LA Times- Not even the dead are safe in Caracas

[tlcfj40]

http://tinyurl.com/2a5vvf

A ghoulish crime wave in the Venezuelan capital supplies a black magic cult whose popularity is fueled by faith and politics.

By Chris Kraul
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 5, 2007

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Skulking in the dead of night in the remote and overgrown Las Pavas section of the Southern Municipal Cemetery, robbers armed with crowbars and sledgehammers first shattered the tomb's concrete vault and the granite marker that read, "To our dear wife and mother in heaven, Maria de la Cruz Aguero."

Then they lifted the coffin lid and stole leg bones and the skull of the woman, who had died Sept. 9, 1993. They sold the bones for $20 each, the skull for as much as $300, said Father Atilio Gonzalez, the cemetery's resident Roman Catholic priest.

Sometimes entire skeletons, particularly those of children, are stolen from crypts in this final resting place of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, including three former presidents.

"These unscrupulous people are insulting God and committing a mortal sin," said Gonzalez. He said that graves in the city's largest cemetery are robbed every night, and it's getting worse. "They have perfect liberty to desecrate the tombs because the government does nothing to stop it."

The desecration of the woman's tomb was part of a ghoulish crime wave, including assaults, rapes and dope deals, that has made the cemetery so dangerous that funeral home workers say they carry weapons whenever they have to go there. Parts of the vast cemetery, particularly the remote hillside sections reserved for the poor, are in ruins and choked with weeds, providing perfect cover for thugs and the homeless.

In the past when graves were robbed, the primary objective was to steal personal effects such as jewelry or gold dental fillings, said Odalys Caldera, an investigator in the city's judicial police. Today, thieves are pillaging the graves for darker reasons.

The buyers of the bones are paleros, the practitioners of a black magic cult related to Santeria whose rise in popularity here is fueled by a strange brew of faith and politics.

"Santeria, witchcraft and black magic are much more out in the open now. That's the reason," Caldera said. "Of course the state is aware of the robberies, but hasn't taken the necessary steps to impede them."

Santeria, which combines Catholicism and African and indigenous spiritualism, was brought to the New World by slaves from Africa centuries ago and still thrives, particularly in Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and, increasingly, Venezuela. It is also popular in regions of the United States with strong Caribbean immigrant communities, such as south Florida, Washington and Los Angeles,areas where hundreds of thousands are thought to practice it.

Although most Santeria followers steer clear of the use of human remains and Satanism, the paleros embrace them. They use bones in black magic rituals in which the objective is to cast evil spells on enemies: to induce bad luck for an unfaithful spouse, a car accident for unwanted in-laws, a serious illness for a business competitor, Gonzalez said.

Police, church officials and historians offer a variety of theories for the rise in Santeria generally and of black magic in particular in Venezuela. Some, including anthropologist Rafael Strauss, point to the vacuum left by the Roman Catholic Church, which, as in many other Latin American countries, has lost believers in Venezuela to evangelical and other Protestant religions. Church rolls also are suffering from a lack of interest among younger people.

"We are seeing a new syncretism that is uniting parts of different religions," said Strauss, a retired University of Central Venezuela professor. "It's how people make it easier to meet their spiritual needs."

Gonzalez acknowledged that the country is suffering a crisis in belief.

"People are losing faith," he said. "Instead of assuming responsibility to accomplish something good, they resort to witchcraft, which they see as the easy way."

But others see politics at work. Father Manuel Diaz is a parish priest in the El Hatillo suburb of Caracas where three Santeria babalaos, or shamans, have recently opened centers. He says the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez is encouraging the rise of Santeria to counter the authority of the Catholic Church, which Chavez has viewed as his enemy.

In a pastoral letter to his parishioners last month, Diaz said the government has a "concrete objective, to undermine the authority of the church and align its faithful with certain ideologies." In the letter, he wrote that leaders of the movement to discredit the church were coming from an unnamed "Caribbean country," presumably Cuba.

Although Santeria and other spiritualist religions have been present in Venezuela since Spanish colonial days, the rise of black magic, including that practiced by paleros, is relatively new, said Maria Garcia de Fleury, a comparative religions professor at New Sparta University in Caracas.

"We've always had a little witchcraft, but nothing like what has been unleashed recently," De Fleury said. "This is not Venezuelan."

Without offering hard evidence, De Fleury and some church officials blame the growing presence of Santeria on Cuba, which she says is exporting babalaosalong with doctors, teachers and sports trainers to Venezuela as part of closer economic relations with Chavez.

"It's because the government is behind Santeria, promoting it, letting in Cuban babalaos who are proselytizing very actively," De Fleury said.

While not addressing Santeria, Chavez in a February 2003 broadcast of his "Alo Presidente" TV talk show denied that he was a believer in black magic. He is known to be a mystic of sorts, and some say that he believes he is the reincarnation of a 19th century Venezuelan leader, Ezequiel Zamora.

