"Necklacing"

"Necklacing" is the method of execution carried out by forcing a rubber tire, filled with gasoline, around a victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire. The tire serves two purposes: to constrain the victim's arms and hold the fuel.

It first surfaced in South Africa in the late 1980s as the most popular method for the "comrades" in black townships like Soweto to lynch supposed collaborators with the apartheid government. Necklacing sentences were handed down by the comrades' "people's courts" in black townships. The most most common victims of necklacing were black policemen.

The African National Congress (ANC) condemned necklacing but Winnie Mandela (then wife of Nelson Mandela) exhorted the comrades: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country!"

(Winnie Mandela was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee on December 21st, 2007.)

After apartheid came to an end, necklacing all but disappeared but has resurfaced recently as the way to kill immigrants.

Anti-immigrant riots in South Africa:

South African police and military units raided three hostels Thursday in a clampdown on xenophobic attacks that have left more than 40 dead, authorities said.

[...]

Some 28,000 people have been displaced by the violence, Hangwani Malaudzi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Safety and Security said.

[...]

The country has also seen a disturbing throwback to the 1980s apartheid-era lynching tactic of "necklacing," which was widely used in the townships at the time.

[...]

The victims are mainly immigrants and refugees from other parts of Africa, including Zimbabwe, where a devastated economy has sent at least two million people across the border in search of a better life.

Some say the attacks stem from a long-standing feeling among locals that the number of immigrants in South Africa results in shortages of jobs and essential needs.

[...]

According to South Africa's latest census, the country has about 45 million people. The South African Department of Human Affairs estimates that more than 4 million people reside in South Africa illegally, but that figure is based on a 10-year-old study and some feel the number of immigrants in South Africa is much higher.

Some say that millions have recently fled to South Africa from Zimbabwe because of violence there since the county's stalled election.

These pictures are from the 1980s.




















































































The tire burns right into the flesh and melds with it. All that is left of the tire is the metal hoops.

If necklacing reminds you of the brutal stonings and decapitations by Muslims, that's because we are talking about the same sort of people: uncivilized vicious barbarians.

Probably because I grew up living among barbarians, I am not surprised by savagery as much as most Westerners and I'm very aware that a huge chunk of the world's population is still uncivilized.

But our real enemies are not these savages. Our real enemies are the lunatics in our own society who believe that the barbarians are our equals culturally and morally.

Here is a video (*Warning: Graphic*) of the first recorded victim of necklacing, a young girl, Maki Skosana, in July 1985.

“Her body had been scorched by fire and some broken pieces of glass had been inserted into her vagina.”