Necklacing#South Africa
{{short description|Type of summary execution and torture}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2019}}
{{Use Oxford spelling|date=December 2023}}
Necklacing is a method of extrajudicial summary execution and torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire drenched with Gasoline around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The term "necklace" originated in the 1980s in black townships of apartheid South Africa where suspected apartheid collaborators were publicly executed in this fashion.{{cite web |last=Oliver|first=Mark |url=https://allthatsinteresting.com/necklacing |title=Death By Tire Fire: A Brief History Of "Necklacing" In Apartheid South Africa|website=All That's Interesting|date=19 May 2018|access-date=2021-04-02}}
South Africa
Necklacing was used by the black community to punish its members who were perceived as collaborators with the apartheid government.{{cite book|title=A Human Being Died That Night: Forgiving Apartheid's Chief Killer|last=Gobodo-Madikizela|first=Pumla |author-link=Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela|year=2006|publisher=Portobello Books|page=[https://archive.org/details/humanbeingdiedth00puml/page/147 147]|isbn=1-84627-053-7|url=https://archive.org/details/humanbeingdiedth00puml/page/147}} Necklacing was primarily used on black police informants; the practice was often carried out in the name of the struggle, although the executive body of the African National Congress (ANC), the most broadly supported South African opposition movement, condemned it.{{cite report|chapter-url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1991/southafrica1/6.htm|chapter=The Black Struggle for Political Power: Major Forces in the Conflict|title=The Killings in South Africa: The Role of the Security Forces and the Response of the State|publisher=Human Rights Watch|date=January 1991|access-date=18 February 2008}}{{cite news|last=Fihlani|first=Pumza|title=Is necklacing returning to South Africa?|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14914526|work=BBC News|access-date=11 December 2013|date=12 October 2011}} In 1986, Winnie Mandela, then-wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, and who herself had endured torture and four imprisonments to a total of two years,{{cite web|title=An Analysis of the Imprisonment and Detainment Treatment of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela|author=Monica McCausland|url=https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/analysis-imprisonment-and-detainment-treatment-winnie-madikizela-mandela-monica-mccausland|publisher=South African History Online|date=6 May 2020|access-date=12 Feb 2022}} stated, "With our boxes of matches, and our necklaces, we shall liberate this country", which was widely seen as an explicit endorsement of necklacing.{{cite web|title=Winnie Madikizela-Mandela|url=http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/winnie-madikizela-mandela|publisher=South African History Online|date=17 February 2011|access-date=14 May 2018}}{{cite news|url=http://century.guardian.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,,110268,00.html|title=Row over 'mother of the nation' Winnie Mandela|work=The Guardian|date=27 January 1989|last=Beresford|first=David |author-link=David Beresford (journalist) |access-date=1 May 2008}} This caused the ANC to initially distance itself from her,{{cite magazine|last=Meintjes |first=Sheila |title=Winnie Madikizela Mandela: Tragic Figure? Populist Tribune? Township Tough?|url=https://projects.kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/210-808-4551/SAR13-4opt.pdf#page=16|magazine=Southern Africa Report |volume=13|issue=4 |date=August 1998|pages=14–20 |issn=0820-5582|access-date=7 December 2013}} although she later took on a number of official positions within the party.
The first victim of necklacing, according to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was a young black woman, Maki Skosana of Duduza, on 20 July 1985:{{cite book|chapter-url=https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/hrvtrans/duduza/moloko.htm |chapter=Evelina Puleng Moloko |title=Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Human Rights Violations Submissions – Questions and Answers |location=Duduza |date=4 February 1997|id=JB0289/013ERKWA|access-date=7 December 2013}}
{{quote|Moloko said her sister was burned to death with a tire around her neck while attending the funeral of one of the youths. Her body had been scorched by fire and some broken pieces of glass had been inserted into her vagina, Moloko told the committee. Moloko added that a big rock had been thrown on her face after she had been killed.{{cite news|url=https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/media/1997/9702/s970204c.htm |date=4 February 1997|publisher=South African Press Association|title=Truth Commission Looks at First "Necklace" Murder|access-date=1 May 2008}}}}
Photojournalist Kevin Carter was the first to photograph a public execution by necklacing in South Africa in the mid-1980s. He later spoke of the images: {{quote|I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing. But then people started talking about those pictures ... then I felt that maybe my actions hadn't been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn't necessarily such a bad thing to do.{{cite web|last=Porter|first=Tim|url=http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000071.html|title=Covering War in a Free Society|website=timporter.com|date=18 February 2003|access-date=18 February 2008 }}}}
Author Lynda Schuster writes: {{quote|'Necklacing' represented the worst of the excesses committed in the name of the uprising. This was a particularly gruesome form of mob justice, reserved for those thought to be government collaborators, informers and black policemen. The executioners would force a car tire over the head and around the arms of the suspect, drench it in petrol, and set it alight. Immobilized, the victim burned to death.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7vhsim3fPF8C&pg=PA304|title=A Burning Hunger: One Family's Struggle Against Apartheid|publisher=Ohio University Press|orig-year=2004|year=2006|last=Schuster|first=Lynda |isbn=978-0-8214-1652-5|page=304}}}}
Some commentators have noted that the practice of necklacing served to escalate the levels of violence during the township wars of the 1980s and early 1990s as security force members became brutalized and afraid that they might fall victim to the practice.{{cite book|last=Turton |first=A.R. |year=2010 |title=Shaking Hands with Billy |place=Durban |publisher=Just Done Publications |url=http://www.shakinghandswithbilly.com |access-date=2021-04-02}}{{page needed|date=April 2021}}