"President Chavez, who knows the mentality of Venezuelans, takes advantage of their magical religious imagery to further his popularity and his revolution," university professor Angelina Pollak-Eltz said in an essay shortly after Chavez took power in 1999.

Yarlin Mejia, a hotel worker who is also a babalao in the Catia slum of Caracas, said the majority of Santeria believers stay away from witchcraft. "The paleros work for evil," Mejia said. "I do it differently. I work for positive things."

Half a dozen people come every Sunday to Mejia's house, where his ceremonies involve "white magic" -- rituals that aim to help believers attain specific goals, be it a new house, a better job or success at school. A chicken is usually sacrificed. Mejia says interest is growing and attributes it to the presence of Cubans.

"They're everywhere," Mejia said.

Father Gonzalez, whose parish could be said to include the hundreds of thousands of dead that populate the Southern Municipal Cemetery, made a baleful round of the grounds recently to assess the losses.

Half a dozen more graves had been "profaned" over the weekend in the Black Road section of the cemetery, a place of paupers' graves where 70% of the tombs have been robbed, he said.

He said lax municipal vigilance has turned the cemetery to which he has given heart and soul for 18 years into a frequent crime scene. Three or four armed assaults a week and several rapes a month happen here.

Maria Machado, who had come to visit the grave of her husband, Jose, who died in 2000, said she feared for her life each time she paid her respects.

"It wasn't this way before, when there was another president," said Machado, whose husband's grave was bordered by several looted tombs, one of which contained the carcass of a chicken sacrificed in a Santeria rite.

"I'm worried I'll come here some day and my husband will be gone," Machado said. She and her two grandchildren were the only visitors in the Las Pavas section of the cemetery, which when founded in 1867 was far beyond the southwestern borders of the city.

On a recent day, the cemetery was the scene of a macabre ritual that has become a regular occurrence whenever a young gang member is buried, Gonzalez said. It provided another example of the lawlessness here.

During the funeral procession for a 25-year-old gunshot victim, friends suddenly halted the cortege and removed the corpse from the coffin to give it one last joy ride around the cemetery on the back of a buddy's motorcycle.

As a final homage before burial, the dead man was given a 30-gun salute -- from pistols fired by his pals. One of the bullets punctured the umbrella of Father Gonzalez, who officiated at the burial.

"Now I suffer not just from the pain felt by the loved ones of the dead," he said, "but for the lack of respect for this holy place."

[Professor Devlin]

Last year a child remains were stolen here in Tampa. It is still an open case.

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Stevie Russell Dale was 6 when he was struck and killed by a car in 1975.
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TAMPA - On a Friday morning more than 30 years ago, Mattie Lee Dale's world suddenly came crashing down when a car struck her 6-year-old son.

As emergency workers desperately tried to keep Stevie Russell Dale alive, friends consoled his mother. The car's driver bowed down and prayed.

Stevie died about two hours later at Tampa General Hospital, at about noon, May 2, 1975. Two years later, the family had the remains moved to a stately above-ground tomb.

But on Thursday, more than 30 years after her boy's death, Dale received another shock:

Someone had broken into Stevie's tomb and stolen his remains.

Whoever took the remains had to remove a 600-pound marble top from an above-ground vault at Memorial Cemetery, said Tampa police spokesman Larry McKinnon.

The crime occurred sometime between 5 p.m. Wednesday, when the cemetery closed, and 10:30 a.m. Thursday, when workers discovered the desecration. Memorial Cemetery is at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 22nd Avenue.

McKinnon said that about 90 percent of the skeletal remains - all but a few small bones and residue - were removed from the crypt. They were in a metal casket inside the tomb.

Detectives knew of no reason anyone would have targeted this child's tomb, he said, or whether it was targeted specifically because it was above ground.

"In my 25 years of law enforcement, I've never seen a child's body removed" from its resting place, McKinnon said. "It's very bizarre and very tragic that someone would desecrate a grave."

Memorial Cemetery is less than a mile from Lake Avenue and 16th Street, where the accident that claimed Stevie's life occurred. No charges were filed in his death.

Thursday afternoon, a St. Petersburg Times reporter visited the home of Willie Russell Jr., the driver in that long-ago accident. A man who identified himself as Russell declined comment.

Mrs. Dale was too distraught Thursday to speak with reporters.

The family asked Jeffery Singletary, pastor of the Idlewild Baptist Church, Central Campus, to speak on their behalf.

Stevie was the fifth of Dale's seven children and the youngest boy, Singletary said. The desecration reawakened the pain of his death, he said, leaving Dale distraught.

"The mother still weeps - she loves her son," Singletary said. "This is something that absolutely came out of left field.

"As I said to Miss Mattie, little Steven has a new body - he's in the presence of the Lord. Whoever did this crime did not harm Steven and we cannot allow him to harm us."

Detectives were able to gather some evidence and "items of interest" at the crime scene, McKinnon said. Desecration of a grave is a felony, and anyone involved with stealing remains could also be charged with theft, he said.

