
found at its top, and the locals would shudder.  Frightening occurrences 
have been witnessed on this peak, including the recent sudden disappearance 
of a Dutch woman. AANA Correspondent, Hamilton Vokhiwa, reports .

A
bout 290 kilometres to the south-east of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, lies 
Mulanje town at the south-eastern corner of the country, not far from its 
border with Mozambique.

It is here that the famous Mount Mulanje stands. With its protruding peaks 
often encircled by cloudy mist, it presents an impressive scenery.

Up the 9840ft (about 3,000 metres) high mountain, lies a rocky peak known 
as Sapitwa, which translates to "no go area", in the local Chichewa or 
Chinyanja language.

It was at Sapitwa where on Saturday, September 13, a 29-year old Dutch 
woman disappeared after climbing the mountain.

She had tried to scale Sapitwa peak, which even accomplished mountaineers 
describe as formidable.

Linda Plonk, a laboratory technician at Mulanje Mission hospital run by the 
Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) Synod of Blantyre, climbed the 
mountain with a party of 10 people.

According to police, she hiked up the peak, while nine of her group members 
gave up along the way. She did not report back to the rest of the group 
that was waiting for her.

Police and officials from Mulanje forestry department, as well as the 
department of parks and wildlife, joined by the army, scoured the peak 
using a helicopter, but could not find clues as to what could have happened 
to Linda Plonk.

The Royal Dutch Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, also sent a helicopter, 
together with a rescue team of ten climbers with six snifter dogs, to help 
in the search, but to no avail.

Mulanje mountain is the highest in central Africa, and it is one of the 
major tourist attractions in the country, besides Lake Malawi.

But strange events have occurred here, just like the recent disappearance 
of Linda Plonk.

According to local communities, legend has it that the mountain is home to 
ghosts. They say that in the early days, supernatural beings inhabited 
forests around it.

But those beings, who natives believed sometimes took the form of dwarfs or 
Abathwa, as they were locally known, were considered to be extinct.

Others believe that they probably migrated to the Congo forests, where 
Abathwa or Tikitiki are found

It is said that if one ventured into the realm of the ghosts or spirits, 
the chances of survival were unpredictable. One could go missing forever or 
could return by chance to the mortal world.

Stories abound of people disappearing at the mountain at different times in 
the past, some being recovered miraculously.

One such incident happened 38 years ago, when an employee of the Department 
of Forestry went missing from a party of workers who were descending from 
one of the peaks known as Chambe.

The party was ferrying timber down the peak when one of the forestry 
workers, Patrick Fewa, a local villager in his twenties then, disappeared 
and could not immediately be traced.

It took more than a week of frantic beating about the bush for the search 
team to come across Patrick, perched on a rock and clad in the clothing he 
was last seen in.

He was unscathed, except that he was not able to speak for another week.

When he came around, he narrated how he found himself leaving the rest of 
the party, and followed a figure clad in white robes.  Since then he could 
not tell day from night, he said.

He told the searchers, including relatives, that he was, however, able to 
see them, but could not utter a word or cry in the presence of that figure.

According to him, the strange being first appeared as a crow that flew over 
his head, but later turned into a tall human-like figure, which apparently 
bound him under a spell.

It was only after the bizarre being turned into a whirlwind that he was 
able to communicate with his searchers and joined them down the slope on 
the last day of the ordeal in the environment of the "ghost".

Officials of the forestry department confirmed the story, which was carried 
in local newspapers of that time.

But in the case of Linda Plonk, the authorities are puzzled as to why she 
insisted on climbing onto the forbidden Sapitwa peak.

Official guidelines state that no tourist should climb the mountain without 
local guides, who lead the paths to the top. The climb takes slightly more 
than five hours to a camping site, where boarding facilities are provided.

Authorities strongly recommend against tourists attempting to reach 
Sapitwa, owing to the strange occurrences there.

It is against this background that sympathisers and the government 
officials have been hoping against hope of finding Linda Plonk alive.

Turning Commercial Sex Workers Into Deadly Spies

Security operatives in Uganda have developed an agenda for thousands of 
commercial sex workers thronging Kampala, the capital.	They are turning 
them into crime busters, and have achieved remarkable success.	Our 
Correspondent, Crespo Sebunya, reports.