Other countries
= Haiti =
This form of lynching was used in Haiti, where it was known as Pé Lebrun, or Père Lebrun (French), after a tire advertisement showing a man with a tire around his neck. It was used prominently by mobs allied with Jean-Bertrand Aristide to assassinate political enemies. Aristide himself allegedly showed strong support for this practice, calling it a "beautiful tool" that "smells good", encouraging his Lavalas supporters to use it against wealthy people as well as members of the Lavalas party who were not as strong in their fervor.{{Cite news|url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/009.html|title=Aristide's "Pe Lebrun" speech|date=27 September 1992|work=Haïti Observateur|access-date=10 January 2011}}{{cite news |last=Smith|first=C. Fraser |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-10-02-1994275010-story.html |title=Enigmatic Father Aristide Exhibits A Haitian Character Lost in Translation |newspaper=The Baltimore Sun |date=1994-10-02 |access-date=2021-03-25 }}
= Sri Lanka and India =
During the 1983 Black July riot against Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese rioters used necklacing.{{cite book|last=Subramanian|first=Samanth |author-link=Samanth Subramanian|title=This Divided Island|year=2015 |publisher=Atlantic Books|isbn=978-0-85789-595-0|url=http://bookshop.theguardian.com/this-divided-island.html|access-date=5 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319084405/http://bookshop.theguardian.com/this-divided-island.html|archive-date=2015-03-19|url-status=dead|page=33}} Necklacing was also widely used against Sinhalese youth by government supported paramilitary forces in the second armed insurrection led by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. A graphic description of one such necklacing appears in the book The Island of Blood by journalist Anita Pratap.{{cite book |last1=Pratap |first1=Anita |title=Island of blood: frontline reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and other South Asian flashpoints |date=2001 |publisher=Viking |location=New Delhi ; New York |isbn=0670049034}}
This technique was widely used against Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which took place throughout northern India after the erstwhile Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, having presided over Operation Blue Star earlier that year, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.{{Cite web|url=https://harperbroadcast.com/2015/07/16/tyres-the-unusual-weapon-used-during-the-1984-riots/|title=Tyres: The Unusual Weapon Used During the 1984 Riots|website=Harperbroadcast.com|date=16 July 2015|access-date=30 December 2021|archive-date=2 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202062307/https://harperbroadcast.com/2015/07/16/tyres-the-unusual-weapon-used-during-the-1984-riots/|url-status=dead}}
= Ivory Coast and Nigeria =
In the early 1990s, university students in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, were plagued by burglars stealing from their dormitories. The students took matters into their own hands by capturing the alleged thieves, and then executed them by placing tyres around their necks and setting the tyres on fire. Ivorian police, powerless to stop these necklacings, could do nothing but stand by and watch.{{cite book|last=Kaplan|first=Robert D.|author-link=Robert D. Kaplan|title=The Ends of the Earth: A Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy|url=https://archive.org/details/endsofearthjourn00kapl|url-access=registration|publisher=Random House|location=New York|year=1996|page=[https://archive.org/details/endsofearthjourn00kapl/page/14 14]|isbn=0-679-75123-8}}
In 2006, at least one person died in Nigeria by necklacing in the deadly Muslim protests over satirical cartoon drawings of Muhammad.{{cite news |title=Muslims' rage over cartoons hits Nigeria |work=The San Diego Union-Tribune |agency=Associated Press|last=Musa |first=Njadvara |url= http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060219/news_1n19cartoon.html |access-date=18 September 2009 |date=19 February 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070228112359/http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060219/news_1n19cartoon.html|archive-date=2007-02-28|url-status=dead}}
= Brazil =
A form of necklacing where victims are forced inside a stack of tyres doused with petrol and set on fire is widely used by drug dealers in Brazil, notably in Rio de Janeiro, where it is called micro-ondas, or microwave in Portuguese.{{cite news|url=http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/740136-autorizado-a-visitar-familia-condenado-por-morte-de-tim-lopes-foge-da-prisao.shtml|title=Autorizado a visitar família, condenado por morte de Tim Lopes foge da prisão|language=pt|work=Folha de S.Paulo|date=24 May 2010|last=Grellet|first=Fábio |access-date=6 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527120850/http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/740136-autorizado-a-visitar-familia-condenado-por-morte-de-tim-lopes-foge-da-prisao.shtml|archive-date=2010-05-27|url-status=dead}}{{cite news|url=http://www.fenapef.org.br/fenapef/noticia/index/17079|title=Polícia encontra 4 corpos que seriam de traficantes queimados com pneus|language=pt|via=Federação Nacional dos Policiais Federais|date=18 September 2008|work=O Globo|access-date=6 July 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130925094951/http://www.fenapef.org.br/fenapef/noticia/index/17079|archive-date=25 September 2013}}{{cite web|url=http://www.wordreference.com/pten/micro-ondas|title=Micro-ondas|website=WordReference.com|access-date=6 July 2013}}. Journalist Tim Lopes was a notable victim.{{cite news|url= http://www.estadao.com.br/arquivo/cidades/2002/not20020609p17850.htm|title=Repórter foi capturado, torturado e morto por traficantes |language=pt|date=9 June 2002|publisher=Agência Estado|access-date=3 October 2020}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=6wgdw8cQ5SQC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147 An exploratory study of insider accounts of necklacing in three Port Elizabeth townships] by Ntuthu Nomoyi and Willem Schurink, "Violence in South Africa: A Variety of Perspectives", editors Elirea Bornman, René van Eeden, Marie Wentzel, HSRC, Chapter 6, pp. 147–173, {{ISBN|0-7969-1858-9}}.