"Why would someone do this? It makes no sense," Singletary said. "There was a time in our society when death was sacred."

Last August, thieves broke into two graves at Orange Hill Cemetery, east of Tampa. They dug up the grave of Wonoma Hall, who died in 1945, and stole her bones. They also dug up the grave of William J.M. Clark, who died in 1930, and removed some of his bones.

Police put Stevie Dale's crypt back together Thursday, placing the marble top in place. It's adorned with a small photo of Stevie, and the message:

Gone but not forgotten

We love you Stevie

But God loves you best

Times staff writer Aldo Nahed contributed to this report.

[Last modified June 30, 2006, 06:03:00]

[loki547]

struck and killed by a car in 1975

You'd think they would have swiped some less bust up goods

[yorick]

Invoking energy beyond the grave, corpse is treated as go-between.

Hair snippings and finger nail clips work best, specially if dead guy's couple of months old. Hair and fingernails continue to grow, you understand, thats why open casket corpse often sports 5 o'clock shadow. Raid the grave of somebody dead 6 months and he'll have full beard and 2" nails.

But nothin to worry about, its actually healthy work delving between life and death. Hence near-death experiences nourish the soul. Otherwise pretty much modus operandi among animist voudou and houdou practitioners, antient Peruvians too. And intentions are sincere!

At lesser impact, the idea of planting flowers and shrubs at gravesite of departed loved one is Christian equivalent to these rites. And marks the same point without deliberation.

Personally i believe the dead are underated and underworked for contributions they can make at helping sort-out earthy affairs. Even suicides, though rarely valuable in and of themselves, can work miracles opening gates if handled under priestly authority. Hence long standing tradition among Myans and others wherein willing human sacrifices are deployed.

Must always remember how one dies is equally important as how one chooses to live. Simple metaphysics delve beyond both worlds. Though incomprehensible alone in one's lifetime, its promised we'll learn more of this later.

Consult how dead are treated by any civilization and you'll understand their core beliefs. Omnia in omnia est - Igne Natura Renovatur Integra! This means: All in everything is, fire of nature restores the whole. Hence live life to the fullest towards refreshment of the soul.



(:=

[Sri Lanky]

I'd like to see what everybody's definition of death is.

[yorick]

First would be polite to state yer own view before asking the views of others. Yet I'll start the ball rolling by suggesting there's no such thing as "dead matter" meaning even base material objects are alive with protons, electrons and neutrons.

Meanwhile cremation of dead bodies is popular just because it helps separate the immortal soul or "chi?" from the remains. Whereas antient aegyptians had more costly ideas with mumification, pyramids and whatnot - even preserving vital organs in canopic jars thus sustaining weigh stations for preserving presence of soul on earth. Kinda like life-buoys for dearly departed hangers on.

And then back in 1880's Lacota Sioux pursued Ghost Dance movement that arguably sets the pace for entire continent today. Sri Lanky, yer far closer to this stuff than me. Arguably its dangerous dominions we're talkin about here.


(:=

[SRR]

I'd like to see what everybody's definition of death is.

Suburbia.

[Sri Lanky]

lol SRR.

Yah,I got in shit once for bringing up the ghost dance.....it's powerful stuff. Aboriginal people are so in tune with that part of reality we mortals don't normally percieve. It has to be treated with respect.

My new lady is 3/4 Cree,1/4 Swedish and from a line of medicine people....she says,"in time".....which really peaks my interest(including sexually of course). I want to learn from them.

Roll up the world and start anew.

[Sri Lanky]

We can intellectualize about this if we choose as long as we're aware that the intellectualizing itself is not it....because we are already it.

Intellectualizing is the snake eating itself.....or like biting your own teeth.

[shivers]

Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after death. That is simply an illusion. As the body dehydrates, the skin shrinks back, revealing more hair and nails.

[yorick]

Cartillage also continues to grow into old age yet not noticably after death, hence elders sport larger ears and noses then the rest of us.... No wait!! Retraction of skin just makes it *appear* so?

Sri Lanky, i think ghost dance is exactly what practitioners of necromancy are about. Yet handled at gentler levels among outright animists who recognize little difference between life and death.

Is it wrong to seek reintegration? Thats what's behind ALL religions anyhow. Watch and see in years ahead as forgotten wisdom becomes commonplace once again.

Intellectualizing and waxing philosophical being the serpent reconnoitring life as dragon instead. There are no metaphysical boundaries that bind us with earth alone.


(:=

[Hitoru]

Has anyone ever climbed the wall at the Odd Fellows cemetery in N/O prior to Katrina ? The sign said Odd Fellows Rest ?

I took a few girlfriends over a couple of times in the 90's and there was quite a few looted tombs. I saw skeletons without skulls and empty childs crypts. Somewhere I have the photos I took.

[Sri Lanky]

I agree Yorick....the forgotten wisdom only needs to be restored.....it was in storage the whole time.