By CALVIN SIMS
CIANJUR, Indonesia - In this verdant farm belt of West Java, where sorcery and superstition have deep roots, few were surprised last September when an angry mob decapitated a 70-year-old woman accused of casting spells that made people ill. Before lopping off her head, witnesses said, the crowd gouged out her eyes and severed some of her limbs, which they tossed into the street.
Beheadings of suspected witches are not uncommon in rural towns and villages of Java, Indonesia's most populous and perhaps most mystical island. The local police estimate that there were at least 100 witch killings in Java last year. Still, few people seemed upset by the killings, which typically occur in Indonesia's backwaters and are committed under the guise of wiping out evil.
But indifference to the killings may now be changing after 21 people accused of practicing black magic were beheaded or chopped to death between July and October in one district alone - Cianjur, about 60 miles south of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. Because of the high concentration of witch murders in one area, the police suspected that there was more to the killings than just fear of sorcery.
This month, the police announced the arrest of 28 suspects linked to the killings, which they said were driven less by fear of evil forces than by personal gain. In most cases, the police said, the suspects had falsely accused the victims of practicing witchcraft and then either killed them or incited or paid others to do so. Their motives were mainly revenge, rivalry and extortion, although some of the suspects may have indeed been driven by genuine terror, the police said.
So far, there is no direct evidence linking the victims - who were mainly farmers, Muslim teachers and elderly women - to the practice of witchcraft, which is not illegal in Indonesia.
While some of those arrested were bit players caught in the hysteria of a bloodthirsty crowd, the police said that many suspects were connected to a well-organized syndicate that for a fee cleverly engineered murders to look like witch hunts.
"Many of these were premeditated murders arranged by a network of experienced witch hunters who preyed on the fears of ordinary citizens and convinced them to kill," said Agus Nugroho, Cianjur's senior police inspector. "This case shows just how real black magic is in the minds of the people of this region."
Mr. Agus said that for about $100 syndicate gangs would persuade someone in a village to accuse the targeted person of being a witch. Once the village became convinced that there was a witch in its midst, the gang carried out the killing, usually with the help of townspeople who had been whipped into a frenzy.
Typically, the witch-hunting syndicate found clients in local businessmen seeking to get rid of competitors and candidates for village offices who sought to eliminate political opponents, the police said.
People with grudges or seeking an early inheritance also contracted with the syndicate.
At least 2 of the 21 victims were casualties of a highly competitive local election. In September, two men who were candidates for administrative chief of the local mosque in Hegar Sari in southern Cianjur were suddenly branded as witches and killed, the police said.
Of the 24 suspects now in custody, the police said, a pivotal role in the witch hunts was played by Apih Barma, a 53-year-old farmer and part-time healer. He was the man who judged whether or not a person was in fact a witch.
For 50,000 rupiah, or about 50 cents, Mr. Barma administered what the police called a "medical" test to determine if a person was a black magic practitioner. They said Mr. Barma had effectively condemned to death many of the people brought before him by declaring them witches. He has been charged with practicing medicine without a license.
In an interview at the Cianjur jail where is being held, Mr. Barma said that he was innocent and that he knew nothing of a network to frame people as witches.
Mr. Barma, who has spiky hair and a fixed, piercing stare, at first admitted to administering the witch test to dozens of people brought to him by local community leaders. He said the test consisted of reading from the Koran and observing how the accused reacted. Later in the interview, Mr. Barma denied that there was any witch testing and said that he simply read scriptures to try to free people under the sway of the devil.
"I didn't give any instructions or permission for anyone to be killed," Mr. Barma said. "Those people who were killed died because they were witches and deserved it."
In these poor and undeveloped areas of Indonesia, where education and medical care are scarce, people are prone to believe in the power of supernatural forces to influence sickness and health.
A person can be branded a witch by being the last to have contact with someone who fell ill or suddenly died. Even common ailments like rashes, allergies and the flu are attributed to black magic. In some instances, healers are accused of being witches if they fail to rid clients of disease.
Cianjur residents recount, with evident belief, stories of people vomiting nails, snakes and paper clips, and of bloated stomachs the size of giant balloons that cause people to float around a room.
In the case of Jumsih Canak, her problems began in early September when she tried to do a good deed by feeding her sick neighbor a piece of fish. The neighbor's condition worsened and she eventually died.
Other villagers recalled becoming ill after contact with Mrs. Jumsih, and she was labeled a witch. Five men stormed her house and severed her head with machetes, the police said.
Witch hunters are considered heroic in most villages because they rid the community of evil forces. When the police first began detaining and questioning suspects in the killings, local residents staged huge protests demanding that the suspects be freed.
In one case, villagers overpowered several police officers and held them hostage until the suspects were released.
Hiday, a 36-year-old farmer who is also being held at the Cianjur prison, said in an interview that he had taken part in the killing of three witches in southern Cianjur, which he said was overrun with witches who had cast "evil spells" on many people there.
"The only way to get rid of witches is to kill them," he said. Before going on a witch hunt, Mr. Hiday said, he and his colleagues would prepare themselves psychologically.
"It's hard work killing a witch, but you just have to keep telling yourself over and over again that they are evil and that you are helping to save innocent people from their curses and spells," he said.
Tu Bagus Ronny Nitibaskara, a University of Indonesia anthropologist, said witch killing in the region dates back centuries, at least as far back as the Dutch colonization of the islands that eventually became Indonesia. Although legally unjustifiable, the witch killing has long served as a mechanism for rural villages to expunge antisocial behavior.
Asked why witch killings are so sadistic, Mr. Nitibaskara said: "They are killed in such a savage way because people believe that they are witches and that they can come back to life. That is why they separate the head from the body or chop the body into pieces."
Abdul Halim, chief of Cianjur's Council of Islamic Teachers, said that although Islam forbids the belief in and practice of black magic, many pre-Islamic traditions and superstitions are widely followed in Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.
Mr. Halim said that while a lack of education led many people to believe in witchcraft, many well-educated people also dabbled in the spiritual world.
According to persistent reports he has never denied, President Abdurrahman Wahid regularly consults spiritualists, as do many prominent Indonesian political and social figures.
Even among the educated class in Indonesia, black magic is often a convenient explanation for one's own shortcomings.
A senior government official whose house was recently ransacked and robbed by his domestic help said that his workers had been hypnotized and ordered to steal by a witch hired by the political opposition. Close friends of the official said the workers had robbed his house because he had refused to pay them the customary year-end bonus.
"My greatest fear is that this trend will spread to other regions of Indonesia," Mr. Halim said of the use of witch hunts as a cover for murder or threatening to identify people as witches to squeeze money from them. "You must understand that rural villagers who are not very educated are very easily provoked and moved by rumors so we must combat people using witchcraft for extortion."
The police said they have some leads as to who is behind the syndicate but are still searching for the organizers.