B
y a twist of fate, Uganda's security personnel have intensified recruitment 
of commercial sex workers in a deadly game that has resulted in some 
hardcore criminals getting eliminated, complex criminal rings being 
smashed, and those who launder money put to flight.

Driven into prostitution by a mixture of poverty and need for a good time, 
sex workers generally find life raw and rough, as they often rub shoulders 
with brutes and deviants. Their experiences include being taken to 
graveyards for oral sex sessions.

Thus, some want to rush out of this life fast, and would accept any process 
that could lead them away, but only after becoming moneyed.

It is on this premise that Sylvia Mwirumumbi, a light-skinned dazzling 
beauty, struck an intimate relationship with a flamboyant Bob Weswala, an 
accomplished robber and a seasoned assassin being sought by the police.

As the story goes, one fateful evening, Sylvia sweet-talked a reluctant Bob 
for an urgent "business".

He arrived riding an expensive motorbike, whose lights he switched off as 
soon as he branched from the main road, and descended into darkness in 
Nakulabye, a slum known for harbouring hardcore criminals.

He turned into a narrow alley to reach Sylvia's one-roomed residence. That 
was it.

A burst of gunfire greeted him. He reached for his automatic revolver and 
returned fire, but proved no match to well-positioned security officers, 
who then dragged him into the open and pumped several more bullets into his 
body.

They left the blood-drenched corpse for regular police to pick up, as they 
went to swig down a few glasses of booze in a nearby tavern.

Sylvia set Bob up for money.  She did not care about a lover she had stayed 
with for five months.

Compared to others that have reaped riches in such liaisons with criminals, 
Sylivia's was peanuts.

For example, Sandra built up a business and felt firm financially before 
she turned in her lover, a highway robber, who was ambushed while going on 
a mission.

Like Sylvia and Sandra, commercial sex workers pride themselves for being 
adept at getting information.

  "We have always been approached to spy on traders who have grown rich 
overnight, and whose sources of income remain dubious," says one Lydia.

Recruitment of sex workers as spies by security organisations is usually 
done secretly, which few security officers want to talk about.

"Yes, they are useful and their information is not necessarily criminal," 
one officer, who declined to be named, confirmed.

Sex workers' co-operation with Uganda's security network has rekindled 
debate on whether or not they should be morally accepted in society.

The most prominent of such debates was witnessed in 1996, when the then 
Minister for Gender, Janat Mukwaya, revealed that the government was 
conducting a study to determine if sex workers could be allowed to operate 
freely.

Interestingly, some religious leaders now argue that anyone casting a stone 
at prostitutes needs to be conversant with the social dynamics of the 
Ugandan society.

Rev Gideon Byamugisha, head of health programmes at Namirembe diocese of 
the Anglican Church in Kampala, contends that Uganda embraced Christianity 
that came along with Western values.

"While not consciously intending it, Western Christianity seems to have 
encouraged in Africa, unprecedented libertarian sexual behaviour," he argues.

He wants commercial sex peddlers to be accepted members in society. "In 
pluralistic society, people should respect and accept diversity of values 
and beliefs about sexuality that exist in particular communities," he 
maintains.

In the meantime, the sex workers are proving to be a necessity to security 
networks, especially now that Uganda is under-policed.

Records show that there is one police officer for every 1,900 Ugandans, 
against an ideal situation of at least one officer for every 800 civilians.

With the recruitment of only 500 police officers annually in a nation of 24 
million people, worsened by the fact that police tops the list of AIDS 
sufferers, there is still a long way to go.

Crime is rising, as evident in increasing numbers of prisoners. While 
government statistics show that there were 31 people per 100,000 in Ugandan 
prisons in 1920, the figure has risen over the years to 101 presently.

But the increased recruitment of commercial sex workers in security 
operatives has elicited sympathetic concerns among sections of Ugandans.

There are those who have started expressing concerns on how the sex 
workers' dangerous liaisons with criminals in search of money is putting 
them in harms way.

Indeed, some young sellers of sex get trapped, while others have had their 
lives ending tragically in such relationships, when their secret missions 
get exposed.

In one such situation, Gertrude attempted to end an affair with David, a 
notorious criminal.  She was planning to go overseas for further studies.

David had put all his ill-gotten wealth in Gertrude's name, but at some 
stage suspected that she was up to some "mischief".

He planned for an outing, which ended in the killing of Getrude. Police 
arrested David, who is now on a 365-day remand, charged with murder.

  Views Still Clash On Wealth Inheritance By Women

Property inheritance by women is emerging as one of the greatest 
present-day controversies in Africa.  What with majority of people on the 
continent still not keen on writing pro-girl-child wills, if any, and a 
sharp conflict between the traditional cultural ethic and modern way of 
life. In this report, our writer, Herman Kasili, projects a diversity of 
views, with reasons, on the subject.

S
ome time ago, daughters of one Meshack Miendo went hysterical when the 
lawyer of their deceased father produced a will indicating that they were 
not entitled to any of their father's properties.

The will had clear instructions that Miendo's estate be passed on to his 
brother, since according to the traditional customs of that community, 
women were not allowed to inherit from their fathers.

A recent landmark ruling by a South African court to allow two girls who 
had been denied inheritance of their father's property by traditional 
customs, may however, set a precedence for the continent, where women have 
often been excluded from inheriting parental property.

The case was filed by the South African Woman's Legal Centre, on behalf of 
the two girls, aged nine and two.

The ruling penetrated rigid traditional customs that have always barred 
female children from inheriting property from their deceased parents.

Many customs claim that women are part of the property owned by the 
community, and as such, they have no right to inheritance.

"In this context, the trend of women being subjected to non-inheritance is 
due to the concept of paying bride price, and thereby classifying women as 
property," explains Dr Ruth Kibiti of the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

According to her, the ruling serves well as an example to advance the 
rights of female children in Africa.

The African studies lecturer reiterates that research has revealed that 
many African norms are still biased against women inheriting ancestral 
property. Land inheritance is depicted as the most sensitive of the 
customary laws.

A veteran Sudanese journalist, Makur Kot Dhuor, affirms that among the 
Dinka in southern Sudan, it is the responsibility of the community to 
decide how property is shared out, in the event of death.

He explains that the girl-child is often sidelined in this arrangement 
because according to customary norms, female siblings are expected to be 
cared for by the family into which they marry.

A Kenyan legislator, Koigi wa Wamwere, shares this view, pointing out that 
it would be double inheritance for married women to inherit from their 
fathers and again from their husbands.

To Satia Chemayek,  a 76-year old elder of the Sebei Community in 
north-eastern Uganda, the culture of disregarding women in inheritance has 
always been practised with reasons, and cannot be changed.

"It looks awkward to give a piece of land to a married daughter, while she 
is giving birth to children who are not your tribe," he argues. In most 
African communities, children are considered to acquire their ancestry from 
their fathers' side.

This line of argument is opposed by a Kenyan Baptist Minister, Rev Joel 
Chebii.  He advises traditionalist to turn to the Bible for guidance.

Chebii states that God does not discriminate when giving children, thus, 
favouring one sex over the other is going against God's principles, and the 
belief that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

The man of the cloth dismisses communities that are still upholding the 
culture of denying women access to inheritance of their parent's property.

He argues that the Bible is very clear on this subject, as it details 
inheritance passing down the family line and not the community.

In Islam, the subject of inheritance is guided by a clearly written code, 
according to Abu Chiaba Mohammed, a Muslim faithful.

He says the code defines the rightful heir of the property of a deceased 
person as male and female, noting that "it is all-inclusive, with the 
father and mother of the deceased also inheriting according to the 
prescribed percentage by the Koran".

The issue of employing traditional values in inheritance recently 
resurfaced in Kenya, when clan members of the late Vice-President, Michael 
Kijana Wamalwa, demanded the traditionally prescribed share of the estate 
of the deceased.

This prompted the widow, Yvonne Nambia, to seek court protection in the 
administration of the late Wamalwa's estate.

A Kenyan scholar and legislator, Prof Ruth Oniango, then remarked:  "It is 
time society recognises that involving clans to rob the family of the 
deceased in the name of customary law should cease forthwith."

A researcher with the Organisation of African Women and Inheritance, Nancy 
Iyadi, states that African families need to be protected from aggressive 
intrusion on their property by clans.

Iyadi castigates African men for not being clear on inheritance, saying 
that the few who write wills at times leave instructions that do not favour 
the immediate family, but the clan.

She demands that African countries come up with proper legal structures to 
protect the interests of women.

Her views are supported by a prominent Kenyan lawyer and parliamentarian, 
Mutula Kilonzo, who contends that in the event of conflict in the 
administration of a deceased's estate, the immediate family should be given 
precedence.